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When I was a kid discovering music, I would pinch my father's CDs that I liked the most. My father listened to a lot of jazz and classical music, so that was where I started. Henry Mancini made an impression on me. I loved "Baby Elephant Walk" and "Pink Panther". There was another song on the same album called "Main Title from The Great Mouse Detective".
Being a child, and therefore prone to come up with my own definitions for things, I thought it cool that a composer my father liked had written a piece of music about an imaginary mouse detective. I thought it was just an idea that had occurred to Mancini one day; "Suppose there was this detective, but he was a mouse... I think his life would sound like this..." After all, he'd written music about baby elephants and pink panthers, so for me it wasn't much of a stretch. I loved the piece of music and was satisfied with my explanation for it.
Years later, I discovered the film Basil, The Great Mouse Detective at the video store. It had animals in it, so of course I hired it. When the opening credits started and the theme played, I froze. I knew that music! I scrabbled through my CDs to confirm that I was right, and sure enough, there it was on the track listing. I'd been listening to it for years and never learned that it was the theme music for a Disney film before that day that I'd hired it on a whim.
After I'd watched the film, I pulled out my CD and listened carefully to the title music several times. I heard it so differently having seen the film. I could picture the characters and their world. The piece seemed more emotive to me, knowing what it was created for. This was a piece that was part of my discovery of music. It wasn't something that I was told was good, it was a piece that I decided myself that I liked. I had made that choice independent of outside influence. I had listened to that album so many times growing up, I knew every little nuance of every track. And then, out of the blue, completely unwittingly, I'd discovered a whole new meaning to a piece that I thought I knew so well. It was an amazing experience to listen to a piece of music that I knew intimately, and hear it as though I was listening to it for the first time. Because it gave me that feeling, this film will always be special to me.
Final Thought: Hooray for mice with Scottish accents.
Up Next: Batman Begins (2005)
This film is a bit melodramatic for what it is. There's a great deal of gazing in to the middle distance, much dialogue delivered in an is-he-about-to-cry-oh-I-guess-not fashion, lots of longing. That could be part of why I watch it with a degree of cynicism, because it takes itself a bit seriously. It presents itself with the sort of gravity you'd see in a film about cancer. The characters seem perpetually overwhelmed by something they're not quite explaining to us.
It's always frustrating for me watching a film where at least one protagonist is meant to be an accomplished musician, because the actors are rarely cast with that in mind. I've already ranted about this in my post about The Artist, though in that case it was related to dancing. But the same applies here. Musicians can tell when a performer is faking it, and it's sometimes insulting that filmmakers don't think we'll notice.
For instance, in this film, there's a moment when August encounters a piano for the first time, and in his fascination he plays three notes. The three notes we see him play ascend the scale. The three notes we hear descend the scale.
...Really?? Come on!
Prior to that moment, I was thinking that the actors did a decent job at playing their instruments. Keri Russell has
something of a cellist vibe about her, and I would hardly be surprised
if Jonathan Rhys Meyers strummed out songs on guitar occasionally. They seemed really mindful of trying to make it realistic, so I almost forgave whichever sound guy it was who on numerous occasions apparently thought it unimportant to sync up what we hear with what we see played*.
Despite his being the title character, I think I would enjoy this film more if the focus was more on August's parents. So why is it in my collection? I got it out of curiosity, because I liked some of the actors, who coincidentally happen to be the ones playing August's parents.
Final thought: Robin Williams' bitter Bono-inspired cowboy is not my favourite thing about this movie.
Up Next: The Avengers (2012)
*Call me crazy, but I would have thought that if you're making a movie about people playing music, you'd make note of how it's meant to look when music is played.
