being and plenitude: ontological cognition in disney's fantasia
TRANSCRIPT
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