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FANTASTIC MR. FOX
A MUSIC ANALYSIS
José Miguel Vargas Rojas
Department of Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games
Berklee College of Music
Valencia Campus
July 2, 2014
Table of Contents
Thesis Statement
2
Background of the Film and Storyline
3
Music Analysis and correlation with the Image
6
Orchestration and Instrumentation Resources
32
Conclusions
34
Annexes
38
References
44
1
Thesis Statement
In this Soundtrack Analysis I am going to focus and investigate the film score of
animation movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, one of the most representative films in stop
motion technique, because of its innovative combination of original and pop
music as well as the insight it will give my future work as an animation scorer for
my Culminating Experience.
2
Background of the Film and Storyline
Loosely based on Roald Dahl´s book, Fantastic Mr. Fox brings the viewer into
the child-friendly world of an intrepid speaking fox and his plans to live a better
life.
The movie stars with Mr. Fox and his wife Felicity assaulting a square farm, when
suddenly they fall into a trigger a fox trap and become caged. Felicity tells to his
husband that she is pregnant and implores him to find a more traditional life
when they get away.
After two years (twelve in Fox Years), the Foxes and their teenager son Ash, a
typical rebel without case, are living in a hole. Mr. Fox currently is a newspaper
journalist and he wants to move the family into a better home in the base of a
tree, which is situated very near to Walter Boggis, Nathaniel Bunce, and Franklin
Bean houses, three powerful farmers of the region.
Mr. Fox decides to move, disregarding the warnings of his lawyer Badger about
how dangerous the area is for him and his family. Being in the new house,
Kristofferson, Felicity's nephew, comes to live with them as his father has
become very sick with pneumonia.
Wanting to return to his wild life, Mr. Fox persuades to Kylie Sven, an opossum
that works as a building superintendent, to steal the resources from the three
farms. Boggis, Bunce and Bean, the farmers, resolve to exterminate Mr. Fox and
camp out near the family's tree. When Mr. Fox appears, the farmers shoot, but
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achieve only to rip off his tail. They then tray to dig, forcing Mr. Fox to get out.
After bringing down the whole site of the tree, the farmers realize the Foxes have
fled digging a tunnel.
The farmers choose to wait at the tunnel entrance that the Foxes will have to
surface from, for food and water. Underground, Mr. Fox encounters Badger and
many other local animal residents whose homes have also been destroyed. As
the animals begin to be afraid of hunger, Mr. Fox leads a digging expedition to
tunnel to the three farms, stealing them clean. Whereas the animals feast, Ash
and Kristofferson, become friends after Kristofferson defended Ash from a bully,
return to Bean's farm, proposing to reclaim Mr. Fox's tail. When they are
interrupted by the arrival of Bean's wife, Ash escapes but Kristofferson is
captured.
Noticing that Mr. Fox has taken their produce, the farmers inundate the animals'
tunnel network with cider. The animals are forced into the sewers, and Mr. Fox
knows that the farmers plan to use Kristofferson to trap him into an ambuscade.
Rat, Bean’s security guard, confronts the animals. After a fight with Mr. Fox
leaves him mortally injured, Rat reveals Kristofferson's location before he dies.
Mr. Fox asks the farmers for a meeting in town close to the sewer hub; he will
surrender in interchange for Kristofferson's liberty. The farmers prepare an
ambush, but Fox and the others expect it and launch a counteroffensive. Fox,
Ash and Kylie slip into Bean’s farm. Ash, more mature, liberates Kristofferson
and braves enemy fire to release a rabid beagle named Spitz to keep the farmers
trapped.
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The animals become habituated to living in the drains with others considering
moving in. Kristofferson and Ash resolve their differences. Fox leads his family to
a drain opening built into the floor of a supermarket owned by the three farmers.
Celebrating their new food source and the news that Felicity is pregnant again,
the animals dance in the corridors as the film ends.
