Animated: The Adventures of Prince Achmed, Fantasia, Fantasia 2000

I was originally going to review Prince Achmed either on its own or alongside some of the other Weimar Germany films, but fate stepped in, inasmuch as there is anything to "fate" beyond "coincidences ascribed a higher purpose after the fact". I was going to return to the Harvard Film Archive the next night in order to watch the original 1952 version of The Narrow Margin, since the 1990 remake with Gene Hackman is a minor favorite of mine. When I got there, though, there was a note on the door stating that the film had proved unavailable, and they were showing the first two episodes of Godard's Histoires de Cinema. I didn't feel much like that, and instead of going directly home, I made a pit stop at Mr. Bartley's for a Mumbles Menino cheeseburger (7 oz. beef, cheddar, bacon, and a fried egg; as much as I've scratched my head about the egg when told that was how burgers were done in France, it is in fact delicious) and a "Cherry Bomb" frappe (vanilla ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, and, of course, cherries). Stuffed full of food, I headed back home just in time to see a UPS delivery guy walking away from my door and a package from Amazon there. The package contained, you got it, the 2 Blu-ray/2 DVD set of Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, and I opted to watch them then and there.

Maybe if I hadn't stopped for that burger, I would have got home, got busy doing or watching something else, and set the movies aside in my "too be watched, but not necessarily soon, because I've seen them before" pile. And by "pile", I mean "80% of my media shelving". But, that's not how it worked out, so, thanks, Bartley's, for being nearby and delicious.

It's a silly bit of narrative, but worth mentioning because watching Fantasia did trigger another memory. I don't remember many specific moviegoing experiences - that's why I've been keeping the scrapbook for the past couple years, for that tangible reminder - but my first time seeing Fantasia is one of them. It was probably during the 1982 re-release, when I would have been eight or nine (1977 is possible, but then I would only have been four, and my brother Dan just one, and I'm pretty sure he was there). Though it was probably playing in one of the Portland-area theaters, we went to see it at a theater in New Hampshire. Probably North Conway; my parents liked that town. Maybe this place. The point is, while the local theaters were all those unimpressive multiplexes, with about six screens and none of them, in retrospect, very good, this was a single-screen theater, with a silver screen that was so big I had to turn my head to see everything once the curtain had opened. And on that screen, well, wow; I'd never seen the like not just because I was eight and hadn't seen much, but because there's nothing else like Fantasia, and I can remember the "Rite of Spring" segment and its ambition blowing my little mind.

I was reminded of that when I hit that segment on the Blu-ray Tuesday night, mumbling that I had to get a new BD player so that I could jump to that scene whenever I wanted without it taking ten minutes to start up (to this day, I wonder why we're using Blu-ray instead of HD-DVD when the Toshiba HD-1 cost half as much and didn't suck like the Samsung BDP-1000). Again, it's probably a case of ascribing too much significance to something that seems to form a pattern after the fact, but that day may be part of why I love movies and great theaters so much. A large part comes from working in a theater in college (I could both see everything and notice a stark difference between the really good house and the less impressive ones), but one day when I was eight years old, a good movie being shown in a really good theater was worth a special trip. Today, well, I routinely take long bus rides so that I can see movies, whether for an hour and a half each way to see them on the IMAX screen in Reading or overnight at that other Fantasia, in Montreal. Maybe I would have anyway. But maybe not. So, thanks, Mom & Dad, for that trip to New Hampshire.

Anyway, reviews now, after one note about them: I always check to see whether there are existing reviews on eFilmCritic, just in case spending two hours writing rather than twenty minutes would just result in a duplication of effort. Though I always link to these reviews as EFC, when they recruited me, their primary brand was Hollywood Bitch-Slap. To this day, those sites both lead to slightly different front ends on the same data, but most everybody uses EFC rather than HBS when talking to festivals, publicists, etc., not just because it is less likely to offend, but because that's what the writing has evolved into. When you follow the links to my reviews of Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, check out the reviews that were there before. I'm not saying tha what I've written is objectively better, but it's certainly a sign that HBS/EFC used to have a very different focus.

Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed)

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 29 November 2010 at the Harvard Film Archive (Decadent Shadows: The Cinema of Weimar Germany)

Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is generally the movie people bring up when discussing the first feature-length animated film, but there were several others before that. The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the earliest surviving animated feature, but not nearly as well-known as Snow White, in part because it's German and silent and different-looking. Look past that, though, and you'll find a fun adventure movie as well as a piece of cinematic history.

