Which Disney classic was censored?

Based on the critical and public triumph of his first animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney now saw much bigger things. He hired a battalion of 1,000 animators to produce a feature film every six months.

In this way, three feature films were made: Bambi, Fantasia and Pinocchio. The latter’s budget also exploded for Snow White, the production of which already required the mortgage of Walt Disney’s house. The failure of the wooden puppet (non)adventure in the theater was very painful for the firm.

Released in November 1940 in the United States, fantasy Another blow to Walt Disney and it was a huge failure in the cinemas. The failure was all the more painful for Disney because the film was intended to be a prequel, the most ambitious project ever made.

A film with no dialogue except for Deems Taylor’s earnest voiceover; Animated images that serve as an environment for classical music, whose famous works are played under the leadership of the famous conductor Leopold Stokowski.

The specialized press and, moreover, the public avoided the very innovative work, which in particular used a completely new sound process called Fantasound. The artistic concept remained too difficult to understand. and visually fantasy It was (and remains) ultimately a difficult piece for the youngest, even with Mickey playing the sorcerer’s apprentice during a very famous scene.

To say that fate fantasy It was messy. For the original outing, its duration exceeded 2h05, with a 15-minute intermission. This version, using the original editing preferred by Walt Disney, was shown in only 12 theaters (out of 16 equipped with Fantasound) by January 1941.

In January 1942, the film was released in theaters under the auspices of RKO, which did not hesitate to massacre the original editing: removing all the sound and even cutting an entire segment. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, the stroke of the plane was particularly violent. Thus, the duration of Fantasia went from 2h05 to 1h21.

The film, re-released in 1944 and 1946, would no longer be successful, even if the 1946 version combined with a few more modifications what was cut in 1942. In 1953, a new reissue, accompanied by a new spatialization of the sound, now in stereo. in 1956 and 1963, fantasy Screening was done again. This means if the firm persists in evangelizing people in the face of its elusive business.

Accusations of racism

The turning point came at the end of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. The film conveys a racist image of the African-American community and associated stereotypes, with a sequence that Disney removed from the 1969 theatrical cut. Frank’s cuts, which also affected the musical score, caused quite a stir. Noticeable false connections.

It’s a six-shot featuring two “centaurs” named Sunflower and Otica (also spelled “Otica”), in a segment dedicated to Pastoral symphony Beethoven’s 6th symphony. Two characters appear as servants of white centaur women with stereotypical markings.

If in March 1958 this segment Pastoral symphony It was broadcast in its entirety as part of Disney’s weekly show Magic and musicIt was discontinued in 1963 for further television broadcasts. The cut was also confirmed by Walt Disney, who controlled absolutely everything in the studio.

Here it is with Sunflower and Otik.

In 1990, for the film’s 50th anniversary, Disney funded an expensive restoration of the film based on the 1969 version. did not rise. A trick found, questionable as to the integrity of the work, was to zoom in on these now-cut scenes so that the two black centaurs were not visible.

For the 60th anniversary of the feature’s DVD release in 2000, Scott McQueen, head of Disney’s film restoration teams, oversaw the restoration, which had to be completed by 2:05 a.m. for the firm to announce this time. This was the original version uncut movie. If the quality of the images was indeed increased, the same scaling process was used for problematic scenes, as well as reusing certain frames to compensate for the clean cut.

Ten years later, the film will again undergo restoration, with the impetus of John Lasseter. The assembly is almost identical to the 2010 version; A digital retouch that will make the sunflower character disappear, allowing the scene to revert to the original shot. Plans with Otica are also digitally reworked. Nevertheless, this version, released on Blu-ray and which reproduces the original colors as faithfully as possible, is the most complete, if not the closest, to what Walt Disney wanted.