Fantasia

Fantasia (1940) is Walt Disney's animated concert film you can watch online on iFILM. There's no plot to follow. Instead, eight pieces of classical music play while hand-drawn images move to every note.

Conductor Leopold Stokowski leads the orchestra, and composer Deems Taylor steps in to introduce each segment. Bach becomes rivers of light and floating shapes. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring turns into the birth of Earth, from the first living cells to the death of the dinosaurs. Then Mickey Mouse, cast as the sorcerer's apprentice, swipes his master's hat, brings a broom to life and nearly drowns under his own spell. After that come dancing hippos, ostriches, the demon of Bald Mountain and a quiet Ave Maria at dawn.

Disney married animation to a full symphonic recording in a way no studio had tried before, and built Fantasound, an early multichannel theater audio system, just to play it. The film carries almost no dialogue and runs entirely on sound and motion. Stream Fantasia (1940) online on iFILM.