Disney’s Walpurgisnacht

Witches and magical transformations are themes that OGOM will be pursuing over the next year or so. Disney’s wonderful adaptation of Walpurgisnacht in Fantasia (1941) makes full use of the potential of cinematic technology to depict the transformative powers of magic, depicting the shapeshifting and uncertain boundaries between human and animal that feature in many of the texts OGOM explores. It’s sinister and fun, sexual and more risqué than you’d expect in a children’s film from the 1940s–and that’s just how it should be.