Not included in the book, in the film Mr. Fox split by his dual nature: on one hand
he strives to protect his kin and intends to be the perfect family man yet, on the
other, he dreams about the wilderness and fantasizes about the freedom that
wolves enjoy. The final scene of the movie depicts a meeting between Mr. Fox
and his idealized Wolf, mirroring his final decision of staying with his family, and
giving closure to the proposed adaptation.
Wes Anderson adapted the book into a film. This was made using stop-motion
animation and features the voices of George Clooney as Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep
as Mrs. Fox, Bill Murray as Badger, Hugo Guinness as Bunce, and Michael
Gambon as Bean. The film plot emphases more on Mr. Fox's relationship to Mrs.
Fox and his son, which is opposed against Mr. Fox's wish to rob chickens as a
means of feeling like his natural self. “The movie adds scenes before Mr. Fox
attacks the three farmers and after their bulldozing of the hill, as well as a slightly
altered ending and more background on Mr. Fox's past life as a thief of food”.1
1
(Wikipedia 2014)
2
(Weintraub 2009)
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Music Analysis and correlation with the Image
1. Opening Title
In the beginning of the movie the music stars with an introduction composed by
Desplat, based on the intro of the song: “The Ballad Of Davy Crockett”,
performed by The Wellingtons. This short intro accompanies the presentation of
the film, where it’s established that the film is based on the original tale.
It’s interesting as this small piece of music is converted from background music
to source music, becoming the music the Mr. Fox is listening on his radio.
The piece is written in crescendo mode, starting with one instrument and adding
a new one every two bars.
2. The Ballad Of Davy Crockett
This cue that is presented as source music, comes connected with previous cue.
This song “The Ballad Of Davy Crockett” was composed by George Bruns with
lyrics by Thomas W. Blackburn, and was created originally for the fifties’
television series “Davy Crocket”.
The song’s lyric represents rebellion, freedom and wildness of Mr. Fox, and
supports the introduction of the main character: “Born on a mountain top in
Tennessee, Greenest state in the Land of the Free, Raised in the woods so's he
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knew every tree, Kilt him a b’ar when he was only three, Davy, Davy Crockett,
King of the wild frontier”
The music is interrupted when Mr. Fox’s wife coming to talk with him
3. Mr. Fox in the fields
The scene shows the youth of Mr. Fox and his wife Felicity.
The music presented in this scene contains the leitmotif of the main character Mr.
Fox. It stars with the harmony played by the banjo.
After that we can listen to three different melodies, which will are present in the
entire film, the plucked instruments, mandolin and ukulele, perform the first:
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The second, more cantabile, is played by the cello:
And the last is presented by the celesta.
The strings in pizzicato create the accompaniment with the same syncopation
rhythmic formula of the banjo.
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4. Heroes and Villains
The music for this sequence is the song “Heroes and Villains”, originally
composed by The Beach Boys, and it accompanies three special moments: The
first is an action sequence where Mr. Fox and his wife are stealing in a farm, this
stops suddenly when Mr. Fox runs into an animal trap and falls in it.
The music returns after Felicity declares to her husband that she is pregnant and
his reaction is between happiness and concern. The music stops again when she
decides that Mr. Fox should have another type of life and should not continue to
steal.
The third segment of the music appears after a leap in time when the film shows
the current married life of Mr. Fox. For this part the rallentando excerpt is chosen,
the last portion of the song, in form of a parody related to the drastic change of
Mr. Fox’s life mode, when he has gone from “rebel life” to a “standard” family life.
5. Fooba Wooba John
In this scene the song “Fooba Wooba John” is used like source music on the Fox
family radio. This song was composed and performed by Burl Ives, and it
appears in the album “Little White Duck” from 1959.
The music doesn’t make reference to the image, is only used for ambience. The
image is presented Mr. Fox’s son Ash in a typical family breakfast. The music
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stops when Mr. Fox turns off the radio and tells Felicity that he wants to leave his
“hole house” to live in a comfortably “tree house”, buy his wife reasons with him
that they are too poor and can’t get an expensive place. Mr. Fox turns on the
radio after telling Felicity that he needs to do something to change their house.
