Night on Bald Mountain
I rank the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence from “Fantasia” (1940) as one of the scariest scenes I had ever seen in my life. I had nightmares just thinking about it as a little kid whenever I watched the film while growing up. No matter how many times one watches it over the years I think it is very difficult for anyone to not forget the images or to not be afraid in some way by it. Even the animators who worked on the film felt Walt didn’t quite know or grasp what he was going to end up with it. I think the power and horror the sequence contained freaked them out just as much as it scared the wits out of the audience too. It is clearly one of Walt Disney’s most daring and darkest works he ever attempted not just in his studio’s Golden Age but in his animation career as well. "Bald Mountain" serves as the first half of the movie’s finale with the ultimate battle between the profane and the sacred. The section is based on the music of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky as conducted and arranged by Leopold Stokowski for the film. The storyline for Mussorgsky’s score is taken from the Slavic folklore of Walpurgis Night, otherwise known as the Witch's Sabbath. During that night all the demons across the land gather together to dance and worship around an evil force named Chernobog, the God of Darkness. When the morning approaches Chernobog returns to his mountain not in defeat but to await for his time to come once more. The name Chernobog is actually the Slavic equivalent of Satan in our culture so there is no going around that fact that the character is the personification of evil. Walt himself intended for Chernobog to be the Devil himself which is why the character looks as ominous and horrifying as it is now.
It’s pretty amazing how many phantasmagorical, disturbing, and trippy visuals come following one after the other in “Night on Bald Mountain”. First you have the distorted ghosts as they slowly arise from the graveyard to the mountain top. Then there are the charcoal drawn ghouls riding on horseback like the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Next you have a gruesome display of child’s play when Chernobog selects a few lucky followers with his massive hand…only to drop them in dismay to cascading fires from Hell. Finally there are the vibrant colors of the smoke and fire that change from a hot red to a psychedelic color spectrum that engulf the entire screen towards the end of the film.
Nowadays there are people who I feel unfairly give Walt Disney a bad rap for not producing adult animation or stories with an adult sensibility. They forget that in addition to making cartoons for everyone he would from time to time produce a mature or sophisticated animation that would be better appreciated by adults as he did more often in the late 30’ and early 40’s. We would not normally associate demons, monstors, and the devil with Walt Disney's animated works...but here in "Night on Bald Mountain" he includes all of that and more.
Remember the mesmerizing fire dance where the nude women provide a sexual dance for Chernobog’s delight before he transforms them into disgusting creatures by the wave of his hand. And then the brief moments when the winged nude banshees shrieki as they fly into our perspective with their breast fully exposed. The Disney Company of today would never approve let alone greenlight an animation that contained full frontal nudity. But Walt Disney would have because he was determined to showcase animation as a serious artform to both the critics and the public. Nudity in animation is the equivalent of nudity captured in the great paintings and sculptures of Classical Antiquity or the Renaissance Period. The only difference between the two is that one moves while the other stays still. Why should people hold it against animation for showing nudity if the great artists of long ago have done so with their artworks?
It’s funny that for a short that is quite horrific in story it is also gorgeous to watch in its artistic style. This was because studio brought in the acclaimed Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen to set the art direction and tone for the entire piece. Nielson was widely well known for his stylized pastel paintings and was among the most prominent artists working during the Golden Age of Illustration. His artworks like "East of the Sun West of the Moon" were highly influenced by a variety of diverse cultures from around the globe. He incorporated Eastern art through the use of Japanese woodcuts and European art through the curvilinear designs of the Art Nouveau movement. There is even an Art Deco presence that ties all of the design elements together like in the design of Chernobog which puts those aforementioned aesthetics in a modern context. In addition to the art direction the sequence would not have succeeded had it not been for the stunning animation of the God of Darkness himself. When it came time to animate Chernobog the studio enlisted the famed actor Bela Lugosi as the live action model for the character and Bill Tytla to animate. Tytla had come from Ukraine and was aware of the Slavic folktales while growing up. He was also proficient in creating strong brute characters like Grumpy and Stromboli so this was perhaps the hardest assignment he had ever undertaken. But as the production moved forward Tytla was not pleased with Lugosi's poses. So he decided to not use any of the Lugosi footage and used himself as the model for Chernobog in order to really put himself into the character.
Tytla wanted the character to move and react in a way that only he understood since it was all in his head. That critical choice would prove to be the right one in the end for the film. It ultimately resulted in one of the most frightening creatures ever made for the screen and one of the greatest examples of character animation in the medium as well. You can just feel the power Chernobog wields as he darkens the sky at his command during the crescendo of the piece. It is very rare to feel that way for any character, whether it be in live action or in animation.
