Fantasia
National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
Walt Disney's timeless masterpiece is an extravaganza of sight and sound! See the music come to life, hear the pictures burst into song and experience the excitement that is Fantasia over and over again.
What critics thought
Fantasia was celebrated on release by most film critics as a landmark achievement, but the classical music community was sharply divided — objecting to Stokowski's rearrangements and to the very premise that visual imagery belongs alongside great scores. The rift between those who found it transcendently inventive and those who felt it brutalised its source material has never fully closed, though retrospective critical opinion has settled firmly on the side of the film.
“motion-picture history was made last night ... Fantasia dumps conventional formulas overboard and reveals the scope of films for imaginative excursion ... Fantasia ... is simply terrific.”
Bosley Crowther·The New York Times
“beautiful ... but it is also bewildering. It is stupendous. It is colossal. It is an overwhelmingly ambitious orgy of color, sound, and imagination.”
Mae Tinee·Chicago Tribune
“much of Fantasia distracted from or directly injured the scores”
Olin Downes·The New York Times
“this is a very patchy affair – while some of the animated pieces work, others come across as downright insane”
Empire
“the most ambitious animated feature ever to come out of the Disney studios”
TV Guide
Genres
Animation, Family, Fantasy
Cast & Crew
DirectorSamuel Armstrong, James Algar, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Hamilton Luske, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Ben Sharpsteen, Norman Ferguson, David Hand, Ford Beebe Jr.
StarringDeems Taylor, Walt Disney, Julietta Novis, Leopold Stokowski
Fantasia
National Film Registry
Walt Disney's timeless masterpiece is an extravaganza of sight and sound! See the music come to life, hear the pictures burst into song and experience the excitement that is Fantasia over and over again.
What critics thought
Fantasia was celebrated on release by most film critics as a landmark achievement, but the classical music community was sharply divided — objecting to Stokowski's rearrangements and to the very premise that visual imagery belongs alongside great scores. The rift between those who found it transcendently inventive and those who felt it brutalised its source material has never fully closed, though retrospective critical opinion has settled firmly on the side of the film.
“motion-picture history was made last night ... Fantasia dumps conventional formulas overboard and reveals the scope of films for imaginative excursion ... Fantasia ... is simply terrific.”
Bosley Crowther·The New York Times
“beautiful ... but it is also bewildering. It is stupendous. It is colossal. It is an overwhelmingly ambitious orgy of color, sound, and imagination.”
Mae Tinee·Chicago Tribune
“much of Fantasia distracted from or directly injured the scores”
Olin Downes·The New York Times
“this is a very patchy affair – while some of the animated pieces work, others come across as downright insane”
Empire
“the most ambitious animated feature ever to come out of the Disney studios”
TV Guide
Genres
Animation, Family, Fantasy
Cast & Crew
DirectorSamuel Armstrong, James Algar, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Hamilton Luske, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Ben Sharpsteen, Norman Ferguson, David Hand, Ford Beebe Jr.
StarringDeems Taylor, Walt Disney, Julietta Novis, Leopold Stokowski
Rent/Purchase