Film and TV production! Disney cartoon from Salvador Dali.

It's been a while since I wrote anything here. I accidentally came across the cartoon Destino (“Destiny”) by Salvador Dali and the Walt Disney team, the existence of which was neither a dream nor a thought.... in general, I was pleasantly pleased, since I really like the works of this great and “terrible "surrealist... and the cartoon, I must say, turned out great...

Destino cartoon fate Salvador Dali

When two brilliant personalities intersect in one time period, interaction between them is inevitable. Fate wanted not only to place Salvador Dali and Walt Disney in the same era, but also to introduce them. Disney, recognized genius animation, was so intrigued by the creative genius of the Spaniard that he suggested that Dali create a cartoon that would be the embodiment of surrealism.

The artist liked the idea and in 1945, together with the Walt Disney team, he began work on the cartoon Destino (“Destino”), the plot of which is based on the ballad of Armando Dominguez. As a result of 8 months of work between Dali and the artist Disney studios John Hench created an 18-second clip and great amount drawings and sketches.

Dali at work

Salvador Dalí at work at Walt Disney Studios, circa 1946 (left)
Dali's oil painting for Destino was later combined with the finished footage (right)

On the left is a completed oil painting by Salvador Dali expressing the concept of "Destino". She served as a source of inspiration for the master.
On the right is Dali's work as it appears in the cartoon: with additions introduced during digital processing to expand and deepen the space of the picture, an animated figure and two supporting elements

Three abstract works painted by Dalí in preparation for Destino

Another oil painting by Salvador Dali, which later added animation of a baseball player and a baseball

Drawing for Destino, 1947

But in the post-war period creative ideas Salvador Dali's plans did not materialize: the Destino project was closed at the direction of the studio owner, Walt Disney. The officially announced reason was the company’s financial difficulties due to the fact that throughout the years of World War II the animator carried out government orders, which brought almost no income to the studio.

Rebirth of Destino

The materials for Destino lay “on the table” for more than half a century. The idea to complete the project started by Dali belongs to Ray Disney, the nephew of the legendary animator. He invited Baker Blodworth to become the producer of the film, and the Frenchman Dominique Monferi to become the director. The team of artists, consisting of 25 people, included John Hench, who was 95 years old by that time. With his help, as well as thanks to entries from the diary of Salvador Dali's wife, it became possible to realize the plans of the brilliant surrealist. The premiere of “Destino” took place in 2003, a year before the maestro’s centenary, at the French film festival in Annecy.

It is unknown what Destino would have been like if Dali had managed to complete it. Roy Disney's team made the cartoon completely in the "Disney" style and at the same time very surreal. A kind of tribute to the memory of Salvador Dali: a film with a slight touch of sadness and inevitability, leaving a piercing aftertaste of love.

Interesting facts about Destino

1. The name “Destino” became prophetic for the cartoon. Translated from Italian (as well as Spanish and Portuguese), destino means “fate.” The painting, indeed, has an unusual and very interesting fate.

2. In 1940, John Hench took part in the creation of another fateful cartoon: he is a member of the animator team for the film Fantasia and one of the “parents” of the famous Mickey Mouse. It is curious that the second birth of Destino is also connected with Fantasia: Roy Disney thought about recreating the cartoon while working on Fantasia 2000, the sequel to the legendary film.

3. Destino uses an original 18-second clip created during the 8 months the cartoon was drawn by Salvador Dali and John Hench. The episode with the two turtles and the girl with the pearl head is easy to notice: it stands out a little from big picture higher rhythm and brighter colors.

4. One of the reasons why Dali agreed to participate in the creation of the cartoon was that he considered Disney a surrealist. This is how he described his first meeting with the animator: “I came to Hollywood and became closely acquainted with the great American surrealists: the Marx Brothers, Cecil DeMille and Walt Disney.”

5. Destino was awarded the Melbourne Film Festival Grand Prize in the short film category and was nominated for an Oscar.

Short cartoon Destino was created by The Walt Disney Company based on the idea and drawings of Salvador Dali. The video is accompanied by music by Armando Dominguez. The cartoon was started in 1945, and finished only 58 years later, in 2003. Post-war economic difficulties prevented the project from being realized when the greatest madman of the 20th century himself was working on it.

Still from "Destino".

