Being and Plenitude:

Ontological Cognition in

Disney's Fantasia

Literature and Cognitive Science Conference

8 April 2006

William L. Benzon

w l b

An Exercise in

Analytic Description

Sight, Sound, and Agency

Things move and change.

One scene follows another.

How does each segment of Fantasia ask us to account for these two things?

The Program

Cognitive Concepts

Fantasia Framed

Four Worlds

Worlds Within Worlds

Ontology on Two Levels

What kinds of things exist? What is their order among themselves?

What is an ordered world, a Cosmos?

Ontology in Cognition

physical object

substance form

color shapeweight texture

Piaget: the object = vision + touch

[Information Channels - Cortical Regions]

talk

empathy

fear

hunger

??

Great Chain of Being

physical

object

substance form

plant

vegetativ

e

soul

animal

sensitiv

e

soul

person

rational

soul

Bloom, D. and D. G. Hays (1978). Designation in English. Anaphora in Discourse. J. V. Hinds, ed. Champaign, Ill., Linguistic Research: 1-68.

Category Errors

• Trustworthy mush– Mush isn’t something for which it is sensible to assert or

deny trustworthiness

– “Mush” is low in the Great Chain, “trust” is high

• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

No mere philosophical abstraction; the GCB is embedded in our basic categories of thought.

Creating Worlds: Films

Images

Sounds

Perceiving Agency from

Movement

The Smith Experiment (Holland)

Music in Film and Cartoons

• Historically, music preceded “talkies”

• Standard Categories

– Diegetic: Comes from a source on the screen

– Extradiegetic: Not coupled to screen action

• Cartoons are different

– Music synched to the action, aka mickey-mousing

– Disney developed story and music together

– Silly Symphonies, Merrie Melodies, Looney Tunes, etc.

Extradiegetic and Synched

“sound-like power in

light”

musical

sound

form

color shapepitch timbre

Animation is “Ontologically

Active”

Alice’s Wonderland: 1923

Continuity

Alice in Cartoonland

Fantasia (1940)

Present classical music to the masses

and

Create a showcase for animation.

Musical Program

J. S. Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite

Paul Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

Intermission: Jam session and soundtrack

Beethoven: Sixth Symphony

Amilcare Ponchielli: Dance of the Hours

Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain

Schubert: Ave Maria

Succession of Agency

J. S. Bach: Sound in Light

Tchaikovsky: Spirits (Animism)

Paul Dukas: Magic

Stravinsky: Nature

Each segment has a specific implicit ontology to account for change and motion, for agency.

?

Excursions into Other Worlds

Taylor Talk

“Home Base”

Toccata and Fugue

NutcrackerSuite

Sorcerer'sApprentice

Rite ofSpring

Pastorale

Dance ofthe Hours

BaldMountain

Ave Maria

Empty Stage

Musicians in Silhouette

Musicians, in the Light

Deems Taylor Approaches

Deems Taylor Talks

Deems Taylor

The Conductor (Stokowski)

And away we go . . . .

Framing

• No opening and closing credits

• Deems Taylor presents the music to the audience– He faces us

– He addresses us

• We see the musicians– But never as distinct individuals

– Nor even as 3D human bodies

• Leopold Stokowski conducts– He never faces us

– He never addresses us (though he says a word to Mickey)

• But not at the end

Sound-like Power in Light

Tocotta and Fugue in D Minor

Abstract Music

Real in itself,

doesn’t represent anything

Quasi-abstract visuals

Synched to the music

Stoki & Co.

Diegetic Music . . . sorta

Harp

When harp arpeggios are prominent . . .

Fiddlers

And more Fiddlers

Highlights

Stowki in the Mist

Clouds

Clouds, Hills, Fiddles

Waves

Flying Discs

Shadows

Noodling

More Noodling

Rolling Waves

Mountains

Gothic Arches

Sparkles

What is this?

Followed by this?

Followed by this?

Followed by this?

Light from Above

Stoki in Glory

Abstract, Undifferentiated

• “Eases” you into the Fantasia world

• Tocatta: Orchestra in colored silhouette

• Fugue: Thing-Free quasi-naturalistic images

• Space is undefined

• Quasi-religious imagery

• Music is the only agency, the source of continuity between images

And it is real, right there before your eyes and in your ears.