There is a music edition trick, the original music has a length of one minute and
seven seconds, but in the total sequence one minute and nineteen seconds of
music are used. This happens when Mr. Fox turns on the radio again, and the
music starts before that the original off point.
6. Mr. Fox’s theme (2)
When Mr. Fox sees the tree house that he wants, the banjo intro performs for few
seconds.
7. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean
Mr. Fox is in the tree house that he wants buy, and suddenly he sees through the
windows the houses of Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. At this moment the leitmotif of
these characters is presented.
The brass, split in a few fragments, plays the first line of the melody,
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A piccolo plays the seconds’ four bars.
The plucked instruments: banjo and guitar perform the harmony in a tango
rhythm escorted with a snare drum.
8. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean (2)
Mr. Fox is speaking with Clive Badger, a real estate lawyer responsible for selling
the house. Clive tries to deter Mr. Fox from buying the house, explaining that
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean live nearby and they are very dangerous.
The Boggis, Bunce, and Bean theme plays again, while Clive describes each one
of the characters, but this time the music works like a variation: the tuba starts
with the melody seconded by a muted trumpet, after that the French horns take
the melody and returns again to the tuba. The melody ends with a military
melodic phrase performed by the trumpet.
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While the banjo plucked strings in arpeggiato formula create a harmony
accompanied by the glockenspiel, the other plucked strings make the
accompaniment in syncope with the percussion.
9. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean chorus (3)
Clive turns on a tape recorder and shows Mr. Fox the “Boggis, Bunce, and Bean”
theme sung by kids. The lyrics, like a child derision, describe the characters:
“Boggis, Bunce, and Bean One fat, one short, one lean. Those horrible crooks so
different in looks are nonetheless equally mean”
About of the origin of the song, the director Wes Anderson comments in an
interview given to the Collider online cinema magazine: “That was working with
Alexandre Desplat our composer. I said, “You know,” it was literally this. “Okay,
so I’m going to come back on Tuesday. Oh, by the way, see if there’s like a tune
for this farmer’s song. These are the words here.” Ba ba ba ba bum and he
hummed it immediately using a theme he’d already written for the farmers, and
within 20 seconds he had the song and that was that. Which I will say is exciting
if you have somebody who’s that kind of talented and versatile who can just
adapt the thing you’re talking about immediately. The next thing we knew we
were kind of expanding it into this whole song for this showdown scene.”2
2
(Weintraub 2009)
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10. Jimmy Squirrel and Co.
This scene shows the moving to the tree house, and the background music helps
create a fast movement feeling.
The mandolin plays the melody accompanied in harmony by the guitar. Then the
recorder plays the same phrase and the orchestration increases with the
introduction of the glockenspiel in broken chords. After that, the melody is played
again, but this time for the string section in pizzicato, a counterpoint melody
appears which the cello plays.
At the end of this cue, when Kristofferson appears, the music changes and the
glockenspiel performs the leitmotif of this character.
11. Love
While the Fox family and their nephew, Kristofferson, enjoy of a typical family rest
day the song “Love” is played in a turntable. This song was written by Floyd
Huddleston and George Burns and sung by Nancy Adams, and was composed
originally for the animation film of 1959 “Robin Hood”.
12. Kristofferson's theme
Mr. Fox and Kylie contemplate the night landscape and Mr. Fox ponders about
his own natural animal behavior. The music attached for this meditation moment
is the Kristofferson theme, which begins with a string pizzicato making the
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harmony. The melody, a small pattern in ostinato, is played a few bars after by
the glockenspiel,
This is accompanied by a long notes phrase performed by viola and the bassoon.
After this, the melody returns but this the time, besides the glockenspiel, the
plucked strings are included and the bassoon with cello replaces the viola in the
harmony because the tessiture is lower now.
13. Buckeye Jim
This song, performed by Burl Ives, which appears in the same album “Little White
Duck” works as source music while Ash and Kristofferson argue because
Kristofferson wants to have a better place to sleep and Ash refuses.