Destino means fate, destiny, rock in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Galician. IN English language a word with this meaning sounds almost the same - Destiny.

The animated film reveals another facet of the talent of the most famous surrealist, the creator of paranoid-critical realism.

Destino, Walt Disney Pictures, USA, France, 2003.

Director: Dominique Monferi
Producers: Roy Edward Disney, Baker Bloodworth
Screenwriter: Salvador Dali
Composers: Armando Dominguez, Michael Starobin
Animators: Salvador Dali, John Hench

Story by: Salvador Dali and John Hench
Music by: Armando Dominquez, Michael Starobin
Edited by: Jessica Ambinder-Rojas
Directed by: Dominique Monfery
Running Time: 6:40 minutes
Release Date: 2003
Technique: 2D animation
Produced by: Baker Bloodworth
Executive Producer: Roy Edward Disney

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Salvador Dali at work at Walt Disney Studios, circa 1946.

The storyboard for Destino was drawn over a period of eight months in late 1945 and 1946 by Salvador Dali and Disney artist John Hench.

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Salvador Dali and Walt Disney.

Disney was given a 17-18 second test animated sequence in 1946, but then decided to postpone Destino indefinitely.

6.

Dali at Walt Disney Studios

The project was closed by Walt Disney due to the company's financial difficulties. Throughout the years of World War II, the studio fulfilled government orders, which brought in almost no income.

Apart from a short episode, a huge number of drawings and sketches remained from the idea sent to the archive.

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Dali's preparatory work for Destino.

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Work written by Dali in preparation for the creation of Destino.

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Dali's oil painting for Destino. When creating the film, it was combined with video footage

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Preparatory drawing for Destino

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In 1999, Disney's nephew Roy Edward Disney / Roy E. Disney worked on the musical animated film Fantasia 2000, filmed 60 years after the legendary Fantasia. And John Hench was one of the animators for the 1940 film Fantasia, and he was also one of the fathers of Mickey Mouse.

Roy Disney decided to bring to life the forgotten project of the great surrealist and Hench. For this purpose, a small branch of Disney in Paris was involved. The producer of the cartoon was Baker Bloodworth, and the director was French animator Dominique Monfréy, who performed for the first time in this capacity. Using the help of Hench himself, who by that time was 95 years old, as well as the diaries of Dali’s wife Gala, a group of twenty-five animators “deciphered” the drawings of Dali and Hench and brought their plans to life.

The result was a cartoon using hand-drawn animation techniques using computer graphics. The original 18-second footage is included in the film in the scene with the two turtles - Dali and Gala.

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A baseball player and a baseball were added to Salvador Dali's creation.

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A few more shots from Destino:

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Personally, I don’t particularly like Dali, although he, of course, has a lot of interesting and deep works. I’m not particularly fascinated by the nightmares from the depths of the artist’s subconscious, which are so attractive to the public. At one time, superimposed on advertising escapades they brought Dali worldwide fame, wealth, and then immortality. And this is good, because we need different artists and creativity, especially genius ones. Well, what about Dali? great creator, you can't argue with that.

Of the surrealists, Rene Magritte is closer to me with his relaxed absurdity, devoid of horror, but this is not about him.

In conclusion, three statements by Dali from the many aphorisms spoken and written by him for long life. The first two can be safely recommended as psychological advice.

* If you start playing at being a genius, you will certainly become one!

* All my efforts, every day, always, are subordinated to a single goal: to be able to be Dali.

* There are extremely rare cases in my life when I humiliated myself by dressing in civilian clothes. I always preferred to wear Dali's uniform.

Quotes - from the book "Salvador Dali: Thoughts and Anecdotes", translator Polyak O., editor Khotinskaya N.O., Text publishing house, 2010.

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Dali's preparatory drawing for Destino, used in the closing credits of the cartoon.

Salvador Dalí considered Walt Disney a surrealist, which may be why the Great Mystifier collaborated with the Great Animator in 1946. Viewers were able to see the result only in 2003.

The cartoon has gained worldwide fame, but viewers are wondering: what is directly “from Dali” and what is a Disney product? Well, the answer is surreal, like the fate of “Destino” itself!

