Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great DVD but Bad Price
Comment: This is a great dvd but the price is nothing I would pay again for a musical that old.
Customer Rating:
Summary: beachhut
Comment: I never received the CD of FANTASIA and cannot make a review on this item, but would like to say that I would to hear from Beachhut if they plan to send it or cancel it???? Waiting this long to hear anything is unsatisfactory.
Customer Rating:
Summary: first exposure to classical music
Comment: I think I have loved this film since I can remember, from my parent's old video tape to my current DVD. I'm a little sad that it never became truly the evolving work Disney dreamed, but this is still a wondrous collection of music and artwork--all done without the aid of computers. I think this was also my first dive into fantasy, what with the fairies and centaurs and all. Therefore, this is certainly a favorite I cannot do without, whether I'm truly studying it or just slipping it in to play in the background.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of My Favorite Films
Comment: Film buffs frequently create lists of their 10 favorite movies. My answer changes from day to day, but there are three films always on the list: Fantasia, Koyannisqatsi, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. A a cartoon, a new age documentary, and a science-fiction drama; three completely different films.
Walt Disney's Fantasia is a groundbreaking film creating a painted ballet to accompany several pieces of well-known music. The only dialogue is short introductions to each piece by renowned musicologist Deems Taylor. He briefly comments on the composer, if the music tells a specific story, and whether Disney's animation follows that story. Music can evoke strong emotions in the listener with or without a story. Fantasia frequently creates new stories for the music, but the power of the music to arouse the listener remains. The mouse king is gone from the Nutcracker Suite, but a circle of dancing mushrooms, and bouquet of waltzing flowers is no less charming and whimsical. The primitive dances of the Rite of Spring have been changed to the struggles of prehistoric life, but the music is still powerfully thrilling. The rage and fury of demons in Night on Bald Mountain end at dawn as the serene beauty of Ave Maria accompanies the glory of a sunrise. Image and music again stir the viewer's soul.
Koyannisqatsi is the newest and least known of these three films. It is a 1982 documentary with ads that said "Until now, you've never really seen the world you live in.". Director Godfrey Reggio combines stock footage (rocket launches, landscape vistas, building demolitions, munitions tests) with spectacular new footage by cinematographer Ron Fricke (cityscapes, commuter crowds, clouds and waves, traffic jams, assembly lines). He creates a mosaic of life in the modern industrial world and how it has become disconnected from the natural world and is now a `life out of balance', which is a translation of the title. Although the film has no characters, dialogue or narration, the dramatic editing and stirring score by Philip Glass create a great emotional, and even physical impact. I once talked my mother into seeing it with me. While she liked it very much and still comments on it, at the end of one particularly frenetic sequence she said, with a sigh of relief, "Thank goodness that's over".
2001 is an imaginative look at how man's evolution might have been affected by outside influences. Much of the film has no dialogue whatever. The rest has occasional patches of dialogue, with most having nothing to do with the plot. There is the TV interview, a father's phone call on his daughter's birthday, proud parents radio message on their distant son's birthday, a computer's seeming random questions while working up the crew psychology report, the rambling song of a computer having its memory erased. None of this has anything to do with the search for the source of the strange artifact first found by prehistoric apes, then later by explorers on the moon and how it may affect man's future. More important than dialogue are the amazing visuals and music. The spaceship ballets, technical hardware, and the ending star gate dance of lights, combined with magnificent music evoke the sense of wonder and awe that the vastness of space and the possibilities of the future should inspire.
A a cartoon, a new age documentary, and a science-fiction drama; three completely different films thematically that each show the power of image and music to reach the viewer emotionally.
Customer Rating:
Summary: magical
Comment: very satisfied with this purchase; I guess that if you pay a few extra $ you can probably get a better package (if you really want to), but apart from that everything is good in terms of quality of video/sound.
Summary: Great DVD but Bad Price
Comment: This is a great dvd but the price is nothing I would pay again for a musical that old.
Customer Rating:
Summary: beachhut
Comment: I never received the CD of FANTASIA and cannot make a review on this item, but would like to say that I would to hear from Beachhut if they plan to send it or cancel it???? Waiting this long to hear anything is unsatisfactory.
Customer Rating:
Summary: first exposure to classical music
Comment: I think I have loved this film since I can remember, from my parent's old video tape to my current DVD. I'm a little sad that it never became truly the evolving work Disney dreamed, but this is still a wondrous collection of music and artwork--all done without the aid of computers. I think this was also my first dive into fantasy, what with the fairies and centaurs and all. Therefore, this is certainly a favorite I cannot do without, whether I'm truly studying it or just slipping it in to play in the background.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of My Favorite Films
Comment: Film buffs frequently create lists of their 10 favorite movies. My answer changes from day to day, but there are three films always on the list: Fantasia, Koyannisqatsi, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. A a cartoon, a new age documentary, and a science-fiction drama; three completely different films.
Walt Disney's Fantasia is a groundbreaking film creating a painted ballet to accompany several pieces of well-known music. The only dialogue is short introductions to each piece by renowned musicologist Deems Taylor. He briefly comments on the composer, if the music tells a specific story, and whether Disney's animation follows that story. Music can evoke strong emotions in the listener with or without a story. Fantasia frequently creates new stories for the music, but the power of the music to arouse the listener remains. The mouse king is gone from the Nutcracker Suite, but a circle of dancing mushrooms, and bouquet of waltzing flowers is no less charming and whimsical. The primitive dances of the Rite of Spring have been changed to the struggles of prehistoric life, but the music is still powerfully thrilling. The rage and fury of demons in Night on Bald Mountain end at dawn as the serene beauty of Ave Maria accompanies the glory of a sunrise. Image and music again stir the viewer's soul.
Koyannisqatsi is the newest and least known of these three films. It is a 1982 documentary with ads that said "Until now, you've never really seen the world you live in.". Director Godfrey Reggio combines stock footage (rocket launches, landscape vistas, building demolitions, munitions tests) with spectacular new footage by cinematographer Ron Fricke (cityscapes, commuter crowds, clouds and waves, traffic jams, assembly lines). He creates a mosaic of life in the modern industrial world and how it has become disconnected from the natural world and is now a `life out of balance', which is a translation of the title. Although the film has no characters, dialogue or narration, the dramatic editing and stirring score by Philip Glass create a great emotional, and even physical impact. I once talked my mother into seeing it with me. While she liked it very much and still comments on it, at the end of one particularly frenetic sequence she said, with a sigh of relief, "Thank goodness that's over".
2001 is an imaginative look at how man's evolution might have been affected by outside influences. Much of the film has no dialogue whatever. The rest has occasional patches of dialogue, with most having nothing to do with the plot. There is the TV interview, a father's phone call on his daughter's birthday, proud parents radio message on their distant son's birthday, a computer's seeming random questions while working up the crew psychology report, the rambling song of a computer having its memory erased. None of this has anything to do with the search for the source of the strange artifact first found by prehistoric apes, then later by explorers on the moon and how it may affect man's future. More important than dialogue are the amazing visuals and music. The spaceship ballets, technical hardware, and the ending star gate dance of lights, combined with magnificent music evoke the sense of wonder and awe that the vastness of space and the possibilities of the future should inspire.
A a cartoon, a new age documentary, and a science-fiction drama; three completely different films thematically that each show the power of image and music to reach the viewer emotionally.
Customer Rating:
Summary: magical
Comment: very satisfied with this purchase; I guess that if you pay a few extra $ you can probably get a better package (if you really want to), but apart from that everything is good in terms of quality of video/sound.