Salvador Dalí Made a Cartoon with Walt Disney (Video)

By on May 15, 2011 in News 27

This is an unexpected find, and a good one from Cyriaque Lamar on io9.com:

In 1946, Salvador Dalí collaborated with Walt Disney animators on Destino, a surrealist animation that was storyboarded but scrapped due to budgetary concerns. Destino wouldn’t be finished until 2003, when Roy Disney resurrected the project. Melting clocks à la Disney!

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  • justagirl

    ralph you post the best stuff.  xo 

  • justagirl

    ralph you post the best stuff.  xo 

  • http://twitter.com/irisphant iris

    That was lovely.

  • http://twitter.com/irisphant iris

    That was lovely.

  • Guest

     So. Very. Good.

  • Mr Willow

     So. Very. Good.

  • http://www.ContraControl.com/ Zenc

    Good post, but a shame it ever happened.

    Dali just lost some of the esteem I regarded him with for having any truck with Disney, at all.

    Guess I’ll watch the video now and see which one of them “danced with the devil”.

  • http://www.ContraControl.com/ Zenc

    Good post, but a shame it ever happened.

    Dali just lost some of the esteem I regarded him with for having any truck with Disney, at all.

    Guess I’ll watch the video now and see which one of them “danced with the devil”.

    • Ace

      I think you don’t realize the scope of this short film. It was produced where both Dali’s art and Disney animation were taking flight, but during political unrest. Collaboration between nations was nearly impossible due to the circumstances (WW2), and as a result, it was scrapped for a very long time.

      To have it be fulfilled completely nearly 60 years later is an achievement based on a dream not only Dali and Disney, but for artists and people around the world who respected the human achievement of collaboration.

      So before you begin to have your ‘truck’ comment I believe you should do some reading and get out of the high school view of Dali and Disney.

      • Liam_McGonagle

        Yeah, I liked this much more than I expected to.  But in spite of the historical perspective you remind us of, not because of it.

        Everyone’s heard the stories about Walt being a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite.  Though I’ve never seen any original documentation to that effect, merely some vague second hand accounts and guilt-by-association type analyses, I tend to believe that he probably did make some friendly gestures in the direction of Hitler’s regime–though probably more out of naive desires to foster a more business friendly environment in Germany than out of firm political commitment.  That’s business types all over:  morality ain’t their thang.  And as a practical matter, such a distinction is probably lost or downright offensive to many Jewish people, for whom the it has no operative reality.

        Some feel that Dali was creatively washed up fairly early.  By the time I was even born, “Persistence of Memory” had been interpreted and re-interpreted so many times over that it’d become as much a parody of the genre as much as a landmark.  Personally, Dali was an unapologetic supporter of an extremely conservative Catholicism and of the facist dictator, Francisco Franco.  And let’s just admit it, the cheesey adverts he did in his twighlight years were not exactly a badge of honor either.

        http://youtu.be/rK4Bh_arF-E

        But this felt fairly fluid and not contrived.  Put into historical context some of the motifs, like the manipulation of shadow into tangible artefacts, were probably a lot more cutting edge in their day than they would appear to a CGI-addled audience of 2011.  I enjoyed this.

  • Willmatt

    WALT DISNEY STUDIOS in collaboration with Salvadore Dali……………. history in the making !!!!

  • Willmatt

    WALT DISNEY STUDIOS in collaboration with Salvadore Dali……………. history in the making !!!!

  • Alyssa Rae Fox

     i hate disney for this stupid music.

  • Alyssa Rae Fox

     i hate disney for this stupid music.

    • Ace

      The music was not written by Disney nor was it produced by anyone affiliated with Disney and actually written and performed by a Mexican songwriter.

  • Dknowledge

     All of my professors believe Dali was a phony “The Lady Gaga of his time” but many scenes in this were quite nice.

  • Dknowledge

     All of my professors believe Dali was a phony “The Lady Gaga of his time” but many scenes in this were quite nice.

  • Icekeyhunter

    I have this on Blu-Ray! Woo.

  • Icekeyhunter

    I have this on Blu-Ray! Woo.

  • Convitz123

    Breathtaking 

  • Convitz123

    Breathtaking 

  • Ace

    I think you don’t realize the scope of this short film. It was produced where both Dali’s art and Disney animation were taking flight, but during political unrest. Collaboration between nations was nearly impossible due to the circumstances (WW2), and as a result, it was scrapped for a very long time.

    To have it be fulfilled completely nearly 60 years later is an achievement based on a dream not only Dali and Disney, but for artists and people around the world who respected the human achievement of collaboration.

    So before you begin to have your ‘truck’ comment I believe you should do some reading and get out of the high school view of Dali and Disney.

  • Ace

    The music was not written by Disney nor was it produced by anyone affiliated with Disney and actually written and performed by a Mexican songwriter.

  • Anonymous

    Yeah, I liked this much more than I expected to.  But in spite of the historical perspective you remind us of, not because of it.

    Everyone’s heard the stories about Walt being a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite.  Though I’ve never seen any original documentation to that effect, merely some vague second hand accounts and guilt-by-association type analyses, I tend to believe that he probably did make some friendly gestures in the direction of Hitler’s regime–though probably more out of naive desires to foster a more business friendly environment in Germany than out of firm political commitment.  That’s business types all over:  morality ain’t their thang.  And as a practical matter, such a distinction is probably lost or downright offensive to many Jewish people, for whom the it has no operative reality.

    Some feel that Dali was creatively washed up fairly early.  By the time I was even born, “Persistence of Memory” had been interpreted and re-interpreted so many times over that it’d become as much a parody of the genre as much as a landmark.  Personally, Dali was an unapologetic supporter of an extremely conservative Catholicism and of the facist dictator, Francisco Franco.  And let’s just admit it, the cheesey adverts he did in his twighlight years were not exactly a badge of honor either.

    http://youtu.be/rK4Bh_arF-E

    But this felt fairly fluid and not contrived.  Put into historical context some of the motifs, like the manipulation of shadow into tangible artefacts, were probably a lot more cutting edge in their day than they would appear to a CGI-addled audience of 2011.  I enjoyed this.

  • Lamewayne

    This is art! Let it be that…………..

  • Lamewayne

    This is art! Let it be that…………..

  • http://www.themovers.com.au movers

    Awesome! I haven’t watched this one.