Day 5: Inspirational Animated Shorts: Disney and Dali

First off- yes I did promise no more Disney... but this is kinda worth it.  Secondly I did in fact say Disney and Dali.  As in Salvador Dali.  As in melting clocks man. (Among other fantastic works of art) Just in case you are still confused as to whom I'm referring to:

So apparently in 1945 Walt Disney and Salvador Dali got together and decided to do a story about Chronos (the god of time from Greek mythology)(oh and I do mean Chronos the god not Cronus the psychotic father of Zeus (and a few others) that ate his children so they wouldn't kill him later)(I'm a bit of a greek mythology geek...)

ANYWAY

The story is about Chronos and a love desperate to fail between him and a mortal woman.  The story portrayed is strange; but beautiful.  The one thing I don't love about this video is the singing; the Spanish singer that starts out the film has a beautiful voice- but then she is later joined by the chorus of disney voices that you'll recognize from Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and many other early Disney movies.  I've never appreciated the particular sound of that chorus- so it's a bit of a distraction for me.  

The film was started in 1945-1946; the project only lasted 3 (or 8 depending on the source) months and they only had a 15 second demo and a few sketches done at that point.   The unique thing about this film is the combination of live dancers and animation.  But not in the style of Bedknobs and Broomsticks or Mary Poppins; the live actors in this film have been animated so they look like they are a part of the whole sequence. (*edit- I don't want to leave out that the main artist that worked with Dali in story boarding this project was in fact John Hench who was the pen behind Disney's ideas for many many years- I could go on about him forever, but will not at this time)

I've gotten most of this information from the description below the video on youtube as well as some research done online to IMDb, Wikipedia, this article "The Time Salvador Dali Worked for Walt Disney" and a Disney Fine Art article called "The Art of Destino".  Information does get repeated; but for anyone truly curious- go check it out.

The project was finally finished in 2003 after Disney's nephew Roy decided to revive the project while working on Fantasia 2000.  

Ok- that is enough history.  Why do I find this inspiring? Simple- it is so strange and creative that watching it just makes your mind soar into creative thought.  

Dalí said: "Entertainment highlights the art, its possibilities are endless." The plot of the film was described by. Dalí as "A magical display of the problem of life in the labyrinth of time." 
Walt Disney said it was "A simple story about a young girl in search of true love."

~Nikkie