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Review of An American Tail (James Horner)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek the melodically rich children's score that
launched James Horner's fruitful production in the genre and gained him
his first widespread awards consideration.
Avoid it... if you are consistently bothered by Horner's references to Eastern European classical music and other sources of inspiration, despite the fact that they are effectively appropriate in this context.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
An American Tail: (James Horner/Barry Mann) Luckily
for most children, Steven Spielberg's obsession with creative retellings
of Jewish hardship from an age past is irrelevant as long as the
pictures are pretty, the music cute, and the story glossed over with
lovable animals. Such was the case with 1986's An American Tail,
basically a story of Jewish persecution by the Czar of Russia and
subsequent freedom in the United States dressed up in the form of a
harmless animation production. In 1885, a family of mice have to escape
death when the human house above them is burned by the Russian
government for reasons not explained; as they set out across the ocean
to America, young Fievel (named after Spielberg's grandfather, no less)
is accidentally tossed overboard in a storm, spending the rest of the
story making a living in New York and searching for his family, which is
never actually far away. Eluding cats and forming friendships with
dubious animal kingdom characters, Fievel is eventually reunited with
his family and all is well. He then heads out West with his
adventuresome sister, but that's the topic of the sequel film in 1991.
The historical representations in An American Tail did not escape
critics and, although "Sesame Street" writers Tony Geiss and Judy
Freudberg and director Don Bluth effectively captured audiences with
their translation of the events into a form a child could sit through,
the film came under fire for depicting too much hardship and political
metaphors in the genre. Regardless of your tolerance for Spielberg's
incessant messages of Jewish persecution, An American Tail is a
strong film that used all the talents of Bluth's former Disney
production team to create compelling visuals for the era. Joining that
crew for the first time and eventually becoming a regular part of it was
composer James Horner. Although Jerry Goldsmith had provided Bluth's
first film (The Secret of N.I.M.H., another rat tale, of course)
with an impressive orchestral score and had been offered this
assignment, Horner was coming into his own by 1986, and An American
Tail earned the composer his first Academy Award nomination (along
with Aliens the same year) and Grammy Award win.
Horner's music for the Bluth films over this fruitful period was often very similar, performed consistently by the London Symphony Orchestra to pull classical references into a melting pot of ideas that Horner could rotate through almost indiscriminately between pictures. Most of the sources of inspiration for Horner when writing An American Tail are, not surprisingly, Russian; whereas the composer sometimes relied upon the work of Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky in situations that didn't make much sense, at least the sound fits comfortably here. Perhaps also not a surprise for most will be a reliance on Maurice Jarre's Dr. Zhivago in a similarly Russian tone and Nino Rota in a general European sense. The symphonic ensemble is joined by accordion and cimbalom to emphasize New York's multi-cultural atmosphere (and, more specifically, characters like the French-rendered pigeon). An abundance of lightly tapping metallic percussion is also well utilized to give audiences that expected dose of magical wonder. Horner's classically-informed thematic constructs of a melodramatic and romantic variety in the middle of the 1980's all eventually matured in 1988's The Land Before Time, the composer's most comprehensive and impressive capitulation of these ideas. This especially applies to An American Tail, which features one major theme and a general tone that will please any enthusiast of the later Bluth film's score. The action material and another theme in An American Tail are easily precursors to more developed incarnations in Willow, also a notable 1988 endeavor. Although Horner would eventually team successfully with lyricist Will Jennings for his subsequent efforts, some listeners consider his work with songwriter Barry Mann and lyricist Cynthia Weil for An American Tail to be superior. Indeed, it's hard to argue with the success of the songs in the context of this film, the "Somewhere Out There" duet alone popular enough to attract a Grammy Award. The quality of the other songs in An American Tail isn't at the same level, however. They're effective narrative expositions with lots of the necessary personality, but they're not as memorable in a supporting position as Alan Menken's later efforts for Disney. The melody from "Somewhere Out There" is the only one from a song in An American Tail to substantially impact Horner's