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Fantastic Mr. Fox
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Composed, Co-Orchestrated, Conducted, and Co-Produced by:
Co-Orchestrated by:
Jean-Pascal Beintus
Marie-Christine Desplat
Sylvain Morizet
Co-Produced by:
Wes Anderson
Randall Poster
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LABELS & RELEASE DATES
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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The 2009 CD album is a regular U.S. release. The score-only 2010
album (subtitled "The Abbey Road Mixes") is available as a download product
for $10.
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AWARDS
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Nominated for a BAFTA Award and an Academy Award.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... on the regular CD album if you desire a faithful
representation of the music heard in the film, from the plethora of
likable songs from many decades ago to Alexandre Desplat's extremely
perky parody score.
Avoid it... if you expect the twenty minutes of Desplat's plucky,
bouncing score on the only lossless product available for the soundtrack
to heal your schizophrenia, for it achieves its aim in providing a manic
atmosphere for the film's characters at the expense of a sane listening
experience.
BUY IT
 | | Desplat |
Fantastic Mr. Fox: (Alexandre Desplat) Delayed by
several years of studio wrangling, this adaptation of the 1970 Roald
Dahl children's novel used stop motion photography and an all-star cast
to launch its way up to positions on critics' lists of top 2009 films.
The clever and witty story tells of the battles of a fox and his family
with three farmers neighboring his home, eventually escalating into
all-out war between the three men and the vast majority of the animal
kingdom. The creatures steal chickens and produce from the farmers and
are forced to run an extensive digging operation to elude the extensive
attempts by the humans to expose, trap, or flood them out. A series of
metaphorical connections to everyday life in the human realm give
Fantastic Mr. Fox its quirky charm, and in a fashion true to the
spirit of the tale, the stealthy animals get the better of their enemies
in the end. Despite almost unanimously positive reviews from critics,
Fantastic Mr. Fox didn't become a noteworthy success story at the
box office, also taking a back seat during the awards season. Nominated
for an Academy Award for his efforts on the film, though, was composer
Alexandre Desplat, in part a somewhat undeserving but predictable
byproduct of the film's prominent use of a variety of original parody
music, older soundtrack tunes, and popular songs from yesteryear. Due to
Jarvis Crocker's employment as the voice of one of the characters in the
film, he claimed that he wrote three or four songs for the production,
though only one appears on its soundtrack album. Songs by The Beach Boys
and Burl Ives dominate a soundtrack presentation that sprinkles other
vintage melodies with a pair of early 1970's themes by French romance
master Georges Delerue. The overall packaging, even in the film, was a
challenging one for Desplat, whose contributions on the primary CD album
may have only amounted to 20 minutes but do manage to maintain a
basically cohesive flow. Enthusiasts of the composer will be able to
seek an MP3 score-only album for a better presentation of his music
alone. It had been ten years since Desplat's previous (and only other)
entry in the animated genre, his mainstream career exploding in the late
2000's with a series of well-positioned assignments in the drama and
fantasy genres. There is no doubt that Fantastic Mr. Fox gave
Desplat a chance to toss aside his unique and increasingly consistent
style of writing for such pictures and instead let loose with the intent
to humorously parody several genres in the process of giving the Fox
family and the pursuing farmers refreshingly silly musical
representations.
While very little in Fantastic Mr. Fox may sound
like Desplat's recent major works, there is a common attention to detail
in a very dry mix. In its sense of fluttering movement,
treble-emphasized tones, and intimate presentation, this score is
definitely within the composer's usual mode of operation. Desplat
departs from the norm, however, by saturating Fantastic Mr. Fox
with a country spirit that ranges from twangy, plucky rhythms of simple
personality to marches of a John Philip Sousa variety and a villain's
theme obviously intended to imitate Ennio Morricone's famed Spaghetti
Western sound (complete with Desplat's own whistling performances).
Almost entirely driven by bouncing, frivolous rhythms, the score
utilizes plucked strings, banjo, glockenspiel, xylophone, and puffing
woodwinds to enthusiastically accompany the antics of the protagonists.
