Cue the lights! Cue the music! Cue the boredom! I’ve never struggled so much to get through a feature-length Disney movie than I did through Fantasia. In looking back on old films I’ve never seen, I really wanted to make an effort to watch all the early Disney films I’d never seen as a kid. One of the films high up there was Fantasia, a movie I knew a lot about but somehow never actually came to watch. Now I’m sure I would’ve had a different experience watching this in a theatre. I probably would’ve had a different experience if I were a little younger (or a lot older). And maybe I’m just a little too cynical at this point in my life. But aside from the memorable Sorcerer’s Apprentice episode, and the pretty damn terrifying final episode Night on Bald Mountain, the movie failed to make any sort of impression on me. I guess I’m too married to the narrative structure. Strike me dead, I am!

1940 was a landmark year for Walt Disney because it marked the year of not one but two highly anticipated follow-ups to his first animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The first and great success is Pinocchio, a film far superior to Snow White. I watched the film for the first time since childhood in a History of Animation class at Loyola Marymount and found that the movie held up very well, with a lot of drama, comedy, and heart. The structure of it was also different and pretty interesting, with no sole villain a la the witch in Snow White. The songs are infectious. The politically incorrectness of a lot of scenes is a marvel to behold. And most of all, it entertains from beginning to end.

I really wanted to love Fantasia. I tried to Netflix it, but it wasn’t available, so I bought a cheap copy off of eBay and settled in late one night with my roommates to check it out. Now this reaction is coming from someone who didn’t know much of anything about the movie. I knew there were episodes and not one whole story. But I didn’t know about the live-action orchestra performances. And I didn’t realize that the movie relieved heavily on mood and tone, and not really story at all. I guess if I had been more prepared, I would’ve been able to get past my initial grievances over the film’s structure. Maybe in a few years down the road I’ll be able to get a little bit more wise and less ADD and enjoy this movie. But not right now.

It was a delight to watch the Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene again. I say ‘again’ because I know I’ve seen this episode before. Back when I was a kid I remember watching a lot of episodic animation on the Disney Channel, and I think I saw it there. My other favorite episode from the film, Night on Bald Mountain, I’m pretty sure was an episode in a Halloween-themed presentation on the Disney Channel back in the early 90’s. Back before commercials and Hannah Montana. Night on Bald Mountain left an impression on me as a kid because it is so dark and eerie, with very little enjoyment to bad. It was fun now to watch it afresh and see just how many risks the animators took in terms of how scary they could make the material. The sorcerer in the former episode is also scary in a way, but not nearly as much as he used to be.

Fantasia is a film worth seeing, particularly for historians and movie buffs. I’m not going to say it’s not a film worth checking out if you’ve never seen it. At the time and place I watched it, though, I was bored and sleepy. I want to love every Disney movie I see, not be indifferent to it. Fantasia was followed by Dumbo and Bambi, and then a variety of lesser-known works from 1943 to 1949, but there wouldn’t be another great feature for a decade, with 1950’s Cinderella. I admired a lot in Fantasia. Night on Bald Mountain I would love to watch again. But I sure didn’t love this one. Throw on Beauty and the Beast any day of the week, but I’ll re-watch Fantasia when I start applying for social security.