Salvador Dali came to America in 1945, but not for a multi-occasion. The visit took place. The “King of Horror” needed scenery for the film, but Dali was furious at the film adaptation of his ideas: instead of pianos suspended from the ceiling, there were pathetic imitations! So, at the exhibition of his paintings in the Bignu gallery, the surrealist also presented to the public a “pseudo-newspaper” “Dali News” with an exposure of Hollywood and... an announcement of an upcoming project with Walt Disney. A pleasant meeting between two creators determined the fate of the new idea: their interests coincided.

The animator, in the wake of his innovative 1940 work “Fantasy,” became fascinated by the idea of the synthesis of animation and high art. And Dali was constantly looking for new opportunities to realize his dreams and fantasies. And, although the artist requested a huge amount for the work, setting the conditions and copyright, the contract was signed. An elated Dalí spoke of creating “a film in new ways” in which “…Thanks to Disney’s mastery, it will be possible for the first time to see a clock in motion.” And things started to move!

Salvador Dali had at his disposal a director, animators John Hench and Bob Cormack, and music. The animation was conceived for the ballad “Destino” by the Mexican Armando Dominguez, and Dali was captivated by the word itself, translated as “fate”. Her turns in Dali’s imagination were constantly changing, new images and paintings appeared.

“The girl walks along the road and... finds herself riding a huge elephant with the legs of an arthropod insect, surrounded by various monsters... We see a pyramid... next to the church, floating above a pond formed by two human palms, from which two cypress trees grow. Naked people ride bicycles around the pond. They all disappear into the pond,” Dali’s words about the future cartoon from an interview with Arts magazine.

Some moments were reminiscent of the ideas of existing Dali paintings - he wanted to “revive” the 1939 work “Swans Reflected in the Form of Elephants”, include the image of a “girl jumping over a rope”, others famous paintings. After all, the artist did not create a cartoon, but a means of immersion into the personal world of Salvador Dali’s surrealism!

Disney, who originally defined "Destino" as " ordinary story the love of a girl and a boy,” was stunned by the fantasies and works of Dali presented.

The artist created 22 paintings and about 135 sketches, and John Hench produced an 18-second cartoon segment. Because after World War II, Disney was worried about the question: would the idea be commercially successful? Alas, eight months after the start of work, the “birth” did not take place: Disney postponed the project for financial reasons. However, half a century later, Walt Disney's nephew Roy, working on new version legendary cartoon studio - "Fantasy - 2000", discovered Dali's work in the archives! He was inspired by the idea of finishing the work of the Masters also because, according to a long-standing contract, the original works of the artist would belong to the Disney studio only after the completion of the cartoon.

Salvador Dali. Design for Destino

New world on a turtle

Roy Disney was lucky: 95-year-old John Hench, “that same” colleague of Dali, agreed to personally work with a team of 25 artists. The diaries of Senor Salvador's wife, Gala, were found, where the thoughts and fantasies of her husband were recorded. 5 paintings and sketches by Dali were used, as well as new works by artists. In the fall of 2003, 58 years after the start of work, Destino premiered at the French Film Festival in Annecy.

The original 18-second scene remains unchanged in the cartoon, so look out for the turtles!

Salvador Dalí considered Walt Disney a surrealist, which may be why the Great Mystifier collaborated with the Great Animator in 1946. Viewers were able to see the result only in 2003.

The cartoon has gained worldwide fame, but viewers are wondering: what is directly “from Dali” and what is a Disney product? Well, the answer is surreal, like the fate of “Destino” itself!

The animator, in the wake of his innovative 1940 work “Fantasia,” became fascinated by the idea of the synthesis of animation and high art. And Dali was constantly looking for new opportunities to realize his dreams and fantasies. And, although the artist asked for a huge sum for the work, setting conditions and copyright, the contract was signed. An elated Dalí spoke of creating “a film in new ways” in which “…Thanks to Disney’s mastery, it will be possible for the first time to see a clock in motion.” And things started to move!

“The girl walks along the road and... finds herself riding a huge elephant with the legs of an arthropod insect, surrounded by various monsters... We see a pyramid... next to the church, floating above a pond formed by two human palms, from which two cypress trees grow. Naked people ride bicycles around the pond. They all disappear into the pond,” Dali’s words about the future cartoon from an interview with Arts magazine.