14. High-speed French Train
Ash turns on his toy train to comfort Kristofferson, who is crying because of their
discussion. In this moment the previous music (Buckeye Jim) fades out while the
music of the train starts. Suddenly, the image changes to a panorama view of the
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean houses where a real train is crossing, the source train
music switches to background music, becoming louder and making the music
more present.
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The glockenspiel creates the melody followed by a march rhythm in the
percussion, tuba and plucked strings.
15. Mr. Fox’s master plan A
Mr. Fox explains his master stealing plan to Kylie, and persuades him to work
together. While Mr. Fox explains the plan, an action music performed by a low
drum and a ukulele is played.
The scene has many interruptions: images of Mr. Fox developing the plan are
interjected with Kylie and Mr. Fox´s conversation. The music always joins in the
developing of the plan images.
16. Mr. Fox’s master plan Boggi’s chicken house (2)
Mr. Fox and Kylie carry out the plan to steal Boggi’s chickens. In the background
the previous music sounds again, this time the percussion is increased with a
snare. In the end the whistle plays the melody that is escorted by snaps.
The sequence has several pauses, which occur when Mr. Fox and Kylie find
trouble in their plan.
17. Mr. Fox stealing chickens (Plan B music)
Mr. Fox throws a blueberry with sleeping powder to Boggi’s beagle, and
immediately a melody in the best Bluegrass style starts. The main melody is
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performed by the mandolin and accompanied by the banjo, guitars, bass, drums,
even a jew’s harp.
In this long sequence the action music and the Bluegrass theme appear
simultaneously, credited as Plan B in the album: Fantastic Mr. Fox (Additional
Music from the Original Score) [The Abbey Road Mixes]
18. Horn Concerto No 4 in E Flat Major – III Rondo
Mr. Fox and Kylie steal in Bunce’s refrigerated smokehouse and Bounce doesn’t
realize because he is distracted listening through his headphones the Third
Movement of Mozart’s Horn Concerto No 4 in E Flat Major.
19. Whack-bat Majorette
Kristofferson receives instructions from the coach to play Whack-bat and
replaces Ash on the playing field. The music that accompanies the scene is a
theme performed like a school marching band melody.
The music is performed as if a school band was rehearsing. When Kristofferson
makes a great move the drums escorts him.
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20. The Grey Goose
The Fox family and Kylie are having dinner and the source music is the song
“The Grey Goose” performed by Burl Ives, included in the album “Little White
Duck” as the rest of the songs of this artist used in this film.
21. Mr. Fox Master Plan A (3)
This time the music appears in an action sequence played by the drums. The
scene shows Mr. Fox, Kylie and Kristofferson trying to steal in Bean’s secret
cider cellar.
22. Bean's Secret Cider Cellar
Mr. Fox, Kylie and Kristofferson get in to Bean´s cellar; the security Rat gets in
their way trying to stop them from stealing. The music is in this scene reminds us
of the most popular western films, as Laurence Mc Donald describe in his book
The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History “The high trumpet and
whistled tones in the score evoke the sounds of Ennio Morricone’s music for
Spaghetti Westerns”3.
The plucked strings and low drums accompany in a strong pattern rhythm, while
the whistle performs the main melody:
3
(McDonal 2013)
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The jaw harp appears again on that music. Later the banjo plays a second
melody
followed by the flute.
23. Looking for cider
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean make an emergency meeting to talk about of Fox´s
theft in their farms. A march, like funeral pomp, escorts the scene. This music is
part of the Additional Music album.
The melody starts with tuba, and this is based on the Boggis, Bunce and Bean
theme:
24. Three Farmers
Mr. Fox and Kylie leave Mr. Fox’s house, but they don’t expect that Boggis,
Bunce, and Bean are waiting outside to shoot them. After the shootout Mr. Fox
and Kylie are alive, but Mr. Fox has lost his tail.
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The music in the background is Three Farmers, which it appears in the album
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Additional Music from the Original Score) [The Abbey Road
Mixes]. This theme is based in the Boggis, Bunce, and Bean music, but with a
slower tempo closer to a funeral march.
