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Author
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Topic: The Nutracker Suite from Fantasia
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted May 13, 2011 12:01 PM
The Nutcracker Suite, 1x400’, Color, Derann Film Services
Extract From Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” (1940)
Here is a piece of film history (…being that it’s an extract, maybe a piece of a piece.). Fantasia was Walt Disney’s vision to take animated motion pictures out of the realm of “Cartoons for the Kiddies” and reach the status of Art. Here the Disney Studio both succeeded and failed.
They failed because the end result was something the viewing public and the technical capabilities of most theaters couldn’t handle just yet. Most people couldn’t process the idea of a classical music concert with an animated program and little to no story line and this was a very early example of a stereo soundtrack in a world full of monaural theaters: a big deal only a little over a decade after the first talkies came out. It was also not the best of times to be introducing any kind of movie: the US was still climbing out of the Great Depression and with War in Europe the overseas prospects were pretty poor. (Timing is everything.)
It’s not fair to call Fantasia a commercial “flop”, but let’s say it took a long time to return its investment, and at the time it deserved a big “told you so” from Walt Disney’s Bean Counters (…at least when the Boss wasn’t around.)
The success was a movie both unique and magical. It took animation in a direction it had never gone before. This is a very expressive film that often stirs up strong feelings in the people that see it. More than with most movies, people seem to either love it or hate it. My household stands divided (She’s wrong!)
For the most part Fantasia simply shows the impressions the animators felt listening to the music. While The Sorcerer’s Apprentice actually has a Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the rest of the sequences have less and less to do with the what the composers thought the music was about, to the point where Bach’s Toccata and Fugue is mostly geometric objects in motion. (That would be a tough review…)
Much the same, whatever Tchaikovsky thought, The Nutcracker Suite is not a ballet in the traditional sense. (There is no nutcracker either.) It is a sequence of fantasy scenes of fairies, mushrooms, fish, flowers and then a transition from Fall to Winter in a forest (-beyond explanation, you have to see it…).
I have a tough time figuring out if this or Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony are my favorite segments of Fantasia. I’m glad I have both! I’d say it is the most artistic of them all, at times it’s more like an animated painting it’s so beautiful.
Derann’s print has wonderful color and sharpness. I did notice that a DVD I saw of this sequence has greater degrees of shading among the colors, but it’s no big deal. The sound is great, yet monaural. The opportunity is certainly there for people who re-dub in stereo. An interesting twist in this one is the narration at the beginning is in French. I guess when you find a good negative to work with you don't worry that Deems Taylor isn't on the job as usual.
So this is one of those when I’m alone of an evening, to plug a projector into the stereo, turn up the volume and maybe rattle the china closet a little: great film, great music, and an achievement ahead of its time.
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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