Without a doubt the most famous of these segments is "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (pictured to the right)*. This segment, as most of you probably know, features Mickey Mouse under the apprenticeship of a sorcerer named Yen Sid (bonus fact, Yen Sid is Disney backwards). Yen Sid is practicing spells and orders Mickey to fill a cauldron with water. Mickey, instead of doing it himself, swipes Yen's magic hat and brings a broom to life to do the work for him. Unfortunately, he can't lift the spell and the broom overfills the cauldron, so Mickey chops it up into fragments, but it is to no avail, for each individual fragment blossoms into a new broom, like a hydra. Eventually the army of brooms floods the room and Yen Sid returns just in time to save a near-drowning Mickey, who is then appropriately punished.
*Image found on
*video used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2&v=cAhyt2D9B3A
This segment is a fantasy nostalgia that has distinct elements of peril and magic. The music fits this very well, starting very simple and eerie, with traces of the melody in the clarinets that will be expanded upon later. It is in a time with an 8 in the denominator (the beats are counted by eighth notes), which gives it an urgency, and when coupled with the minor key, it produces a very perilous sound. At 2:34, the main melody is finally introduced by the bassoon, and it is a very magical and charging motif with almost a whimsical touch, fitting the segment perfectly.
If one were to compare "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" to another one of the Fantasia segments, for example, "Rhapsody in Blue", which is the quintessential Gershwin piece, they would find the animation styles and storytelling are quite different, thanks to the difference in music. 'Rhapsody' uses the jazzy feel to describe life for 4 separate individuals living in Depression-Era New York City, each of who is not satisfied with his or her life, whether it be a construction worker aspiring to become a jazz drummer, a little girl that wants to be with her parents and not with the housewife, a middle-aged man that wants to be set free from his overbearing wife, or simply an unemployed man just looking for a job. The alternating piano solos, laid-back melodies, and big-band riffs provide the perfect backdrop for the pandemonium of New York City, and the animation style is likewise altered to be very similar to Al Hirschfeld's, who was a well-known caricaturist, drawings. The movements are very cartoon-like and spastic, and the coloration is monochromatic, which is very atypical to most animation, yet, thanks to the style, fits like a key.
*video used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=47&v=qWJ-kGuOA_Q
*Image found on
This segment is a fantasy nostalgia that has distinct elements of peril and magic. The music fits this very well, starting very simple and eerie, with traces of the melody in the clarinets that will be expanded upon later. It is in a time with an 8 in the denominator (the beats are counted by eighth notes), which gives it an urgency, and when coupled with the minor key, it produces a very perilous sound. At 2:34, the main melody is finally introduced by the bassoon, and it is a very magical and charging motif with almost a whimsical touch, fitting the segment perfectly.
If one were to compare "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" to another one of the Fantasia segments, for example, "Rhapsody in Blue", which is the quintessential Gershwin piece, they would find the animation styles and storytelling are quite different, thanks to the difference in music. 'Rhapsody' uses the jazzy feel to describe life for 4 separate individuals living in Depression-Era New York City, each of who is not satisfied with his or her life, whether it be a construction worker aspiring to become a jazz drummer, a little girl that wants to be with her parents and not with the housewife, a middle-aged man that wants to be set free from his overbearing wife, or simply an unemployed man just looking for a job. The alternating piano solos, laid-back melodies, and big-band riffs provide the perfect backdrop for the pandemonium of New York City, and the animation style is likewise altered to be very similar to Al Hirschfeld's, who was a well-known caricaturist, drawings. The movements are very cartoon-like and spastic, and the coloration is monochromatic, which is very atypical to most animation, yet, thanks to the style, fits like a key.
No comments:
Post a Comment