It was the intention of the 50th Anniversary re-release of Fantasia to restore the film to its full original form. However, a subtle form of censorship has been used to remove a potentially embarrassing character, reports David Williams.
The new print of the Disney film Fantasia, which has been meticulously restored to bring back the Technicolor brilliance of the original presentation, has left out a rather embarrassing character. The black ‘maid’ centaurette who preens the tail of the green centaurette was nicknamed ‘Sunflower’ by the animation department. In the 1950’s, sections of the Pastoral Symphony, in which she appears, were cut from the release prints with a resulting discontinuity in the music. In the 1982, digital re-recording, the music was re-arranged so that the excised sections were less obvious.
But, it has been the intention of the 50th Anniversary re-release to restore the film to its full original form. In order that it might better fit into the wide-screen ratio of modern cinemas, the film image has been bordered with a black mask. At the places where ‘Sunflower’ makes her appearance, the image has been enlarged so that she is actually outside the masking. Thus, a disembodied hand is preening the centaurette’s tail, and the carpet for the jovial Bacchus is unrolled anonymously.
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