The combination of imaginative visuals and ingenious melodies can produce something wonderful. Disney's 1999 film Fantasia 2000 follows the format of its 1940 predecessor, combining classic musical compositions with sophisticated animation. 2000 isn't half as good as the original but it's still worth watching.
The original Fantasia was a bold experiment in the early days of feature film animation. It was a showcase for the medium that showed it could sit among the most highly regarded of artforms. So Walt Disney and his team created an unparalleled work of majesty and beauty, filled with marvellously executed ideas, both strange and awesome. 2000 feels more like an academic exercise with some truly interesting talent on display but leaning much more on a catalogue of influences. In addition, the kinds of storytelling on display fall much more under the harness of tradition and corporate policy, much moreso that the preceding decade's Renaissance.
The third segment exemplifies the strengths and weaknesses of the film as a whole. Using Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2, Allegro, Opus 102, it presents Hans Christian Anderson's "Steadfast Tin Soldier" just about completely drained of the original story's power. Disney's adaptation of The Little Mermaid had strengths of its own to somewhat compensate for what it lost from the Anderson original but it's unclear what Disney's take on "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" brings to the table to replace the delicate heartbreak of the original's simple construction--the sorrowful beauty created with the lightest touch as Anderson describes an unmoving, one legged tin soldier who sees a paper doll who also never moves.
Disney's version of the two has them both dancing around and playing little games and a fight between the good soldier and the dastardly jack-in-the-box. The segment uses cgi with an interesting pastel palette but nonetheless one wonders why one should watch this disposable, insipid thing instead of Toy Story which came out four years earlier.
George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is paired with animation designed to resemble the work of cartoonist Al Hirschfeld. The familiar song with the Hirschfeld style, eternally connected to New York, produces a too obvious portrait of various New Yorkers. Amusing vignettes of physical comedy are presented of ice skating and high altitude construction antics but the story again falls into insipidity when a down-on-his-luck, unemployed man is given the job of the construction worker who runs off to pursue his dream of becoming a drummer.
The strongest segment is probably the final one, the combination of Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite with an allegory of spring as a flying woman awoken by a sombre elk. Visual and thematic influence were clearly drawn from Princess Mononoke but it is a lovely piece of animation in itself.
The most obvious call back to the original Fantasia is a segment featuring Donald Duck, a version of the story of Noah's Ark from the Book of Genesis paired with Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance. Donald is Noah's assistant and the main drama revolves around Donald and Daisy, after the usual improbable slapstick, both believing the other didn't make it onto the Ark in time. It has some genuinely funny moments, rare for any Donald Duck cartoon since the '50s. The first gag is a little odd, though, featuring Noah finding Donald sleeping naked in a hammock. Maybe this was a reference to Genesis 9:20-27 and the episode where Noah's youngest son found him sleeping naked.
The Donald/Noah cartoon is preceded by "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", the segment from the original film. The nightmare scenario of Mickey's arrogance leading him to bizarre disaster is one of the weaker segments from the original Fantasia but still a thousand times stronger than anything in 2000. The visuals are also an interesting contrast, the effect of real paint somehow coming off richer in its gradations than the bright colours of the Donald Duck segment.
As the Mickey segment was originally followed by Mickey speaking with a live action Leopold Stokowski, the conductor for the film's score, so Fantasia 2000 has Mickey running over from speaking to Stokowski to speak with 2000's conductor, James Levine.
A renowned conductor associated for decades with the Metropolitan Opera, Levine passed away just three months ago on March 9, 2021. The two decades between his appearance in Fantasia 2000 and his death were filled with extraordinary misfortune. His career was interrupted several times due to health problems including sciatica and tremors as well as injury--he injured his shoulder after falling on stage. He had surgery to remove a kidney with a malignant cyst 2008 and then surgery for a herniated disk the following year. Then, in 2017, during the first wave of the MeToo movement, he lost his position and various honours when allegations of sexual molestation were brought against him. Considering criminal charges were never brought against him, and that one of the incidents involved a relationship between 25 year old Levine with a 20 year old man, I'm inclined to view the case with some skepticism, as I am inclined to do with many that came about in the first years of the MeToo movement. But I make no claim to certainty. Maybe he really did molest the 15 year old in the 80s. That would be horrible, though it would be also horrible to think the man who'd already endured so much physical agony might also have been subjected to a malicious demolition of his reputation. It's certainly no happy ending in any case. As far as I could tell, he was a good conductor.
Fantasia 2000 is available on Disney+.
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This is part of a series of posts I'm writing on the Disney animated canon.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Pinocchio
Fantasia
Dumbo
Bambi
Saludos Amigos
The Three Caballeros
Make Mine Music
Fun and Fancy Free
Melody Time
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
Cinderella
Alice in Wonderland
Peter Pan
Lady and the Tramp
Sleeping Beauty
101 Dalmatians
The Sword in the Stone
The Jungle Book
The Aristocats
Robin Hood
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
The Rescuers
The Fox and the Hound
The Black Cauldron
The Great Mouse Detective
Oliver & Company
The Little Mermaid
The Rescuers Down Under
Beauty and the Beast
Aladdin
The Lion King
Pocahontas
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hercules
Mulan
Tarzan
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