Thu 2/6 @ 7PM
The 1940 animated Disney film Fantasia was a groundbreaking event, featuring eight distinct segments set to classical music performed by the Philadelphia Symphony conducted by the legendary Leopard Stowkoski. Critically acclaimed but financial unsuccessful on first release, it has long since become both. And the film made the pieces of music it used (Paul Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” Modest Mossorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” among others) as familiar to the average person who never set foot in a symphony hall as to the classical music aficionado.
The film is the next topic of The Musical Theater Project’s monthly Movies at Home, hosted by TMTP’s artistic director Bill Rudman, and this one could provide several months of discussion. As Rudman says, “We could hold a day’s seminar on the technical aspects alone, because Walt was determined to give audiences ‘a new listening experience’; his audio specialists virtually invented stereophonic sound. And when you add animation in the context of 1940’s pre-digital world—days when individual ‘cells’ had to be drawn for each nanosecond—it took 1,200 people to bring his 120-minute vision to life.”
Here’s the protocol. First watch Rudman’s intro on YouTube, telling you what to look for in the film. Then watch the film, available on The Internet Archive.
Finally join Bill and co-host Brigette Emerson, a classical musician and fellow film buff, on Zoom to talk about the film. It’s free and open to all and no advance registration is required.