Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Mickey Magic



The Sorcerer's Apprentice from Disney's grand experimental film Fantasia remains one of my all time pieces of film making. The idea of having a cartoon character commanding the forces of the universe must have sounded crazy and over the top to the Disney staff. But Walt Disney's vision for what the animated medium could do eclipsed everyone's imagination. To him this was not merely a cute cartoon business anymore "We have worlds to conquer."
And that he did, with Fantasia and so many other films and projects that followed.









I love the fact that Disney wasn't afraid of going into dark places. A Mouse's dream that turns into a frightening nightmare. Early German expressionist films had a profound influence on the Disney artists at that time. That studio was unstoppable!