THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICES: AUTHORSHIP AND SOUND AESTHETICS IN WALT DISNEY’S FANTASIA by Daniel Fernandez A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL May 2017 Copyright by Daniel Fernandez 2017 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee members for all of their guidance and support, especially to my advisor Anthony Guneratne for his helpful suggestions during the writing of this manuscript. I am also grateful to a number of archival collections, particularly those of Yale University for providing me with some of the primary sources used for this manuscript. Likewise, I would like to acknowledge Stephanie Flint for her contribution to the translation of German source material, as well as Richard P. Huemer, Didier Ghez, Jennifer Castrup, the Broward County Library, the University of Maryland, the Fales Library at New York University, and Zoran Sinobad of the Library of Congress, for the advice, material assistance, and historical information that helped shape this project. iv ABSTRACT Author: Daniel Fernandez Title: The Sorcerer’s Apprentices: Authorship and Sound Aesthetics in Walt Disney’s Fantasia Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Anthony Guneratne Degree: Masters of Arts in Communications Year: 2017 This thesis makes three claims new to the critical literature on Walt Disney’s 1940 film Fantasia. Setting the scene by placing a spotlight on the long-serving Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Leopold Stokowski, it contextualizes his pervasive influence, as well as contributions by others that shaped Fantasia and defined the film’s stylistic elements. Inspired by recent critical debates on post-silent era filmmaking and theories of authorship, it makes a case for Fantasia being the culmination of a “sound film” and notes that its displays of individual artistic talent makes it a noteworthy example of distributed authorship. Fantasia remains a unique experiment in Disney’s filmmaking in that it acquired its eventual form only because of decisions taken during production since no absolute “blue-print” for the finished film existed at the time it went into production, when a large selection of musical numbers were assigned to teams of animators. v THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICES: AUTHORSHIP AND SOUND AESTHETICS IN WALT DISNEY’S FANTASIA Introduction …………………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter 1: The Origins of Fantasia ……………………………………………………12 Chapter 2: Issues of Influence and Avant-Garde Authorship …………………………26 Chapter 3: The Genius of the Studio System: Distributed Authorship in Fantasia ......41 Chapter 4: Fantasia as Sound Film ………………………………………………..…..62 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………….80 Works Cited …………………………………………………………………………...83 vi INTRODUCTION There is such an abundance of critical commentary concerning Walt Disney’s 1940 film Fantasia that it seems as if nothing remains to be said. But while Fantasia is often treated as a singular moment in the studio’s production, and widely discussed as such, it has received surprisingly little in-depth historical and theoretical scrutiny. Critical writing focuses on Fantasia as a typical Disney product or as a predecessor of the contemporary “music video,” in which images are set to music. The occasional probing analysis of Fantasia tends to focus on the film's formal properties, or speculates on whether or not the film is successful in its interpretations of classical music. Even some of the key recent texts in animation studies such as Pervasive Animation by Richard Schickel and Hollywood Cartoons by Michael Barrier give the film short shrift with regard to elements other than its formal characteristics. As a consequence, when analyzing Fantasia writers often overlook the film’s relationship to two issues that are central to theoretical debates concerning the history of film, namely the questions revolving around synchronized sound’s potential role in the cinema (one that inspired contentious debates during the 1920s and 1930s, and that have continued intermittently thereafter), and ongoing debates about the question of authorship in film, debates that originated in the 1940s and 1950s. To my knowledge, little work has been done to bridge the terrains that separate these two “islands” of film theory. 