Fantasia

As we watched Fantasia today, it was hard not to pay attention to the constant nature imagery. Especially in the pastoral symphony, there was almost a sense of fake nature. Everything was so perfect, so happy, so cheerful. The colors of the background were all pastel colors. In addition to this, everyone was happy. Unicorns and centaurs were frolicking in the fields, getting drunk and being merry. The interactions with each other were all full of love, whether friendly or most lustful. However, it almost seemed too good to be true. Nobody is every that happy and cheerful without something going wrong. And sure enough, thats when the sublime nature comes in. The gods threw down their lightning bolts laughing. It was almost as if they would not let the playful animals be happy for too long.

In all the scenes that we have watched so far, there has been aspects of both pastoral nature and sublime nature. I think that Fantasia is trying to suggest that one cannot exist without the other. There will be times of the pastoral happiness with some frolicking, but sublime will always come and swoop in, for however long the controlling power chooses.

Just in general with watching Fantasia, I think it is interesting how the music and the animation work so well together. You can always tell when a change in the plot was about to happen by the music. For example, right before Zeus came onto the cloud with his lightning bolts, the music sped up and got really intense. This was a clear sign that something was about to disrupt the serene pastoral scene. In the scene with the dinosaurs, this same pattern happened right before T-rex came in to fight.