Another excellent short film by Chuck Jones, What’s Opera, Doc? is a Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd version of several of Richard Wagner’s great operas, especially Der Ring des Nibelungen (check out our classical music knowledge, people!).
It has the added benefit of featuring the most fabulous horse in cinematic history
As it’s a seven minutes animated short, it’s hard to say anything deep and profound about it (you know, because we’re usually known for our incredibly analytical and intellectual approach to film reviews). However, lucky for you, you can watch the whole thing here and make up your own mind. Enjoy!
Directors: James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe Jr., Norman Ferguson, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen
Starring: Leopold Stokowski, Deems Taylor, Mickey Mouse, various creatures and instruments.
We cannot do this film justice in a text post, so we recommend you watch it (if you haven’t already). It’s a Disney classic (and the first Disney animated feature on the list) for very good reasons – it’s a love letter to the magic of music and an (a?) homage to human creativity and artistry.
For those of you whose tastes run darker than Disney, it also features this guy
Various animators and directors have visualized works of classical music by Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Ponchielli, Mussorgsky and Schubert (hopefully we didn’t forget anyone… Either way, they’re dead so no harm done!) in various styles and the results are mesmerizing, beautiful, therapeutic, educational, and at times funny, sad or scary.
The clumsy elegance of the ostrich and hippo ballerinas ticks the boxes for both beautiful and funny
The different segments are introduced by Deems Taylor and the music is performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and conducted by Leopold Stokowsky (our classical musician friends have informed us that it is vitally important to credit the conductor). Some of the sequences tell a story while others are more abstract interpretations of the music, but they are all lovely and entertaining to watch.
1000 Films Blog 