An African sorcerer has designs on the city of the Caliph; he visits and shows his wonders off to the Caliph and his daughter, Dinarsade. He disposes of Dinarsade's brother Achmed by sticking him on a flying mechanical horse that rises in the air uncontrollably. Achmed gets control somewhere over the far-off island of Wak-Wak, where he romances the Princess Pari Bunu. But, the Sorcerer's influence is far-reaching, and Achmed will require the help of the Fire Mountain Witch and the legendary Aladdin to rescue the ladies and return home.

Director Lotte Reiniger (assisted by her husband, Carl Koch) had a very specific style, working not so much with drawn figures but with cut-outs. Thus, the characters appear almost exclusively as silhouettes, with facial expression much less a tool than body language. While describing the technique brings to mind static puppets moving only on crude pivots, Reiniger and Koch manage to create some amazing effects, not just creating rather detailed figures that move naturally, but by animating them so smoothly that the shapes on screen are often extraordinarily fluid (few people using this style of animation do so well with smoke and liquid eighty years later). Indeed, some of the effects appear to make use of something akin to the multiplane photography Disney would later pioneer, giving a feeling of depth to the world in which these flat creations live.

Like many silent films, Prince Achmed breaks neatly into its five acts, and there are times when it seems like it might have originally been conceived as a serial. This makes for an action-packed film that seems bigger than the sixty-five minutes it runs at 24 frames per second, since every segment is packed with enough story and action to survive on its own. The writing is not always perfect - when Achmed meets Aladdin, it suddenly seems like much more time must have passed during his adventures than we'd previously assumed, and the witch is powerful enough that the movie's title character winds up practically on the sidelines during some of the confrontations with the sorcerer.

Reiniger makes up for that in making her characters surprisingly expressive, considering the medium. Though this is a fairy tale retold, the personalities are clear and amusing, from the sorcerer's uncaring shrug when Achmed is carried away to Achmed clearly having a good time when his crash-landing on Wak-Wak lands him among the Princess's handmaidens. There's a bit of awestruck kid in Aladdin. Of course, there's also some caricaturing done for the African and Chinese characters that may not fly today, even considering the abstracted nature of silent cut-out animation.

The film was restored for its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2001, and that's the version that screened. It's a fantastic-looking print and restoration job, crystal-clear with what appear to be new intertitles and some of the best color tinting you're likely to see in a silent film; the sharp contrast between solid blacks and often clear backgrounds, as well as rotating the dyes frequently but logically, makes this one of the most colorful "black & white" movies one will see. This particular screening was accompanied by local composer Rob Humphreville on the piano, although most prints and DVDs feature a new version of Wolfgang Zeller's original score.

"The Adventures of Prince Achmed" would not be Lotte Reiniger's only animated last fairy tale; she worked independently throughout Europe for the next fifty years, mostly in the same style. For its minor flaws, it's an impressive achievement for a small group working outside the studio system in a medium still in its infancy - and one that's still entertaining, as well as impressive for its place in history.

Previously at EFC.

Fantasia

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 30 November 2010 in Jay's Living Room (Blu-ray Disc)

Fantasia is built to last. Certainly, in some aspects it occasionally appears dated, and one sequence has been digitally edited in its recent releases because societal attitudes have changed (for the better), but seventy years passing has not made the music less stirring or the animation less impressive. Walt Disney's ambitious project, though a commercial bust in the 1940s, has the combination of timeless content and exquisite craftsmanship that will keep it accessible, entertaining, and occasionally awe-inspiring for a long time to come.

Only two elements have not aged particularly well: First, one dark-skinned character, drawn in a caricatured style no longer considered acceptable, has been erased, although folks who don't know it's there may never miss it. Second, the introductions to the various pieces by Deems Taylor may come across as redundant and dry to a generation that absorbs information much more quickly than their grandparents, and varies from a stern lecture to a whimsical conversation with the film's soundtrack. And to be fair, that's not just being dated - these segments were cut from the film after its initial release, and added back in later.