25. Family digging (Plan B Music)
Mr. Fox and his wife are talking in bed when they realize that the house is being
demolished. Together with their family, they decide to dig to save their lives.
The music that escorts the scene is Plan B, which it appears again with a drum
intro and is followed by a bluegrass pattern.
26. Une Petite Ile
Felicity argues with Mr. Fox because of the recent events, she is upset because
Mr. Fox has failed to fulfill his promise to not steal anymore.
The music used to accompany is “Une Petite Ile”, it was composed by Georges
Delerue for the Francis Truffaut movie: “Lex deus anglaises et le continent”, it
was called “Two English Girls” for the American audience.
27. Street Fighting Man
The Fox family must dig deeper because Boggis, Bunce, and Bean decide to find
them at all cost.
19
The background music used for this scene is “Street Fighting Man” composed by
Rolling Stones, song that appears in the album “Beggars Banquet”, released in
1968.
28. The siege begins (Three Farmers music)
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean are looking for Mr. Fox desperately, for that reason
they design an exhaustive search.
The last part of the music Three Farmers, included in the album Fantastic Mr.
Fox (Additional Music from the Original Score) [The Abbey Road Mixes], appears
accompanying this fragment. The melody is alternated between the different
brass instruments and the plucked strings and mallets present the harmonic
rhythmic pattern.
29. New friends in the hole
Clive the lawyer and other neighbors appear in the same hole that Mr. Fox and
his family are.
Desplat uses a suspense music for this segment, instrumented by the Jew harp
and strings, using extended techniques in harmonics.
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30. Mr. Fox Master Plan A (4)
In this sequence several events happen; the most important is Kristofferson
defends Ash in a fight.
The music used to escort is the long drum pattern, which has been presented
before.
31. Mr. Fox in the fields Medley
Being in the hole, Mr. Fox has an idea to escape the Boggis, Bunce, and Bean
chase. The music used for this scene is Mr. Fox in the fields, but this time
Desplat uses a variation on tempo and orchestration.
32. Digging – One human Hour Later (Plan B music)
Mr. Fox and his neighbors are digging again, following Mr. Fox’s plan. The
background music for this fragment, as usual, is the Bluegrass of the Plan B
music.
The music starts again when Mr. Fox arrives to Boggis’ henhouse.
33. Fantastic Mr Fox AKA Petey’s Song
Mr. Fox celebrates having reached to Boggis’ henhouse turning on the radio, the
source music on the radio becomes a real performance by Petey and his band.
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Jarvis Cocker, the famous Rock Star front man of British band “Pulp”, becomes
the character Petey. The song is a short story about the Mr. Fox chase: Bout a
handsome little fox Let me sing you folks a yarn Hey, diddle-dee, duddleda, doddle-do, doodle-dum
‘Twas a splendid little fella Full of wit and grace and charm Say zippy-zee, zappyza, yappy-yo, goggle-gum. Well, like any little critter needing Vittles for his littleuns Well, he stole and he cheated And he lied just to survive. With a doodle-dum,
diddle-da, duddle-diddle-doodle-dum With a zippy-zo, zippy-zay, zippy-zappyzoopy-zee. Oh, doo-dah, doo-dah, day! Let me take a little tick now To color in
the scene ‘Cross the valley lived 3 yokels Name of Boggis, Bunce and Bean.
Now these 3 crazy jackies Had our hero on the run Shot the tail off the cuss With
a fox-shooting gun But that stylish little fox Was clever as a whip Dug as quick as
a gopher That was hyperactive. Now those 3 farmers sit ‘Twhere there’s a hole
’twas once a hill Singing diddle-dee, duddle-da, doddle-do, doodle-dum. And as
far as I can reckon They’re sitting up there still Singing zippy-zee, zappy-za,
yoppy-yo…
34. Night and Day
Phil the mole plays the popular tune “Night and day” on the piano while the rest
of the animals celebrate the robbery in the Boggis, Bunce and Bean properties.
Cole Porter originally composes this song and the instrumental version played in
the movie is by Art Tatum, the famous pianist.
