February 18, 2008

• Oscar Score Noms. #5: Ratatouille

  RATATOUILLE—Michael Giacchino

  Let’s take a moment to go back about 30 years.  Then, a semi-known composer, one who had been writing for television and B-pictures, wrote a score for a film that most had little or no confidence in doing much business.  This composer had received a bit of critical notice, but approached this new film by reaching back and reinterpreting film music from 30-40 years before.  Yes, the composer was John Williams and I am talking about Star Wars.  I bring this up here because of all the new crop of young composers, Giacchino often is lambasted for sounding like Barry, or Williams, or Goldsmith (more rare) depending on his score.  But is this truly any different than Williams’ very Mancini-esque 1960s jazz sound, or his Korngoldian orchestration?  Not really, and with that set aside we can launch into an appreciation of one of the best film scores of 2007.

   

  Ratatouille’s music is so well-integrated to picture that at times one is carried away by the sheer joy of the union.  The subtle orchestral colors employed throughout, coupled with superb choices of instrumental writing at every corner sometimes make one gasp.  Even in “100 Rat Dash,” there is an amazing energy that takes the energy of an orchestral action cue and runs it through with a touch of jazz harmonies.  Percussive hits sound less like “Mickey-Mousing” and more like natural jazz improvisations. 

   

  “Wall Rat” is a perfect example of Giacchino taking parts of his theme in smaller segments and using them as counterpoint against one another as this track opens.  All of this is followed by a tremendous flute line that is some of the best playing to be heard requiring tremendous facility (and probably sight-read!) played effortlessly.  In the film, we “hear” this music quite plainly, it is not really distracting but inhabits the world of the film quite nicely.  That Giacchino then blends this orchestral style with jazz, often given an improvisational feel, perfectly matches the sense of cooking and interest in “improv” in the plot line. 

   

  Strong thematic ideas, and a song that sounds as if it was plucked from the dustbins of great French chanteuse pieces, all make this score constantly interesting.  “A Real Gourmet Kitchen” is one of the tracks that also illustrates the way Giacchino will take part of his thematic idea, reinterpret it as an ostinato pattern that gains power through repetition and layering of unison instrumental colors.  Again, the way in which these unison segments are piled up shows tremendous understanding of the orchestra and color.  The thematic development can be sent through any number of transformations as the score unfolds while Giacchino takes clichéd musical devices and uses his various thematic components as the basis for these musical choices.  There is a tremendous amount of this approach on display in Ratatouille always coupled with intriguing orchestral choices. 

   

  Rarely has there been a score with such a joie de vivre, nor really a film that has so much sheer joy in the art of film making…and animation.  It is amazing that the world of this film is created so well, that we can forget we are seeing a purely animated feature.  All of the elements of this film go together to accomplish this goal, but it is the score that lends a heart and soul to what we see on screen.  The facility at which this is done without really slipping into over-melodramatic scoring is marvelous.  A case in point, when we feel for the characters the music affirms those feelings instead of working hard to make us feel sad or happy.  The theme returns often to remind us of the connectedness that exists between the characters and always creates a sense that while things may not be going the way we had hoped, there is still more to come in the story.

   

  As noted earlier, each of the Oscar nominated scores includes a variety of interesting scoring techniques.  Here Giacchino illustrates a command of the orchestra, the ability to insert more popular style instruments, and even hint at popular French music and unique colors added by any number of small changes to the texture.  Accordions, whistling, ukulele, and banjo all appear in this score handled expertly in the texture sometimes given their own musical moments, but then fully-integrated into the sound  of the orchestra sections (“Colette Shows Him Le Ropes”).

   

  Stylistically, the score has plenty of nice urban touches (bass guitar) that tend to stay within the Gallic flavor of the score.  Some of the jazz style here is very similar to that heard in France (think Ellington via the Claude Bolling big band), or which might grace say a film like Mon Oncle.  This is a style that goes in a different direction than the more “found object” jazz that Charest uses in The Triplets of Belleville, another great score for an animated film that works in many ways like the approachhere.

   

  Five Reasons Why this Should Receive the Oscar

  1.      Exemplary command of orchestration and instrumental voicing.

  2.      Perfect example of traditional thematic scoring with requisite variation technique.

  3.      Scoring that approaches the film no different from a live-action feature, inviting the viewer into the world from the outset of the film.

  4.      Specific sequences of matching instrumental color to picture (Remy’s sewer run, kitchen scenes,etc.) where the music enhances the thrust of the narrative.

  5.      The score demonstrates a real facility of stylistic adaptations of jazz, French chanson, and traditional orchestral scoring.

   

   

  So there you have it.  Five scores all including reasons for their selection.  Personally, I find Ratatouille and Atonement the most successful of the lot and though highly unlikely, it would be great to have a tie in this category if either could not come out ahead.  The least unlikely winner is Michael Clayton, though it may get votes for completely non-musical reasons (often the case with these score choices).  I do not intend to cynically expect that Atonement will win just because it was the first score on the list (though maybe that explains the last two Oscar wins!).

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