1) The document analyzes the 1940 Disney film Fantasia and how it presents different ontological frameworks and conceptions of agency through each musical segment. 2) It discusses how each segment portrays a specific world or reality with its own implicit rules about what exists and how things change. For example, the Toccata and Fugue segment suggests music itself is the cause of motion and change through abstract visuals synced to the music. 3) The analysis argues Fantasia takes viewers on "excursions into other worlds" by successively presenting different ontologies, moving from an undifferentiated reality in the opening to a fully differentiated world in the Rite of Spring segment depicting the emergence of

1. Being and Plenitude:
Ontological Cognition in
Disney's Fantasia
Literature and Cognitive Science Conference
8 April 2006
William L. Benzon
w l b

2. An Exercise in
Analytic Description

3. 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?

4. The Program
Cognitive Concepts
Fantasia Framed
Four Worlds
Worlds Within Worlds

5. Ontology on Two Levels
What kinds of things exist? What is
their order among themselves?
What is an ordered world, a Cosmos?

6. Ontology in Cognition
physical object
substance form
color shapeweight texture
Piaget: the object = vision + touch
[Information Channels - Cortical Regions]

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. Creating Worlds: Films
Images
Sounds

10. Perceiving Agency from
Movement
The Smith Experiment (Holland)

11. 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.

12. Extradiegetic and Synched
“sound-like power in
light”
musical
sound
form
color shapepitch timbre

13. Animation is “Ontologically
Active”
Alice’s Wonderland: 1923

14. Continuity

15. Alice in Cartoonland

16. Fantasia (1940)
Present classical music to the masses
and
Create a showcase for animation.

17. 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

18. 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.
?

19. Excursions into Other Worlds
Taylor Talk
“Home Base”
Toccata and
Fugue
Nutcracker
Suite
Sorcerer's
Apprentice
Rite of
Spring
Pastorale
Dance of
the Hours
Bald
Mountain
Ave Maria

20. Empty Stage

21. Musicians in Silhouette

22. Musicians, in the Light

23. Deems Taylor Approaches

24. Deems Taylor Talks

25. Deems Taylor

26. The Conductor (Stokowski)
And away we go . . . .

27. 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

28. 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

29. Stoki & Co.
Diegetic Music . . . sorta

30. Harp
When harp arpeggios are prominent . . .

31. Fiddlers

32. And more Fiddlers

33. Highlights

34. Stowki in the Mist

35. Clouds

36. Clouds, Hills, Fiddles

37. Waves

38. Flying Discs

39. Shadows

40. Noodling

41. More Noodling

42. Rolling Waves

43. Mountains

44. Gothic Arches

45. Sparkles

46. What is this?

47. Followed by this?

48. Followed by this?

49. Followed by this?

50. Light from Above

51. Stoki in Glory

52. 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.

53. “Thing Free” Qualities
“sound-like power in
light”
musical
sound
form
color shapepitch timbre

54. 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)

55. Fireflies
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies

56. Fairies

57. How Big?
3” ?

58. Mushrooms
Chinese Dance

59. Flowers
Dance of the Reed Flutes

60. Ballerinas

61. On the edge

62. Who’s There?
Arabian Dance

63. I See You

64. All Together

65. Busby Berkeley

66. Come up and see me some
time

67. Cossacks
Russian Dance: Trepak

68. Wake Up
Waltz of the Flowers
Procession of the Seasons

69. Magic Touch

70. Flying Seeds

71. On Ice

72. Snow Flakes

73. Ballerinas

74. 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

75. Fantasy, Magic, Dreams
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Controlled Magic, the Wizard
Magic Out of control, the Apprentice (Mickey)

76. Conjuror
Yen Sid = Disney

77. The Hat

78. Hand-Jive

79. Ignition

80. Follow Me

81. Dreamer

82. Mickey Conducts (Dream)

83. Master and Commander (Dream)

84. Wake Up

85. Off-screen Mayhem

86. Shadows and Repetition

87. It’s a Wash

88. Parting the Waters
No Hat

89. The Look

90. Congrats
Breaking Frame

91. Another Ring Structure?
1 Sorcerer acts
2 Apprentice acts
3 Apprentice dreams
2’ Apprentice acts
1’ Sorcerer acts

92. 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.”

93. Cosmos
forms and unformed substance

94. Young Earth

95. Volcano
synched to sound pulses

96. Under Water
Life: languid liquid floating

97. 2 Cells

98. 2 Cells Mingle

99. 2 Cells Dividing

100. 4 Cells

101. 8 Cells

102. Dark Cloud
sound synched to cloud

103. Life in the Sea

104. Metamorphosis
motion compounded with metamorphosis,
and at least two cross dissolves

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

106. Pterodactyl

107. T. Rex
again, strong rhythm

108. Sun

109. Mark Rothko, 1957

110. Earth and Sun

111. Earth Obscuring Sun

112. Metamorphosis and Identity
Caterpillar and Butterfly
Acorn and Oak
Ugly duckling and the swan

113. 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?

114. Recapitulation
Four Worlds in Sight and Sound

115. 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

116. 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

117. 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

118. 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

119. Recap & Extension
Worlds Within Worlds

120. Sound-in-Light

121. Animist Microcosm: The Seasons

122. Magic and Fantasy

123. Macrocosm: Emergence

124. Soundtrack

125. Domestic Affairs

126. Domestic Affairs

127. High Artistry

128. Evil Hands

129. Evil Perversion

130. Evil Hands

131. Evil Hands

132. Evil Hands

133. Reverence

134. 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

135. The End