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This melody was recorded in 1946, and was released in the album “Master of
Jazz” of 1984.
35. Adagio
Clive is preparing to give a speech when Mr. Fox interrupts him. The source
music used in this scene is the Adagio composed by Georges Delerue, that it is
originally for “Comptes à Rebours” the French – Italy movie of 1970 directed by
Roger Pigaut.
36. Master Plan (5)
Ash and Kristofferson come into Bean’s kitchen to rescue Mr. Fox’s tale. As
usual, the suspense music used by Desplat is the long drum pattern, intercalated
with different percussion instruments and varying the dynamics in order to
increase the tension.
37. Adagio (2)
Mr. Fox continues with his speech and Delerue’s Adagio appears again. The
music stops suddenly and Mr. Fox, worried, asks about Ash and Kristofferson.
38. Une Petite Ile (2)
Mr. Fox is pondering about his owns acts close to a waterfall that falls into the
pipeline, when Felicity comes to him. In this moment of closeness between Mr.
Fox and his wife, the music “Une Petit Ile” sounds again. It was used before in a
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similar context, as a leitmotif of Mr. Fox and Felicity in their moments of
thoughtfulness and privacy.
39. Kristofferson theme (2)
Mr. Fox approaches Ash to tell him that he is very proud of him. The music that
accompanies the scene is the Kristofferson theme.
It is interesting that the music used is only the first part of the entire melody. The
decision for this long cue was to restart the initial melody instead of using the full
theme.
40. Rat Fight
The Rat gives Clive and the others the farmers’ message where they say that
they have Mr. Fox’s son. After that, a fight starts where Rat, Ash, Felicity and Mr.
Fox are involved.
The music for this long sequence is based on the Rat theme, presented before in
the Bean's Secret Cider Cellar cue. The music is including in the album Fantastic
Mr. Fox (Additional Music from the Original Score) [The Abbey Road Mixes].
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41. Death of Rat
Rat is dying after the fight with Mr. Fox. Desplat uses the Rat theme to create this
musical section, but this time with a slow tempo and an arpeggio as
accompaniment in the glockenspiel.
The melody is included in both albums: Fantastic Mr. Fox in the last part of the
track Just Another Dead Rat in a Garbage Pail (behind a Chinese Restaurant),
and also in the album of the Additional Music.
42. Le Grand Chorale
Mr. Fox turns on his radio and starts his speech to the animals to rescue his
nephew. The source music is “Le Grand Chorale” composed by Georges
Delerue. This music was written originally for the film of 1973 “Day for Night”,
directed by the French filmmaker François Truffaut.
43. I get Around
The animals are agreed to help to Mr. Fox in the rescue of his nephew. The
background music for this scene is “I get around” the famous song performed by
The Beach Boys.
This song is originally included in the album “All summer long” of 1964.
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44. Great Harrowsford Square
Mr. Fox makes his plan, writing a letter to Boggis, Bunce and Bean. The music
that accompanies this long sequence is based on the Boggis, Bunce and Bean
theme: the banjo plays the accompaniment with a slow rhythm pattern with the
timpani; the tuba shows the melody in a very slow tempo
The music continues but with different changes, a whistle solo, accompanied in
the rhythm by footsteps like a march, interprets the second part.
The theme is developed and the trumpet performs the melody.
A new element appears in the melody, which is performed by the plucked strings.
In the background of the music we can listen to the a voice speaking Boggis,
Bunce, Bean, one fat, one short, one lean”.
The entire atmosphere reminds us of the western movies; like in a cowboy duel,
Desplat manages to synthesize the whole environment in his music.
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The music changes radically when Mr. Fox and his friend attack the city with burn
seeds, thenceforth the boys voice choir appear singing the Boggis, Bunce and
Bean theme in a faster tempo.
It interesting that the music converts in source music in certain point and backs
again to background music.
45. Le Grand Chorale.
Mr. Fox and Kylie emerge from the pipeline in a motorcycle. Le Grand Chorale
music, composed by George Delerue, appears again, but this time as
background music.