The rest, though, is almost perfect. There are a couple of exercises in nearly-pure abstraction - the aforementioned "Soundtrack" bit and the Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" - which, in addition to showing how "absolute music" can create images in our minds that don't necessarily have a story connected, also serve to ease the audience into the animation after the introduction and intermission. It's a canny device; no matter what one's prior knowledge of orchestral music is, these segments give an audience member the chance to appreciate it on its own, as opposed to as background, while still engaging the eyes.

Two other segments are more traditional musical segments. The second segment, "The Nutcracker Suite", is not quite so abstract as its predecessor, but dispenses with the well-known story from the Tchaikovsky's ballet. Instead, it uses different plants and animals as counterpoints to the song's different themes. It's a whimsical piece, with a number of fun characters dancing about, able to change from one thing to another quickly and smoothly. "Dance of the Hours', the second-to-last segment, could easily be removed from the film and play as one of Disney's "Silly Symphonies", but it's a delightful one, as unlikely creatures like hippos and alligators perform a ballet from Amilcare Ponchielli's oepra "La Gioconda". Disney was good at this sort of thing, and it's a funny, oddly beautiful cartoon.

After "The Nutcracker Suite" comes the segment that has had the most pop-culture impact of the group, Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". It's one of the most memorable not just because it stars one of the most recognizable creations of the twentieth century, but because it is the segment that best tells a story: The lazy apprentice (Mickey) tries to use his teacher's magic without complete mastery and needs to be bailed out of the chaos he causes. It's beautifully animated, perfectly matched to Paul Dukas's music, with great matching between background and characters. Plus, it's one of the greatest Mickey Mouse cartoons ever, where his expressiveness and personality best come out, better than most shorts where he's given a voice.

The segment that closes out the film's first half is my personal favorite, "Rite of Spring". The animators tell the early life of planet Earth to Igor Stravinsky's work, and it's a gloriously grand scale work of animation, with volcanoes erupting as the music bursts forth, the process of evolution depicted with cuts across millions of years, and a haunting, ruined landscape following the extinction of the dinosaurs. Those dinosaurs are fantastic, imbued with size and heft that wouldn't seem possible for a medium mostly used for children's entertainment.

After the intermission and soundtrack bit, is the "Pastoral", where gods and other mythological creatures revel to a symphony by Beethoven. There's a lush, overt sensuality to it, especially when we first see the "centaurettes" bathing without initially being shown their lower halves. There's a a mischievous tone, even when Zeus starts throwing lightning bolts; the whole segment is a mixing of seemingly disparate tones - that delight in the physical is combined with the innocent cuteness of a baby pegasus learning to fly and the grandeur of Olympus.

The film's big finish is a mash-up of Modeste Moussorgsky's "A Night on Bald Mountain" and Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria", and it serves as a perfect climax - in "Bald Mountain", the animators get the rare opportunity to let loose with dark, horrific images, and they do so with gusto. The demons and monsters are more frightening than one might expect from animation - being unreal, they can seem to be pulled directly from the nightmares - with the imagery and music reinforcing each other perfectly. Then, rather than sending the audience out with those images the last things they remember, "Ave Maria" allows for a bit of a cool-down, with the animation becoming simpler and more abstract after the overwhelming visions that preceded it.

All of that ambition comes together by the work of a great many talented people; Leopold Stokowski is the most notable, orchestrating the compositions to better fit with the animation and conducting the Philadelphia Orcherstra to give the film a beautiful soundtrack. Ten different directors and countless animators produced the other half of the film, and what they did should not be discounted; it's not just amazingly smooth animation, but work that feels unified without relying on a house style. Even in 2010, it's technically impressive; what they do with lighting and shading is something that today's animators with digital tools refined for years for that exact purpose often struggle to replicate.

That's why, seventy years on, Fantasia is still a masterpiece without needing "for its era" tagged to it. The musical selections had, by and large, already stood the test of time before the film was made, pairing animation to them meant there would be no period-specific references, and it turns out that the highest-quality animation from the period still holds up. I suspect that decades from now, new generations of children will still be dropping their jaws in amazement and adults will still be astounded by how well the whole thing works.

Formerly at EFC.

Fantasia 2000

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 30 November 2010 in Jay's Living Room (Blu-ray Disc)

Most know that Walt Disney originally intended to re-release Fantasia periodically with new segments added and old ones rotated out, a plan that never came to fruition because that movie was an expensive box-office dud that became beloved later in its life. And maybe that's for the best; sustaining that kind of excellence over time would have been difficult. Indeed, when Walt's nephew Roy E. Disney finally managed to revisit the project, the result was delightful, well worth the cost of an IMAX ticket when features playing in that format were unusual and a joy to re-watch, but not quite the audacious achievement of its predecessor.