underscore. It makes for a lovely theme, especially in the delicately alternating bridge section that is the song's most malleable and recognizable section. Ironically, while this theme is probably the score's strongest melodic element, it's nowhere near being the primary identity of Horner's score. This is a mistake that most casual listeners make with An American Tail. The theme only memorably appears in fragments and/or its bridge section in "Main Title," "The Market Place," "Gussie's Plan," "Reunited," and "Flying Away and End Credits." Although the last cue does feature the most exuberant and boisterous full ensemble performances of the "Somewhere Out There" theme, none of its incarnations here are as robust as in the opening cue of An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. Outside of this theme, however, you might be surprised to learn that Horner provides An American Tail with no less than three additional major themes and two minor ones, several of which also live on in the sequel score. All three of the other major themes are paraded in convenient succession in "Main Title." Arguably the actual title theme of the film is the one for family and hope (and perhaps America, in some places) that most resembles The Land Before Time. It debuts in a full, minute-long performance at the 2-minute mark of "Main Title" and is heard in small fragments in "The Cossack Cats" and "The Storm" before a bright, violin and plucked-bass performance in "The Market Place" breathes life into it. A stretched and agonizing performance of the theme in "Releasing the Secret Weapon" is balanced by bubbly performances of the theme in "Reunited" and "Flying Away and End Credits" (the trumpet performance of the idea at about 1:40 into the latter cue is a highlight). A little more elusive is the darker companion theme for the same general concept; representing redemption in a much heavier atmosphere is a theme that most often takes the form a hymn. Heard late in both "Main Title" and "Reunited" with solemn choral tones, this theme informs (though does not directly translate to) the memorable choral crescendo in the middle of "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" before expanding from cimbalom to full ensemble late in "Flying Away and End Credits." Not unexpectedly, some listeners attach best to the third major theme in An American Tail, and it is this idea that both immediately opens the score and addresses the sensibilities that Spielberg's original concept possesses. Often referred to as the Russian theme or immigrant theme, this faux-Eastern European idea sufficiently gives the mouse family its heritage. Occupying the first minute and a half of "Main Title," this theme, most often performed thereafter by the stereotypical solo violin, contains a secondary phrase that not only shares many similarities in terms of wholesome sincerity with the theme from "Somewhere Out There," but the latter's bridge section is often attached directly to the end of the immigrant theme. Distressed versions of this theme pop up in "The Storm" and "The Great Fire" while solo string performances in "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" and "Reunited" lead to a full ensemble performance in both the latter cue and "Flying Away and End Credits." Horner interestingly adapts the first five notes of this theme into the main Western identity of his sequel score. Also an obscure connection to An American Tail: Fievel Goes West is the introduction of Tanya's (Fievel's sister) fantastic theme in An American Tail. Since this theme becomes the basis for the gorgeous "Dreams to Dream" song in the second score, few people actually remember that it represents Tanya in the first film as well. It's mostly intact at about 1:40 in "The Market Place" and is briefly referenced by Horner at the start of "Reunited" (in which it segues directly into the "Somewhere Out There" theme). There is immensely satisfying justice in the fact that Horner was able to expand upon this idea in the sequel, for it is arguably the most lyrically compelling theme of the franchise and immediately brightens the middle of "The Market Place." The final, minor theme in An American Tail is an idea for bold horns that most listeners will recognize as a foreshadowing of dark powers in Willow (and, to a lesser extent, The Rocketeer). Representing both the general element of danger and the American cats (more specifically), this theme is hinted in "The Storm," receives a short burst at the start of "The Market Place," explodes with force over a drum rhythm thirty seconds into "Releasing the Secret Weapon" (yielding to the cat-related song melody's faint reference), and is curiously heard on brass late in "The Great Fire." All put together, An American Tail stands among Horner's most effective works in the children's genre, eclipsing most of what he produced for similar topics in subsequent years. Some collectors will argue that the sequel score is equal in appeal, if not superior, and certainly anyone not satisfied with the thematic development in An American Tail can seek refuge in that solid second effort. The longstanding