#3 Fantasia

Fantasia might stand as Walt Disney's most ambitious, artistic, and forward-thinking project. Eschewing dialogue and traditional narrative, Disney produced a collection of shorts, each a visual interpretation of a piece of classical music, each one introduced by Deems Taylor with music conducted by Leopold Stokowski. It was, in the words of Taylor, a "new form of entertainment," a marriage of music and animation. It was an exploration of a new frontier for animation, an attempt to elevate it to new levels of artistry. It was, perhaps, one of the first animated art films.

We open with "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," beginning with the live-action orchestra performing, sometimes in silhouette form, and segueing into dreamlike abstract animation. "The Nutcracker Suite" uses nature as its performers, with fairies, fish, flowers, and some delightfully charming mushrooms. The iconic "Sorcerer's Apprentice," intended to rejuvenate the popularity of Mickey Mouse, is the most traditionally structured of the pieces on display, and was originally intended as a standalone short. "The Rite of Spring" recounts the evolution of life on Earth, climaxing in a beautifully primal battle between a Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, and ending with a surprisingly straight-faced depiction of the extinction of the dinosaurs. "Meet the Soundtrack" is an odd little aside featuring a waveform personifying the sounds of the orchestra, and seems a bit thrown-in. "The Pastoral Symphony" depicts a very much Disneyfied version of Greek mythology, full of unreasonably cute fauns and pegasuses, but nothing particularly memorable (apart from originally having some racially-questionable black centaurs that were excised in later releases). "Dance of the Hours" gives us a variety of dancing animals, but again, nothing too original.

The finale, though, is where Fantasia truly shines. "Night on Bald Mountain" gives us the sublimely menacing Chernabog leading a succession of ghosts and demons out of their graves in a frenzied dance. The short's use of dramatic lighting and scenery is exceptional, capturing the gothic atmosphere of German expressionist films. Its counter is the subsequent "Ave Maria," serving as a symbolic defeat of the evil by the holy, though it's a bit of a weak ending after the atmospheric power of "Bald Mountain."

The truly exceptional thing about Fantasia is that, while it was already one of the most artistically high-minded and ambitious animated films produced at that point, Disney intended it to be merely a starting point for an ongoing project. The original concept was to rerelease the film every year, with a new short replacing one of the originals. Though this concept was ultimately defeated by financial concerns, it's an indication of just how genuine Disney's artistic ambitions were. Fantasia stands as the greatest product of those ambitions, a uniquely high-minded and ahead-of-its-time entry in the Disney canon.