Some moments were reminiscent of the ideas of Dali’s existing paintings - he wanted to “revive” the 1939 work “Swans Reflected in the Form of Elephants”, to include the image of a “girl jumping over a rope”, and other famous paintings. After all, the artist did not create a cartoon, but a means of immersion into the personal world of Salvador Dali’s surrealism!

Disney, who originally defined Destino as “an ordinary love story between a girl and a boy,” was stunned by the imagination and work of Dalí on display.

The artist created 22 paintings and about 135 sketches, and John Hench produced an 18-second cartoon segment. Because after World War II, Disney was worried about the question: would the idea be commercially successful? Alas, eight months after the start of work, the “birth” did not take place: Disney postponed the project for financial reasons. However, half a century later, Walt Disney's nephew Roy, while working on a new version of the studio's legendary cartoon, Fantasia 2000, discovered Dali's work in the archives! He was inspired by the idea of finishing the work of the Masters also because, according to a long-standing contract, the original works of the artist would belong to the Disney studio only after the completion of the cartoon.

Salvador Dali. Design for Destino

New world on a turtle

The original 18-second scene remains unchanged in the cartoon, so look out for the turtles!

Usually telling stories from the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, described the story of the creation of the only joint project Walt Disney and Salvador Dali - cartoon Destino. Making this short masterpiece took fifty-eight years, and ended (by obvious reasons) after the death of the artists.

The short animated film Destino was created by The Walt Disney Company based on the idea and drawings of Salvador Dali. The video is accompanied by music by Armando Dominguez. The cartoon was started in 1945, and finished only 58 years later, in 2003. Post-war economic difficulties prevented the project from being realized when the greatest madman of the 20th century himself was working on it.

Still from "Destino".

Destino means fate, destiny, rock in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Galician. In English, the word with this meaning sounds almost the same - "Destiny".

The animated film reveals another facet of the talent of the most famous surrealist, the creator of paranoid-critical realism.

Destino, Walt Disney Pictures, USA, France, 2003.
Director: Dominique Monferi
Producers: Roy Edward Disney, Baker Bloodworth
Screenwriter: Salvador Dali
Composers: Armando Dominguez, Michael Starobin
Animators: Salvador Dali, John Hench

Salvador Dali at work at Walt Disney Studios, circa 1946.

The storyboard for Destino was drawn over a period of eight months in late 1945 and 1946 by Salvador Dali and Disney artist John Hench.

Salvador Dali and Walt Disney.

Disney was given a 17-18 second test animated sequence in 1946, but then decided to postpone Destino indefinitely.

Dali at Walt Disney Studios

The project was closed by Walt Disney due to the company's financial difficulties. Throughout the years of World War II, the studio fulfilled government orders, which brought in almost no income.

Apart from a short episode, a huge number of drawings and sketches remained from the idea sent to the archive.

Dali's preparatory work for Destino.

Work written by Dali in preparation for the creation of Destino.

Dali's oil painting for Destino. When creating the film, it was combined with video footage

via

Preparatory drawing for Destino

The result was a cartoon using hand-drawn animation techniques using computer graphics. The original 18-second footage is included in the film in the scene with the two turtles - Dali and Gala.

A baseball player and a baseball were added to Salvador Dali's creation.

A few more shots from Destino:

Personally, I don’t really like Dali, although he, of course, has a lot of interesting and profound works. I’m not particularly fascinated by the nightmares from the depths of the artist’s subconscious, which are so attractive to the public. At one time, superimposed on advertising escapades, they brought Dali worldwide fame, wealth, and then immortality. And this is good, because we need different artists and creativity, especially genius ones. Well, you can’t argue with the fact that Dali is a great creator.

Of the surrealists, Rene Magritte is closer to me with his relaxed absurdity, devoid of horror, but this is not about him.

In conclusion, three statements by Dali, from the many aphorisms spoken and written by him over his long life. The first two can be safely recommended as psychological advice.

* If you start playing at being a genius, you will certainly become one!

* All my efforts, every day, always, are subordinated to a single goal: to be able to be Dali.

* There are extremely rare cases in my life when I humiliated myself by dressing in civilian clothes. I always preferred to wear Dali's uniform.

Quotes - from the book “Salvador Dali: Thoughts and Anecdotes”, translator Polyak O., editor Khotinskaya N.O., Text publishing house, 2010.