1 In many ways, it is surprising that these questions have generally been neglected in studies of Fantasia. The film’s unique place in film history appears to demand such approaches because of its self-evident reliance on musfic. Furthermore, the way in which Walt Disney produced his films – by distributing creative work among his studio’s personnel – seems to offer a case study of the Hollywood studio system in operation during its heyday. It is for this reason that examining Fantasia’s relationship to auteur theory can contribute to pervasive concerns in the field of film studies. The chapters introduce and then focus on and address the more salient issues that pertain to these omissions in the critical literature. Chapter 1 examines the origins of the film and the ideas behind its conception, seeking to elucidate the motivations behind many of the aesthetic choices. Even in the context of the Walt Disney Studio’s output at the time, Fantasia seems anomalous. While the earlier, no-less experimental shorts called Silly Symphonies attempted to merge animation with music, they were usually under ten minutes in duration. Moreover, they tended to follow cartoon conventions of the time, with designs rooted in caricature and a comical approach to the narrative and accompanying music. Fantasia was a feature-length anthology of loosely integrated animated segments set to classical music intended from the outset to be a “Concert Feature,” and while some segments follow commonplace cartoon representational conventions, other segments are notably unlike most cartoons of the time period. Its textual form raises questions about the circumstances that led to such a film being made at all. Was it entirely motivated by Walt Disney hoping to extend the reach of animation, or were there other factors that influenced him? 2 The task of pinpointing where ideas originated is challenging, one further complicated by differing accounts supplied by both historians and personnel involved in the project. Furthermore, most accounts related to the origins of the film offer inadequate reasons as to why The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and other pieces were chosen for inclusion in Fantasia. Few articles on the history of Fantasia delve into the background of each individual musical extract before it was considered for use in the film; nor do they offer explanations as to how Walt Disney became aware of the musical numbers that inspired the animations. These are crucial questions: to answer them would elucidate the film’s formal structure and Disney’s overall conception. If the musical pieces were popular at the time of the film’s production, it would be evidence that Disney was attempting to create something that could be considered “high art” while simultaneously trying to appeal to a broad spectrum of the movie going public. If, on the other hand, they were relatively unknown prior to their use in Fantasia, then it could be possible that the Disney Studio hoped to popularize music that they felt deserved more recognition. In this context, the contribution by Leopold Stokowski, the long-serving conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, is central to the project. His inspirational importance in shaping the project has already received some attention; film historians often mention in passing that it was Stokowski who suggested that Disney expand “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” into a feature-length project. He was also given a great deal of creative freedom in the studio, and is reported to have been involved in the post- production sound mixing process.1 While his overall contribution might be a subject of 1 Sources vary on Stokowski’s involvement in the sound mixing process. John Culhane quotes a claim by John Hench – who worked in the Story Development at the time Fantasia was being produced – stating that Stokowski mixed the music in Fantasia: “Stokowski was fascinated by the mixing board – the sound control panel. For Fantasia he recorded each section separately – strings, winds, horns etc. – and he mixed 3 debate, his demonstrable role in shaping Fantasia is central to the elucidation of the origins of the key ideas behind such an extensive project. When examining the history of each piece considered for Fantasia, paying due attention to Stokowski’s relation to each musical number – and his familiarity with their composers prior to his involvement in Fantasia – remains an issue one has to bear in mind in terms of the degree to which he influenced and helped shape Disney’s audio-visual perspective. Chapter 2 delves into Fantasia’s aesthetic history in the context of the influence avant-garde animation had on the genesis of Disney’s bold decision to create an episodic feature-length animation film set to classical music. Even if one considers Fantasia to be an intensely personal work it must be noted that the question of Disney’s “authorship” has not been resolved with any finality: indeed, it was placed in dispute by incidents dating from the earliest days of production. The first of these is the case of Oskar Fischinger’s involvement in the project. Fischinger was a well-known abstract artist who was forced to flee his home country of Germany during the ascendency of the Nazi regime.2 During his time in the United States, he attempted to find work in Hollywood. After several unsuccessful stints working for MGM and Paramount, he obtained a position at the Disney Studio. After a screening of his films, Fischinger was immediately assigned to work on the “Toccata and Fugue” sequence in Fantasia.3 Unfortunately, he found it difficult to work in a studio setting and found himself clashing with several Disney employees, particularly animator Cy Young.