| CLOSE WINDOW |
|
FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Alan Silvestri)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you can't get enough of that old Warner Brothers,
Looney Tunes style of frenetic, enthusiastic orchestral slapstick music,
Alan Silvestri mingling it with noir sentiment for this rowdy venture.
Avoid it... on any album other than the 2018 Intrada set if you seek a satisfying presentation of music from the film, assuming its dizzying personality doesn't make you want to strangle an animated character.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Who Framed Roger Rabbit: (Alan Silvestri) Hailed as
one of the most successful technological breakthroughs in the history of
the animated film genre, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was an
incredibly popular merging of animated and live-action filming
technologies in 1988. And while the seamless integration of these two
genres was heralded to no end at the time, the film strangely had little
impact on the actual future of merged animation and live action films.
It would take until 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action before
the technique could be perfected in the digital realm. Ironically, the
industry encountered even greater grosses in the interim by going back
to the strictly animated scene, and Disney hit the financial pot of gold
beginning the next year with The Little Mermaid and continuing
through all of the Alan Menken-composed projects of the 1990's. Despite
the success of its visuals, Who Framed Roger Rabbit turned out to
have a bigger legacy in the other realm in which it dabbled:
cross-studio character mingling. It was also famous for its rare
collaboration between Warner Brothers and Disney, and the licensing and
copyright nightmare that the film ended up creating, with strict
royalties necessitated for each appearance of a Warner Brothers property
in a Disney production, unfortunately made the idea largely a one-time
experiment for quite some time. No better a director to pull off this
competitive corporate challenge existed than Robert Zemeckis. Having
proven with Back to the Future that he was a bankable director,
Zemeckis tackled the project with charm and ingenuity, succeeding in
making a film that was much better than the messy corporate
circumstances under which it was created. After its Oscar-winning
success, Disney attempted for years to plan sequels and prequels, one of
which yielding six new songs from Menken in 1997 that were never further
developed. As such, Who Framed Roger Rabbit only inspired a few
animated shorts featuring the concept in the years following its debut.
Zemeckis had discovered composer Alan Silvestri during the production of
Romancing the Stone just a few years earlier, and their work
together on Back to the Future created undeniable movie magic.
The director naturally continued to trust Silvestri's talents, bringing
the aural atmosphere of a fictional noir cartoon studio to life in
Who Framed Roger Rabbit before concentrating solely on the
Back to the Future sequels.
Ultimately, Silvestri's task for Who Framed Roger Rabbit would be to accomplish a little merging of his own, too. The old, frenetic Looney Tunes style of breakneck writing had to be infused into the jazzy atmosphere of 1940's Los Angeles that exuded a significant dose of noir personality. Just as the film successfully combined its disparate visual halves, Silvestri created an extremely serviceable score for both the cartoon characters and the real-life actors and location of the film. In its general demeanor, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a trademark cartoon score, with slapstick breaks and dizzy rhythms that challenge the London Symphony Orchestra and jazz band to keep up with the mad dashing of the animated characters. It's a lightweight score in tone, its thematic development consistent but not enduring as a truly memorable element in the overall equation. The main, live-action detective and the location receive Silvestri's parody of Jerry Goldsmith's Chinatown, noir of an intentionally bloated, melancholy personality. Meanwhile, a jazzy identity for the animated love interest offers the equally sad romantic tilt to several associated scenes. The villain of the tale receives a low string and chime motif to match Christopher Lloyd's ridiculous performance. By no accident, some of the manic comedy mannerisms of Silvestri's handling of Doc Brown in the Back to the Future scores carries over to the action sequences here, representing the same hair-brained pace of humor. In general, this work relies on the bouncing creativity and positive energy that the orchestra generates to provide the same children's ambience that you'd expect to hear in any Warner Brothers cartoon. The delightful, upbeat personality of the score is carried by Silvestri's ability to adapt the style of legendary Warner Brothers animation composer Carl Stalling, who created all the memorable themes for the studio's legacy cartoons. No better a tribute is made to Stalling than in the logo music for the Maroon studio that opens the real film. Many subsequent cues exhibit the same Stalling character, fulfilling the basic environment necessary for the licensed supporting cast. Several slapstick adaptations of other famous themes are included in the mix, and a few direct statements of old Warner pieces throughout the score, including "That's All Folks," are a treat. Film music collectors will likely be drawn more predictably to the straight 1940's noir jazz, performed by trumpet with great solace in "Valiant & Valiant" and in the famous vocalized song, "Who Don't You Do Right?," which is the enduring musical centerpiece of the film. On album, various score and source music, as well as dialogue from the film, was released several times early on. At the time of the film's debut, a 40-minute album of music and dialogue from Who Framed Roger Rabbit was offered directly by Disney (Buena Vista, actually) in a promotional format of sorts that was sold mostly at Disney-related locations. Concurrently, Touchstone Records released a 46-minute album with more of Silvestri's music featured. Both albums fell badly out of print and were, for a while, considered significant collectibles. In 2002, Disney Records itself re-issued an identical copy of the 1988 Touchstone album with re-mastered sound and new cover art, and this updated product remained readily in print and easy to find for a few years before likewise becoming scarce. In 2018, Intrada Records provided a comprehensive 3-CD set featuring not only the full score as originally written by Silvestri, but the music recorded for the four animated shorts as well. Since Zemeckis rearranged Silvestri's music so thoroughly in the film, this lengthy set will be a revelation for the composer's collectors, finally allowing a faithful presentation of the score prior to its dismemberment for the final film edits. Some of the new cues are not insignificant, either, the late action piece "Steamroller" containing more than a hint of Predator mannerisms. The extra material, which extends to a variety of alternate cues as well, is a mixed blessing, however, because many of the comedic portions are redundant and potentially overwhelming. Still, the narrative is provided uninterrupted if not for the lengthy "Eddie's Theme" arrangement to open the second CD. The extended film version of "End Credits" is an outstanding summary of the entire score. Even more fascinating for collectors may be the three short scores not composed by Silvestri, who only handled the first one. Both "Rollercoaster Rabbit" and "Trail Mix-Up" come from Bruce Broughton, who lends his own Western-inspired interpretation of the Stalling playbook to the concept. There is carry-over of motifs between his two entries, but neither points back faithfully to Silvestri's themes. Meanwhile, "Tummy Trouble" was the work of James Horner, who was himself immersed in lighter animation at this time in his career. Horner also takes aim at pilfering Stalling, but the frenzied result of his efforts isn't quite as cohesive as Broughton's music, and his interpolations of famous melodies are not as well masked. The third CD of the Intrada set contains the original album remastered. On any product, the Silvestri score is a wild ride, as to be expected, but cartoon lovers will devour its shameless enthusiasm. The 2018 album is the only recommended product, as its presentation is as full-fledged and fabulous as Jessica Rabbit herself.
TRACK LISTINGS:
1988 Buena Vista Album:
Total Time: 39:15
1988 Touchstone and 2002 Disney Albums: Total Time: 46:02
2018 Intrada Album: Total Time: 175:08
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts for the 1988 and 2002 albums include no extra information about
the score or film. That of the 2018 Intrada product includes extensive information
about both.
Copyright ©
2003-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
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 Who Framed Roger Rabbit are Copyright © 1988, 2002, 2018, Buena Vista Records, Touchstone Records, Walt Disney Records, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 7/1/03 and last updated 6/28/18. |