Do not take that as faint praise - Fantasia 2000 is a wonderful movie. Made as Disney's traditional animation department sputtered toward its eventual shuttering, it demonstrated that the form still had life in it. It is, however, less challenging than the original Fantasia, more focused on storytelling than pure imagery. Where Fantasia is a concert of sights and sounds, Fantasia 2000 is an anthology film, where Deems Taylor's authoritative introductions replaced by celebrity bits where Angela Lansbury's class is a singular and welcome departure from the foolishness of some of the other hosts.

Only one piece is truly abstract, the geometrically-inspired accompaniment to Beethoven's "Symphony Number 5" that opens the film (and ends all too quickly). It's not the only very short piece, a spritely, silly version of Camille Saint-Saens's "Carnival of the Animals" sits in the middle of the film. Its dancing flamingos are funny and well drawn - and it forms an interesting contrast to the piece that follows it, a reprise of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". It's instructive, in a way, a look at how even traditional cel-based animation has evolved over time, as the 60-year-old segment has a nuanced, comparatively dark look that pulls all the elements together, while the newer piece has bright, glossy coloring, simplified compared to the grainy classic piece.

Modern digital animation not quite being up to hand-drawn work is a criticism that could certainly be leveled at "Pines of Rome", the first major item on the program. Despite the apparently pastoral title of Ottorino Resphighi's piece, it's an often-dramatic bit of music, and the imagery - of whales who somehow learn to fly - does an amazing job of going from playful to majestic along with the music. At first glance, though, one can't help but notice that the whales themselves seem to be separately animated pieces grafted together, hand-drawn eyes stuck onto digitally rendered creatures. It's a very odd look, but one which works with the sound and the imagery - a freehand touch to something otherwise made to precise specifications - and while it initially seemed like a compromise, falling back on one technique where another failed, it's actually just how that piece is supposed to look.

The piece that follows, based on George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", is also going for a very specific style, that of Al Hirschfeld, famed Broadway caricaturist. It's the longest segment of the film, and takes place in the relatively modern period of the Great Depression. It's a fun piece that jumps around New York City with a host of memorable characters, sketching out stories quickly and charmingly. The filmmakers opt to embrace the title of the piece, allowing blues to dominate the color palette until it's time to cheer the characters up, when golds and other hues burst forth.

After that comes "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", another story being told to music (Dmitri Shostakovich's "Piano Concerto Number 2"), and it's possibly my favorite piece in the film. It's a simple story of toys coming to life at midnight and falling in love, only to be thwarted by a jack in the box - hopefully only temporarily, of course. It's got remarkably expressive characters for a computer-generated piece produced in the 1990s (that is, not long after Toy Story at all), especially the shy approach of the damaged tin soldier to the wooden ballerina that he thinks, because of her initial pose, only has one leg like he does.

Of course, it's neck-and-neck with a piece featuring another highly expressive character, Donald Duck, as he and tries to load pairs of animals onto Noah's Ark to Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance". Though Mickey is the face of the company, Donald is probably Disney's most-loved character, and the steady meter of the march provides the perfect structure for a more or less non-stop series of gags as the impatient mallard runs from nuisance to calamity to sadness as he believes he has lost Daisy in the flood. Although it's perhaps not the greatest Donald short the way "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is Mickey's finest hour, it may be the best looking.

Those two are my favorite segments (I love toys and Disney Ducks on a personal, judgment-skewing level), but the best is probably the one that closes the film out, a piece set to Igor Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite". It's the one that most resembles the sweeping conceptual pieces of the original, telling a tale of birth, life, death, and renewal on a grand scale. It's gorgeously designed and animated, filled with images that alternately evoke rapture and terror, in a way that rises and falls with the music without one feeling like a response to another.

As such, it's the perfect way to end "Fantasia 2000", sending the audience out with a rush of the same sort of feeling that the original sustained. To be fair, conductor James Levine and the six directors of the new animated segments can't recapture the feeling of doing something completely new, as there had already been "Fantasia". They do manage to create something beautiful, though, well worth watching again and again.

Formerly at EFC.