Longer solo cello lines provide the thematic material for those animals
as well. Never does the music become truly dark or menacing, the
villains (and their evil hench-rat) treated to a timpani, solo trumpet,
and snare-led march that grows out of the Morricone material to flourish
as a pompous, almost swashbuckling piece complete with funny lyrics sung
by a small children's choir. A solo boy soprano beautifully transforms
the theme into a minute-long moment of contemplation at the end, the
only real lamentation in the score. Desplat's music, in its general
attitude, could give a person a nervous breakdown if not prepared for
its instrumentally colorful and undeniably bright, optimistic
atmosphere. Although the composer does develop two consistent thematic
lines in Fantastic Mr. Fox, each dominating their halves of the
score, brief cue times by necessity make the CD album experience, even
with the score material condensed, a challenge. The most enticing music
on the soundtrack, not surprisingly, comes from Delerue; these
predictably lovely selections, despite their archival sound quality,
will be a tonic for those suffering from the jitters after hearing
Desplat's almost manic momentum. It's difficult to blame the composer
for the absolutely unlistenable final presentation of music on the CD
album for Fantastic Mr. Fox (the download-only follow-up album
provided almost the complete score in early 2010, but in lossy sound),
though the overwhelming innocence with which Desplat adapts his dainty,
light-drama mannerisms for this assignment will alone present too big a
challenge for film score collectors not friendly to the general
characteristics of his music outlined at the start of this paragraph.
Indeed, his approach to this concept could drive a person insane, and
since that was probably the intent, it's easy to get the feeling that
his one is aimed exclusively at enthusiasts of the film.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Music as Written for the Film: ***
- Music as Heard on Album: **
- Overall: **
| Bias Check: |
For Alexandre Desplat reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.39
(in 31 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.22
(in 16,383 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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| 2009 CD Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 46:44 |
• 1. American Empirical Pictures (0:14)
• 2. The Ballad of Davy Crockett - performed by The Wellingtons (1:40)
• 3. Mr. Fox in the Fields (1:02)
• 4. Heroes and Villains - performed by The Beach Boys (3:37)
• 5. Fooba Wooba John - traditional, performed by Burl Ives (1:07)
• 6. Boggis, Bunce and Bean (0:51)
• 7. Jimmy Squirrel and Co. (0:46)
• 8. Love - performed by Nancy Adams (1:49)
• 9. Buckeye Jim - traditional, performed by Burl Ives (1:19)
• 10. High-Speed French Train (1:26)
• 11. Whack-Bat Majorette (2:56)
• 12. The Grey Goose - performed by Burl Ives (2:48)
• 13. Bean's Secret Cider Cellar (2:06)
• 14. Une Petite Ele - composed by Georges Delerue (1:34)
• 15. Street Fighting Man - performed by The Rolling Stones (3:14)
• 16. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Petey's Song) - performed by Jarvis Cocker (1:20)
• 17. Night and Day (written by Cole Porter, performed by Art Tatum (1:27)
• 18. Kristofferson's Theme (1:35)
• 19. Just Another Dead Rat in a Garbage Pail Behind a Chinese Restaurant (2:33)
• 20. Le Grand Choral - composed by Georges Delerue (2:23)
• 21. Great Harrowsford Square (3:20)
• 22. Stunt Expo 2004 (2:27)
• 23. Canis Lupus (1:15)
• 24. Ol' Man River - performed by The Beach Boys (1:18)
• 25. Let Her Dance - performed by The Bobby Fuller Four (2:35)
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| 2010 Download Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 47:19 |
• 1. Moving In (1:07)
• 2. Mr. Fox in the Fields Medley (3:01)
• 3. Trains (1:54)
• 4. Side Car Escape (1:10)
• 5. Shoot Out (2:25)
• 6. Kristofferson (1:35)
• 7. Plan B (1:42)
• 8. Trains 2 (1:54)
• 9. Looking For Cider (2:34)
• 10. Death of Rat (1:11)
• 11. Whack-Bat Majorette Ensemble (3:35)
• 12. Canis Lupus (1:16)
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• 13. Trains 3 (1:55)
• 14. Rat Fight (3:53)
• 15. Dig! (1:24)
• 16. Mr. Fox's Promenade (1:22)
• 17. Three Farmers (2:23)
• 18. Kristofferson 2 (1:39)
• 19. Boggis Bunce and Bean (Reprise) (1:19)
• 20. Trains 4 (1:54)
• 21. Mr. and Mrs. Fox (1:06)
• 22. Canis Lupus 2 (1:16)
• 23. Finale (1:09)
• 24. Choir Boys Farewell (To the Puppets) (4:35)
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The insert for neither album includes extra information
about the score or film.
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