: (Nigel Westlake) Talking animal movies can
range from lovably charming to abysmally laughable, and 1995's
mostly manages the former. The adaptation of a 1983 novel
pushed the limits of special effects at the time to show an alternative
to "Animal Farm" tendencies by barnyard creatures not keen on letting
humans eat them. An orphaned piglet is won at a rural county fair in a
storybook-like setting and brought home to be raised by a motherly
Border Collie. The animals suffer all the usual loss of family as some
are eaten or sold off, and the pig, Babe, ultimately makes himself
famous by becoming a master sheep herder. It helps, of course, that the
animals can all talk to one other. Also of interest is that sheep have
passwords, apparently, so that any dog (or pig) trying to herd them can
use vocalized commands rather than simply chase them around. (For the
sheep that belong to this farm, the password is "Baa Ram Ewe," a far cry
from the sheep that follow Donald J. Trump, which respond to the
password "Lock Her Up" but might be just as compliant with "Baa Ram
Ewe.") While
is a comedy aimed at children, it does have
some darkly dramatic passages, and the combination generated massive box
office returns and countless awards nominations. A sequel and resulting
video game were met with derision, however. The situation behind the
scenes with
wasn't all that pretty, producer George Miller
and director Chris Noonan not leaving the project on speaking terms, and
the latter not asked to return for the sequel. Nor was the project one
to remember for veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith, who was so tickled by
the film's story that he managed to squeeze it into his busy schedule.
The composer was eager to produce music for lighter fare at that
juncture, and he had written about 80% of the score and was within a
week of recording
when the filmmakers had an allergic
reaction to his demo recordings. They asked Goldsmith to re-write much
of the score, but the composer couldn't fit that time into his schedule
and bowed out.
Depending on varying reports, Goldsmith's take on
Babe was either too lyrical and pretty or too dark. Either way,
Noonan and Miller blamed the distance between the Australian production
and Goldsmith for miscommunication about the desired score. They
auditioned strictly Australian replacement composers, and documentary
and IMAX score writer Nigel Westlake got the job based on his adaptation
of classical music. When Westlake entered the equation, the filmmakers
for
Babe were already enamored with classical music that had been
melded already, in part, into popular songs. A variety of these
classical tunes was to be edited and arranged for several purposes in
this film. French composer Camille Saint-Saëns' "Symphony No. 3 in
C Minor, Op. 78," which had served as the basis for the song "If I Had
Words" in the late 1970's, had already been slated as a primary theme in
the picture. Joining it in secondary roles were Léo Delibes'
"Pizzicati from Sylvia," Edward Grieg's "Lyric No. 6, Springtanz," and
the "Jingle Bells" carol in two cues, "Pork is a Nice Sweet Meat" and
"Christmas Morning." Adding to the complication is that a group of
singing mice peppers the movie with their own renditions of popular
songs, obliged in the soundtrack by recordings of the "If I Had Words"
song and others, including "Blue Moon," at accelerated speeds. These
parts are generally insufferable, and the source vocals for "If I Had
Words" by lead actor James Cromwell at normal speeds aren't much better,
especially once Irish flavor is added for whatever reason. Westlake
originally resisted the idea of basing the main theme for Babe himself
on the Saint-Saëns piece, but he acquiesced. The style of the score
is strictly classical, striving for a
Peter and the Wolf approach
in its techniques. The orchestral presence is hyperactive and sometimes
quite complex, the music compensating for the lack of refined emotions
on the animals' faces. Aside from the symphonic players, there isn't
much color in the mix aside from sparing vocalizations. On rare
occasion, female Inuit throat singers imitate animals during action or
suspense scenes, and synthetic choir seems to be employed in the back of
the mix at times, as briefly in the finale.
