Sunday, September 26, 2010

Happy Birthday George!

Not George Lucas, but one of my other favorite Georges, with whom I share the birthday of September 26: George Gershwin. In his honor, here is the animation for Rhapsody in Blue, produced for the Disney film Fantasia 2000 (which seems to me a terribly underrated movie -- there is some wonderful animation in that film). The opening narration here is dubbed into French, but once the music starts (at about the :50 mark), it doesn't matter one whit. (It's in two parts to account for YouTube's duration limits.)

The style is inspired by the famous, oh-so-NYC caricatures of Al Hirschfeld (with, to my eye, a bit of the Eloise books as well).



1 comment:

Jason said...

I don't have anywhere near the breadth of your musical knowledge or tastes -- I'm pretty solidly a rock and roll guy -- but I greatly enjoyed Fantasia 2000 and this was my favorite sequence. It's a wonderful piece of music, and the animation was lighthearted and charming and perfectly suited the soundtrack.

IMO, of course. :)