8mm Forum: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

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Topic: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Steve Klare
Film Guy

Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted July 23, 2007 05:53 PM

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (1x200’, Walt Disney Home Movies, Extract from “Fantasia”)

“Fantasia” has always been kind of special for me. Dad was a big fan of Classical Music, and when I was a little kid, he took my sister and me to see it at the local theater. I suppose he was trying to plant a seed in our minds that really good music could exist even without blaring electric guitars and lyrics bemoaning teenage horniness (…or “could only exist without”, if you’d asked him.). Today I enjoy Classical Music along with many other kinds, so just maybe it worked.

In the late 1930s, Walt Disney decided to take animated motion pictures out of the domain of strictly “kids stuff” and more into the realm of “legitimate art”. The idea he came up with was to use animation as the visual backdrop for what was basically an orchestral concert. Several pieces were chosen and the animators came up with sequences that showed where their imaginations went when they listened. The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski provided the music, and Deems Taylor provided the narration. The initial idea was that there would be periodic revisions of the film to replace entire sections, so that it would be an evolving program which would re-appear every few years, but unfortunately in Walt Disney’s lifetime that never panned out.

Like many a bold step, “Fantasia” was controversial. Some people couldn’t process almost two hours of classical music. Orthodox classical music fans objected to changes in the original scores, or the visuals the animators chose or the idea of “serious” music being shown during a “cartoon” in the first place. “Fantasia” briefly caught on a few decades later when hallucinogenic drugs were big…., but that’s another story altogether. At the time of its release it was pretty much a box office flop, and it was not approached again by Disney until “Fantasia 2000” almost 60 years later. To this day it tends to be a film that many people either love or hate, much more often than any other animated feature I can think of.

Part of Fantasia’s troubles when it was first released were technological. The fact that it was the first stereo sound track ever released meant it got very limited engagements since few theaters were equipped for it, and didn’t get broad release for years afterwards.

I guess in ways both technical and artistic, the world just wasn’t ready for this one yet. These days visuals over music are of course called music videos, and are pumped into many households 24/7. (-although music videos still aren’t typically classical.)

Among the various segments of “Fantasia”, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is kind of a cornerstone. It was the first part, created as a short. The rest of the feature was eventually created using this initial concept. It is the only segment to re-appear in “Fantasia 2000”. If you say “Fantasia” and any image pops into people’s brains at all, it will probably be Mickey Mouse in a wizard’s hat and robe with an army of brooms carrying buckets. The fact that the music involved is easily the most obscure of all the pieces in the film never enters the equation at all.

The central idea that you shouldn’t mess around with things you don’t really understand is a really good one. We’d probably all be much happier if everyone took it to heart (…although spectacular scientific and technological discoveries are often made through uninformed goofs, you probably don’t want to be living next door at that "Eureka!" moment.). When I watch it with my son, I sometimes try to make that point as well, yet I’m sure my dad was thinking the exact same thing.

Disney’s 200 footer of this is quite a treat. Since it was originally meant to be an independent short, it doesn’t feel like an extract. There is a beginning and an end, and there is nothing missing in the middle. It is visually stunning, colorful, and action filled: there is something about Mickey riding that book through a whirlpool that really works on a big screen. The soundtrack is monaural, yet very, very good.

Mine arrived on a very full 200 foot reel: so full that if I don’t stay on top of it I may achieve a spectacular rewind spillover (…for about half a second it looks a little like the whirlpool mentioned above, but it’s made of film!). Normally I’d grab a Gepe 300 footer and put the problem to bed, but the box art on this one is too nice to set aside. This comes in a printed box featuring scenes from the film, which slips inside a nice plastic sleeve. I’m not usually a big fan of box art, but this is a little special.

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” pops up on the used lists quite often, usually accompanied by the dreaded “Slight Colour Fade” disclaimer. If you look at the head of my print it’s kind of a deep burgundy where I’d expect to see black film, but the projected colors are still beautiful and vibrant, and haven’t changed noticeably in the five years I’ve had my print. If this title intrigues you, don’t let this warning stop you from buying one.

A long time ago, my Dad took me to “Fantasia”. Because of Super-8, I was eventually able to bring it back to him while there was still time to share it.

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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...