46. Rescuing to Kristofferson
Mr. Fox, Kylie and Ash get in to the Bean Annex, to rescue to Kristofferson.
Desplat writes the music for this scene, which stars with a rhythm pattern
syncopated performed by snaps. The melody is performed by the timpani in the
very beginning.
The melody turns in different instruments, like voices, banjo, the woodwinds and
the glockenspiel; a roll in the drums alternates the rhythm pattern, but the snap is
sustained in the whole fragment.
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47. Stunt Expo (First Part)
Mr. Fox, Kylie, Ash and Kristofferson is trying to scape from the Bean Annex,
suddenly they encounter to Boggis, Bunce, Bean and their chase group.
Desplat wrote a music for this scene based in the countermelody of the Boggis,
Bunce and Bean choir theme. The strings play the melody, while the snare in a
march roll makes the rhythm and the brass perform the harmony.
Afterwards, the plucked strings join to brass in to the accompaniment.
On the second part of the music we can listen clearly to the Boggis, Bunce and
Bean melody played by the brass.
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48. Stunt Expo (Second Part)
Ash achieves to overcome the obstacles. He shoots and he opens the door so
that the beagle watchdog can escape and begins to chase to Boggis, Bunce,
Bean and the others.
The music used for this cue is the Boggis, Bunce and Bean choir theme.
49. Canis Lupus
Mr. Fox stops the motorcycle and tries to talk with a wolf that they found on the
way. This a dramatic moment in the movie because the wolf reflects the wild side
of Mr. Fox.
Desplat composes the music for this scene, based in the Boggis, Bunce and
Bean countermelody, that he has used before for the Stunt Expo piece. The
music starts with a boy voice solo, which performs the melody
Later on, the horns make harmony
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Afterwards, the harmony adds up other orchestral instruments. Finally, the music
ends with the boy voice solo again.
50. Ol‚ Man River
The animals are shown into their new home, after the chase to which they have
been subjected.
The music choosen to accompany this scene is the song “Ol, Man River”
composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, in the The Beach
Boys’ version. This music was part of the compilation album “Hawthorne” of
2001.
However, the second part played when Mr. Fox opens the sewer cover, is the
version of the remasterized album “Friends” of 2001, with guitar accompaniment.
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51. Mr. Fox in the fields (2)
Felicity lets Mr. Fox know that she is pregnant again. Desplat uses the music of
Mr. Fox in the fields again; as he used in the beginning, now he uses it for the
end.
The scene is long, for that reason the music starts again in this cue.
52. Let Her Dance
Mr. Fox finishes his toast and Ash turns on his radio. The music for the end is the
song “Let her Dance” performed by The Bobby Fuller Four. This song belongs to
the homonymous single of 1965.
53. Music on the credits:
Fantastic Mr Fox AKA Petey’s Song, instrumental version by Jarvis Cocker
High-speed French Train – Alexander Desplat
Side Car Escape – Alexander Desplat
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Orchestration and Instrumentation Resources
“Anderson instructs Desplat to veer away from conventions for a more reflective,
personal score. On Fantastic Mr. Fox, the director suggested that since it was a
stop motion puppet movie, the orchestra should be puppet-size. ‘I shrunk a string
orchestra to five musicians and the brass to one of each. All of the other
instruments were micro instruments: mandolins, little banjos, little toys, a
glockenspiel’.”4
This way, Desplat wrote for a reduced orchestra: one musician for every
instrument, achieving more intimate and closer sound, but with the idea to have
all the orchestral timbre in the soundtrack.
In addition to those instruments, Desplat utilized the traditional instruments of
bluegrass, an American folklore genre of the fifties, in order to create in his music
an ambience of this style. For that reason he used banjo, ukulele, steel guitar,
mandolin and Jew harp.
