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Fantasia 2000 is better with Pink Floyd
Music shapes Meaning
It was Sunday morning. My father-in-law was coming around for lunch, a lunch that I would be cooking.
Perhaps something on in the background to keep things moving. A $2 DVD for the thrift shop. Fantasia 2000. Perfect. No real story to follow but plenty of visual excitement set to music. What could possibly be better?
Something it seems.
A reimagining of the original Fantasia with some new scenes, two problems surfaced immediately. Each segment is introduced by a celebrity, Bette Midler, Quincy Jones and Steve Martin to name a few. I found these contrived and stilted, particularly when I was only getting the sound as I turned the potatoes or washed the rosemary.
The music. Classical music in perfect synchronisation with the images. The effect was intended to celebratory, yet the effect was more anxious making than uplifting.
It’s not that I don’t like classical music, I listen to it often. Yet, the technical perfection of contemporary classical is somehow disconcerting and if I was to wrap it in two words to reflect my own personal tastes, they would be — TOO FAST.
It‘s hard to be celebratory about dancing whales in a world where we’re destroying the environment.