The constant shifting back and forth between original
Westlake material and the classical adaptations in
Babe does harm
the overall narrative arc of the score, unfortunately. While the
composer succeeds in finding the right general demeanor in his music,
the thematic attributions get lost in the orchestrations more often than
not, with no specific theme really emerging in memory. Some listeners
may not even connect the "If I Had Words" song melody with the
orchestral Saint-Saëns applications at all. Even if they do, that
theme makes for an odd primary identity for a story like this one as its
static progressions don't really lend it well towards its insertions in
the many 15-second reminders throughout the score. Regardless of its
awkwardness in movement, the Saint-Saëns melody comes to represent
the titular character in
Babe with consistency, often over a
zealous celeste. Its static progressions make it recognizable but also
cause it to disrupt the flow of the surrounding music in some cues. The
theme slowly develops in "Opening Titles" before a full, stately fanfare
at 1:10. Reduced on keyboard over celeste at 1:03 into "Fairground," it
takes a more Victorian string stance in "I Want My Mum," is expanded on
woodwinds in "Mother and Son," cranks up the pomposity in "Babe's Round
Up," and is tender on flute in the latter half of "The Sheep Pig."
Fragments of the theme occupy "Pig of Destiny" and "Where's Babe," the
tone optimistic on light metallics in the former and turning worrisome
in the suspense of the latter. It opens "Babe in the Kitchen" with
typical light shades and returns to stately brass and percussion at the
outset of "Finale - That'll Do Pig That'll Do," where the idea expresses
its playful variations as an interlude to other ideas. The theme for the
main farmer, Hoggett, is original for Westlake, more comedic on bassoon
and busy in layers, typically moving quickly. The Hoggett theme
exuberantly informs the start of "Fairground" but becomes clearer in the
cue's middle, interjecting in the wild action of "Christmas Morning" and
upbeat throughout "Hoggett Shows Babe." It experiences a wide variety of
disparate performance inflections in "Pig of Destiny" and turns Irish to
inform the source-like ditty in "Hoggett's Song."
Several lesser secondary themes recur in
Babe,
but none makes a lasting impact on the whole. A sadness theme from
Westlake is nice but not substantial, heard in the first minute of "I
Want My Mum" on strings and woodwinds, in lower, even more subtle tones
in "Repercussions," and introducing the antagonist in the middle of "Mad
Dog Rex." The maternal dog, Fly, receives a theme that is most prominent
in martial form in "The Way Things Are" but usually stays more tender in
tone. Singular infusions of classical music include the springtime
exuberance of the Grieg piece with more than a little pomp in "Round Up"
and an adaptation of "Pizzicati from Sylvia" in the dark humor of
"Anorexic Duck Pizzicati." The use of the "Jingle Bells" carol is a bit
overplayed. On the whole,
Babe is an admirable but overrated
score, its narrative hindered by the whiplash of outside influences. The
original Varèse Sarabande album of 1995 contained obnoxious
dialogue from the movie and was long ridiculed. Westlake re-recorded 56
minutes of the score with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2015 for
an ABC Classics album celebrating the 20th anniversary of the movie. It
features different arrangements and tempos that may bother purists, but
it's a nice and really vibrant presentation overall, its mix emphasizing
strings and woodwinds over percussion until later cues, with the celeste
softer. A 2021 "Club" expansion from Varèse Sarabande cut almost
all of the dialogue and added ample source material, most of it
unbearable. While the longer album is definitive for the film version of
the score, including the horrendously singing mice, the ABC re-recording
remains an attractive alternative for those seeking just the orchestral
elements. Westlake returned for the 1998 sequel score, but much of his
material was cut from the film and, predictably, replaced with
preexisting music. Only the Randy Newman and Peter Gabriel song from
that soundtrack, nominated for an Oscar, defined its legacy. Still, film
music collectors have long held an affinity for Westlake's music from
the 1995 picture, ranking it with 2015's
Paper Airplanes among
the composer's best. Your tolerance for its uniquely classical
personality will determine how you receive it, for the score is a
significant departure from the more conventional approach that Goldsmith
likely wrote for the story.
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