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| Zimmer |
The Little Prince: (Hans Zimmer/Richard Harvey)
With an abundance of charm and whimsy, the French 2015 adaptation of a
1943 French novel combined digital and stop-motion animation to tell its
fantastic tale of imaginative escapism. Although some core elements of
the story were modernized for
The Little Prince, its heart
remained intact. A little girl is subjected to a joyless existence of
rigorous school study by her mother, and she befriends an elderly
aviator who shares with her the other-worldly stories of his young
adventures with a "Little Prince" in the Sahara who actually lives on an
asteroid and interacts with all sorts of exotic species and locations.
In fits and starts, the precocious girl defies her mother to seek out
adventures that are largely of her imagination, ultimately reconciling
with the mom and helping the aviator back into the same fantastic realm
himself. Talking animals and wildly inventive destinations await, and
the film's blend of animation styles was highly commended by critics, as
was its adapted storyline. A star-studded vocal cast and carry-over crew
from the
Kung Fu Panda movies helped propel the project. Despite
Paramount's botched American distribution of the film, ultimately
selling the rights to Netflix but then having the film withdrawn from
that platform a few years later,
The Little Prince became the
most successful French aminated movie of all time internationally. Among
the
Kung Fu Panda collaborators of director Mark Osborne to
return was composer Hans Zimmer, though the project's schedule unfolded
in such a way that the score became a frantically rushed job involving a
slew of additional composers. While Zimmer's reliance upon associate
composers and ghostwriters was certainly not new, the extent to which it
affected
The Little Prince is notable, even down to temp track
annoyances bleeding though in the final product. The soundtrack was also
destined to feature three songs by French singer Camille Dalmais, known
professionally as simply Camille, who had previously contributed her
voice to Pixar's
Ratatouille. Zimmer and Camille handled the
composition of the songs, which retained strong French stylistic
elements and were performed in both English and French.
The Little
Prince doesn't really qualify as a musical, though, the songs
functioning as an accompaniment to the narrative rather than an integral
part of it.
There is little consistency between the three songs of
The Little Prince aside from Camille's voice. In international
cuts of the film, the performances are in English. "Turnaround" is
catchy, breezy, and very French, its really appealing style making it
the most memorable song of the lot. By comparison, "Equation" is
stagnant, with an abundance of tapping percussion and very distracting
background whispers, like barely audible secondary vocal tracks. There's
no real beginning or end to the song. Not really fitting with the other
two is "Le Tour de France en Diligence," a source-like, vintage French
throwback. "Turnaround Reprise" is more subdued in its first half before
a straight reprise of the prior rendition, and French-language versions
of the songs close out the album. While Zimmer is directly credited for
the songs in
The Little Prince, his involvement in the score is
murkier. Some reports suggest that the bulk of the writing fell to
veteran composer Richard Harvey, who was among the more classically
experienced regular collaborators at Zimmer's Remote Control Productions
at the time and had recently conducted the score for
Interstellar. Harvey's solo credits had included some outstanding
work for television films in the previous two decades, and he has always
been known as well for his outstanding performances on specialty
woodwinds. In part due to the short time period for the recording,
Harvey was joined by Benjamin Wallfisch, Dominic Lewis, Nathan
Stornetta, Czarina Russell, and Ed Buller for the assignment. The group
process of assembling the score did seem to impact its narrative and,
occasionally, its style. Generally, Harvey supplies a fair amount of
Alexandre Desplat and Bruno Coulais influence to this work, an excess of
fluffy celesta or glockenspiel joining frequent rambling piano figures
in airy action that is sometimes too chaotic to serve for any specific
purpose. The outward fantasy mode is addressed by dainty action cues
that struggle to maintain depth or resonance, with very little sustained
power. But the remainder of the work isn't as impacted by the relative
lack of substance in the soundscape, its pretty demeanor prevailing.
Harvey's whistle performances in "Preparation" are stunning, if not out
of place. On top of the songs, Camille provides wordless vocals
throughout the score, with a tone and layering very reminiscent of Panu
Aaltio's
Tale of a Lake. The instrumental personality is
consistent throughout most of the work, but some wayward cues definitely
expose themselves as ghostwriter diversions.
The song melodies are not clearly incorporated into the
score of
The Little Prince, which is a significant shame.
Instead, the score is loosely held together by a main theme that is
somewhat elusive, starting with seven quickly ascending notes and
whimsically falling patterns thereafter. It debuts at 0:22 into
"Preparation" on piano, returns briefly at 1:31 into "Driving," emerges
in the middle of "Amongst the Coins" in exotic variants, and flutters in
various guises throughout "Ascending," shifting between woodwinds and
piano. Camille's wordless vocals contribute to a major performance of
theme here, segueing into nice violin rhythms later that persist after
the theme's piano performance at 0:28 into "Parachutes," a cue that
becomes heavier with worry on strings. The main theme slightly closes
out "Draw Me a Sheep" and tries to develop into heroics on brass after
battling oddball haze at 0:32 into "The Journey." It explores its
secondary phrases on meandering piano in the first minute of "Trapped
Stars," which transitions to mysterious vocals in its latter half. Those
secondary phrases are lightly plucked late in "Farewell" and become
tentative at the outset of "Finding the Rose," where the theme melds
with the Rose theme. The finale in "Growing Up" consolidates the idea's
secondary phrases before the actual theme returns at 2:35 on piano and
informs the rest of the cue. The Rose theme is the highlight of the
work, its distinct Celtic flavor for penny whistle standing apart. It
shines on whistle in the latter half of "Preparation" and transitions to
vocals in the first half of "Draw Me a Sheep," where distinct melodic
lines in this cue are a major attraction. The vocals and whistle combine
for the theme in "Finding the Rose," a gorgeous fulfillment of the idea.
The only other impactful recurring theme is the comedic waltz heard at
0:27 into "The Interview" on lazy trumpet and slightly informing the
start of "The Journey" on bassoon before dominating the first half of
"The Absurd Waltz" with renditions at 0:08 and 0:46 on low, blurting
woodwinds. The whole of
The Little Prince is somewhat
schizophrenic, the sudden Thomas Newman tones from strings in "Getting
On With It" and solid Dominic Lewis cue, "Escape," ripping Zimmer's
"Celebrate the Oscars" piece far too obviously, albeit improving it
organically. A suite of highlights would include "Preparation,"
"Ascending," "Draw Me a Sheep," "Escape," and "Finding the Rose." Those
seeking the best Camille vocals should shun the songs and instead hear
"Draw Me a Sheep." Thrown together, though, the culmination of all these
composers' efforts is a score that is sufficient in its pleasant,
light-hearted tone but has frightfully little substance or narrative
cohesion to its themes, the songs only throwing the soundtrack further
into disarray.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