weakness of An American Tail has been the interaction between songs and score outside of "Somewhere Out There." Granted, the remainder of the songs (despite adequate performances all around, including Christopher Plummer in heavy accent as the pigeon in "Never Say Never") aren't as strong, but it is always disappointing to hear a disconnect between the musical numbers and the connecting underscore. Of the 50 minutes on the popular MCA Records album released for An American Tail at the time, about 15 minutes are dedicated to the songs. The pop song variation of "Somewhere Out There," which was responsible for gaining most of the awards attention, was Horner's first qualified entry in a series of pop song translations that would lead to mass fortune with Titanic. Linda Ronstadt and her crisp voice contribute to both "Somewhere Out There" in this score and "Dreams to Dream" in the sequel. Unfortunately, because "Somewhere Out There" was obviously meant as a duet, the use of James Ingram as the male voice is a major detriment. For some reason (though likely for style points), Ingram refuses to stick to the actual melody, completely ignoring the alternating notes of the two bridge section performances while Ronstadt very deliberately and precisely hits every note in her part. It's a distinctly irritating aspect of a song that would have been, for album purposes, far better with Ronstadt alone. Again, though, "Dreams to Dream" compensates for this lingering disgruntlement in the sequel. The placement of the pop version of "Somewhere Out There" in the middle of the album, complete with tasteful but still dated electric guitar interlude, is another problem. The marketability of CDs was just starting to develop in 1986, and Horner thus assembled a fuller 65-minute presentation of the score for that medium; unfortunately, that arrangement and product never materialized despite the success of the soundtrack on worldwide charts. It took until 2019 for a proper presentation of the An American Tail soundtrack to be revealed. Courtesy of Intrada Records, the score was expanded to its full length and joined with the songs and a couple of source-like cues to form a better representation of the soundtrack. The truncated version long available did an immense injustice to the narrative of the score, because aside from "The Market Place," the entire middle third of Horner's work was simply missing from that initial product. Over twenty minutes of material from these chase and character scenes was restored for the Intrada product, and these passages offer additional enjoyment even if they do not represent the highlights of the score. Many of the secondary characters' musical motifs and underlying personality shine in these cues, from the likable Irish tones of "Honest John and Gussie Mausheimer" to the sleazy blues treatments in "Fievel's Escape." Among the best additional moments is Horner's exposition of the family and hope theme in the latter half of "Building the Mouse of Minsk," the optimism of this cue nearly unmatched in the score. A fair amount of the work's most raw action is also added back into the presentation here, with the frantic pace of "Train Trestle" joined by the xylophone frenzy in "The Rumble." Also joining these cues from the middle section of film is the brief exploration of the heritage theme in "Dissolve to Sea/Lullaby" earlier in the story. The album also offers the humorous borrowing of "Poor Wandering One" from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance" heard in the film, along with a rather obnoxious source cue and the instrumental version for the pop song in the event you want to tackle Ronstadt's part in the absence of Ingram yourself, preferably after a few stiff drinks. The sound quality on the 2019 Intrada album is decent but still archival in depth, especially during the passages with prominent solos. For all but the biggest audiophiles, though, the remastering should be sufficient. Considered on the whole, either album for An American Tail deserves a place in any Horner collection, even if the 2019 expansion is superior. Few people give the composer credit for writing and nurturing six themes in this score, instead getting hung up on the classical music references or other aspects typical to Horner's writing. The composer, however, packages this effort well enough to transcend these traits and offer a score that, if only better songs had accompanied it, might have merited a five star rating. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
1986 MCA Album:
Total Time: 49:44
* co-written by Barry Mann, with lyrics by Cynthia Weil 2019 Intrada Album: Total Time: 78:15
* co-written by Barry Mann, with lyrics by Cynthia Weil ** previously unreleased
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1986 MCA album includes no extra information about the score or film. That of
the 2019 Intrada product includes extensive information about both.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from An American Tail are Copyright © 1986, 2019, MCA Records, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 8/26/09 and last updated 5/11/19. |
