Disney and Oskar Fischinger
When working for Disney, Fischinger contributed to to Fantasia, specifically for the Toccatta and Fugue in D minor (by Johann Strauss) segment. Though his influence can be seen in some places, Fischinger quit due to his abstract animations and colours being worked over to make something more pleasing to the public.
Tate: Where abstraction and comics collide - Oskar Fischinger’ - Esther Leslie, (1 May 2010) - https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-7-summer-2006/where-abstraction-and-comics-collide
“His twenty seconds’ worth of film was worked over by Disney staff and the shapes made simpler, for the assumption was that only then would audiences accept them. Just one figure moved at any one time, and in the background floated clouds in a sky. The non-figurative forms were concretised, conjuring up real-world objects. While Fischinger thought he was utilising the insights of the colour theory he had studied, Disney objected to too extreme a palette and altered the colours. Fischinger’s deformed contribution was set among kitschy images derived from jabbing violin bows, ethereal cathedrals and doomy shafts, with the anchoring spectacle of the black-suited conductor who marshals all this energy.”
In this segment, different instruments are represented by different shapes. Visual precedents are set that stay consistent throughout.
The flute (and wind section of the orchestra) are represented with one smooth line over a background of colours.
While the string section of the orchestra is represented by literal visuals of bows and strings. Yet 9 seconds of the segment visualise the strings with the use of circles that are somewhat reminiscent of Fischinger’s style.
Above: Fantasia (1940) - Toccatta and Fugue in D minor (Johann Strauss) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4MQ7GzE6HY
Below: Oskar Fischinger’s ‘Optical Poem’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xc4g00FFLk
In ‘Optical Poem’ physical shapes are suspending on wires that create their movement. While in other parts of this visualisation, circles appear and disappear, this screenshot shows a sequence of circles moving around each other and travelling upwards. This is the closest parallel to the movement of circles in Fantasia (1940).
‘Fischinger at Disney or, Oskar in the Mousetrap’ by William Moritz, Millimeter Magazine, ed. John Canemaker, 1977 - http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=2409
Excerpt from letter written by Fischinger: “The film “Toccata and Fugue by Bach” is really not my work, though my work may be present at some points; rather it is the most inartistic product of a factory. Many people worked on it, and whenever I put out an idea or suggestion for this film, it was immediately cut to pieces and killed, or often it took two, three or more months until a suggestion took hold in the minds of some people connected with it who had their say. One thing I definitely found out: that no true work of art can be made with that procedure used in the Disney Studio.” ”