“Thing Free” Qualities

“sound-like power in

light”

musical

sound

form

color shapepitch timbre

Animism: Sprites and Spirits

The Nutcracker Suite

A garden microcosm:

with a field of view measured in inches

Unbounded space

(not vast, but without boundaries)

Fireflies

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies

Fairies

How Big?

3” ?

Mushrooms

Chinese Dance

Flowers

Dance of the Reed Flutes

Ballerinas

On the edge

Who’s There?

Arabian Dance

I See You

All Together

Busby Berkeley

Come up and see me some

time

Cossacks

Russian Dance: Trepak

Wake Up

Waltz of the FlowersProcession of the Seasons

Magic Touch

Flying Seeds

On Ice

Snow Flakes

Ballerinas

What Hath Disney Wrought?

1 fairies: Nature’s ways

2 anthropomorphic plants: dance

3 plants dance: on water surface

3’ seductive fish: under water

2’ anthropomorphic plants: dance

1’ fairies: Nature’s ways

Fantasy, Magic, Dreams

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Controlled Magic, the Wizard

Magic Out of control, the Apprentice (Mickey)

Conjuror

Yen Sid = Disney

The Hat

Hand-Jive

Ignition

Follow Me

Dreamer

Mickey Conducts (Dream)

Master and Commander (Dream)

Wake Up

Off-screen Mayhem

Shadows and Repetition

It’s a Wash

Parting the Waters

No Hat

The Look

Congrats

Breaking Frame

Another Ring Structure?

1 Sorcerer acts

2 Apprentice acts

3 Apprentice dreams

2’ Apprentice acts

1’ Sorcerer acts

Emergence: Life on Earth

The Rite of Spring

Story of Life on Earth

“Science, not art, wrote the scenario of this picture. . . . Finally, after about a billion years, certain fish, more ambitious than the rest, crawled up on land and became the first amphibians.”

Cosmos

forms and unformed substance

Young Earth

Volcano

synched to sound pulses

Under Water

Life: languid liquid floating

2 Cells

2 Cells Mingle

2 Cells Dividing

4 Cells

8 Cells

Dark Cloud

sound synched to cloud

Life in the Sea

Metamorphosis

motion compounded with metamorphosis,

and at least two cross dissolves

Emerging

The transition from sea to land is NOT marked in the music. That is, the music maintains continuity.

Pterodactyl

T. Rex

again, strong rhythm

Sun

Mark Rothko, 1957

Earth and Sun

Earth Obscuring Sun

Metamorphosis and Identity

Caterpillar and Butterfly

Acorn and Oak

Ugly duckling and the swan

Metamorphosis = Evolution

• One creature morphs from a sea creature to a land creature

– 2 cross dissolves

• Morphing not marked in the music

• The only such metamorphosis in the film (?)

• Where do we locate the metamorphic agency?

Recapitulation

Four Worlds in Sight and Sound

Fluid-Flow

1. Tocatta: a fluid world, music and images are causally linked

2. Nutcracker: water in the middle, sexual mystery

3. Sorcerer: water is out of control

4. Rite: water is the source of life

Spatial Articulation

1. Tocatta: Qualities, forms, movement, but no/few objects, no frame of reference

2. Nutcracker: Objects, but no boundaries, no global frame of reference

3. Sorcerer: Inside and Outside

4. Rite: Articulated 3D time-space

Music and Imagery

1. Tocatta: music drives the imagery

2. Nutcracker: music accompanies the imagery

3. Sorcerer: music accompanies the imagery

4. Rite: music is a “metaphor” for a force in the world represented by the imagery

Direction?

From undifferentiation in the Tocatta to full differentiation in the Rite of Spring

Music is the cause

Fairies are the cause

The mind causes, but cannot control

The cause is in Nature

Recap & Extension

Worlds Within Worlds

Sound-in-Light

Animist Microcosm: The Seasons

Magic and Fantasy

Macrocosm: Emergence

Soundtrack

Domestic Affairs

Domestic Affairs

High Artistry

Evil Hands

Evil Perversion

Evil Hands

Evil Hands

Evil Hands

Reverence

Fantasia as

Encyclopedia &

Cosmology

Thing-Free Shapes

Microcosm: The Seasons

Magic and Fantasy

Macrocosm: Emergence of Life

Domestic Affairs

High Artistry

Perversion and Evil

Reverence

The End