Allegro non troppo. Bruno Bozzetto's Animated Music

Allegro non troppo is the third full-length feature by the Italian director and animator Bruno Bozzetto. The film pretends to be a parody of Walt Disney’s Fantasia, as it reproduces its structure and sets up an audiovisual dialogue between classical music and animation; it is actually one of the most original Italian animated films, and one of the peak achievements in Bozzetto’s career. The book is divided into two parts. The first one deals with Allegro non troppo from a general point of view. It provides a biography of Bruno Bozzetto; an introduction to his works and aesthetics; a description of Allegro non troppo as a whole; context information about society and culture in Italy during the 1970s; a reconstruction of the animation production; a comparison between Allegro non troppo and Walt Disney’s Fantasia; an exploration of discarded episodes. The second section is more analytical and approaches the several episodes of Allegro non Troppo in separate chapters. Each chapter is subdivided into a description of the short film, followed by “program notes”, that is to say a look into some historical details on the musical repertoire and an audiovisual analysis of the episode, that comments upon the expressive effects of the interactions between the musical choices and the animation aesthetics. Bozzetto’s own recollections, archives and expertise are among the sources of this book. The author extensively interviewed the director over one year, while getting in contact with former members of the animation department and production crew of the film.