Rhapsodizing

Every night (well, almost every night) I walk about 2 miles on a treadmill. I bought it because I knew that I’d never be committed enough to go the gym 5 or 6 times a week, but that I stood a good chance of actually exercising if the equipment was in the house. It’s been over a year now, and I’m still at it. I bought it because basically I like to walk – always have. The treadmill faces a TV with a DVD player, and I watch while I walk. Since I walk in roughly half-hour sessions, I wanted to watch something that came in discreet segments and was entertaining. The solution: cartoons!

I’ve always been a fan of classic (and not so classic) animation, which probably started back in my early childhood when kid’s fare on the tube consisted of strange black and white cartoons from the 20’s and early 30’s intermixed with old serials (Don Winslow of the Coast Guard, Tim Tyler’s Luck) and obscure westerns. The cartoons included a lot of output from the Fleischer studios (Betty Boop, Koko the Clown, etc.) and an inexhaustible supply of Farmers besieged by infinite numbers of mice (these usually ended with mice pouring out of faucets, pumps, refrigerators, etc.) in a world where any object – toasters, washing machines, houses, trees - might suddenly spring into animated life. I loved them and still do.

I don’t purchase many DVD’s, but most of the ones I buy are animation in one form or another. My tastes grew to encompass Disney (of course), the wonderful Warner Brothers, and others. In later years, I got into Jiri Trnka (whose version of The Emperor's Nightingale haunted my dreams), George Pal’s Puppetoons - he also did special effects for movies like When Worlds Collide – and later still, people like John and Faith Hubley, the Brothers Quay, Jan Svankmeyer, and – more recently - Hayao Miyazaki.

So I walk, and I watch, and – often – I laugh. Not all of these are funny, for sure (the fascinating Disney On The Front Lines collection has some hard-core anti-Nazi propaganda shorts, to say nothing of Victory Through Air Power), but most of them are, especially the Looney Tunes of the 30's and 40's. The time passes amiably, the exercise is accomplished, and as a bonus, it seems that laughing out loud is actually an aerobic exercise as well as a mood elevator.

Which brings us to Fantasia 2000, which I was watching while walking the other night. This attempt to recapture the magic of the original Fantasia has its ups and downs. It has far too much celebrity introduction material – totally unnecessary – and most of the segments are flat and not particularly inspired. There are some good moments, though, and one unqualified masterpiece that belongs up on the shelf with the best of Disney animation (and almost anyone else’s) – the studio’s take on Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.



The brilliance of the high concept was to take Gershwin’s justly popular piece and use it to tell a series of interlocking stories set in 1930’s New York and done in the artistic style of master caricaturist (and seminal New Yorker), Al Hirschfeld. Somehow the animators worked out a method of catching the fluidity, grace and wit of Hirschfeld’s line, added a large dose of humor, painted the action in a blue-heavy pallet, and set it all to Gershwin’s Rhapsody. The result is a gem that makes the whole overblown Fantasia 2000 production worth seeing.

I watched it twice in a row while pounding out the paces, and was captivated both times. There’s even a brief moment when the “camera” pans up and looks through an apartment window to catch sight of George Gershwin himself playing the piece on the piano. I don’t know enough about the man’s life to know whether or not he’d have appreciated this, but I’d like to think he would have. The piece certainly appreciates him, his time, his city, and the music he created.