The result is a mixture of a condensed orchestra with a bluegrass band. Desplat
was interviewed by Todd Martens, for Los Angeles Times, and he expresses in
this interview: “It's (the soundtrack of the film) instrumentation you'd use in
bluegrass or country music,” Desplat said, “but I think I twisted it by adding
4
(Patches 2014)
32
instruments that would not be a part of the usual instrumentation for this kind of
music.”5
Desplat was assisted for the orchestration by Jean-Pascal Beintus and Sylvain
Morizet, with whom he had worked before in films like “The Twilight Saga: New
Moon" and "Un prophète", among others. Additionally, his sister Marie-Christine
Desplat also worked as an orchestrator for the film. A list of the entire
instruments and the musical crew is annexed on the end of this document (see:
Annex Music Department Crew)
5
(Martens 2009)
33
Conclusions
Fantastic Mr. Fox Soundtrack is a well achieved combination between folk music
and orchestral music, including romantic intimate music and suspense music with
a great reminiscence of spaghetti westerns; all of this with an acquired reference
of the popular American music of the middle of the twenty century.
The intention of Desplat in his score was very pragmatic and at the same time
ludic. Thereby, the music is used a little more playfully than in the other films: for
example, “Anderson pauses the music twice as Fox stops to listen while running
through the wheat field en route to the first break-in”. 6 Desplat creates this
“dialogue” leaving spaces in the music and image to emphasize the film events
and get a stronger dramatic effect.
“At times, folksy and often referencing rootsy Americana sounds, Desplat's score
contains flashes of Ennio Morricone as well as playful riffs on hillbilly music. Yet
it's not completely old-school. Banjos and mandolins give way to a "minuscule
orchestra" of five string players, and minimalist keyboard and percussive patterns
throw off any sense of time or place”7.
Todd Martens, in the interview made to Alexander Desplat, makes an accurate
description about Desplat’s score: “Not quite Western and not quite orchestral,
perhaps a better word to describe Alexandre Desplat's score for Fantastic Mr.
Fox is fragile. Like the meticulously detailed stop-motion creatures that populate
6
(Browning 2011)
7
(Martens 2009)
34
the Wes Anderson film, Desplat's score is one that's finely drawn, with each
pluck of a banjo or flicker of a harp clearly audible.
For Fantastic Mr. Fox, Desplat was thinking small, so small that he wanted the
music to sound as if it were being performed by the foxes, badgers and rats that
inhabit the world of the film: ‘I just felt that if we found a sound that would belong
to these little puppets, it would make them come alive,’ Desplat said. ‘I suggested
to Wes that we do a sort of puppet orchestra. I wanted to make everything sound
like they were playing. I wanted little things the mandolin, the banjo, the whistle,
the recorder and all these little families of instruments. They weren't toys but kind
of toy-ish instruments’.”8
The other important point is the use of leitmotivs during the entire film: “there is a
feeling of Sergey Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf (1936) in Desplats’s composition
of themes for different animal characters, which are then modulated according to
circumstances”9. For example, “the score’s principal theme is introduced when
Mr. Fox is warned about the three farmers through a song the local children sing,
the theme returns in cues that also feature trumpet and drums; a whistled version
is included when Mr. Fox, along with Ash and their opossum friend, rescue his
nephew” 10.
Another example of the importance between characters and distinctive
instruments can be observed in the “Rat’s theme, it is full of bravado when he
8
(Martens 2009)
9
(Browning 2011)
10
(McDonal 2013)
35
first confronts Fox with dramatic drums, Spanish-style guitar, pipes and whistles,
all creating evocations of Ennio Morricone’s score for Sergio Leones’s Dollars
trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), A Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the
Bad and the Ugly (1966). As Rat’s fortune change and he is about to die, a more
melancholic version is heard with the glockenspiel and bells sounding his death
knell, to be replaced by a single voice accompanied by a horn effectively singing
his requiem”.11
Fantastic Mr. Fox Soundtrack has a peculiar particularity, it is eclectic from
different points of view: first, the timbre turns between orchestral and pop music;
second, the different dramatics genres approach: romantic, suspense, action and
playful; and lastly, it also includes pre-existing music as part of the soundtrack,
becoming even more varied, because includes different references from pop, folk
and going through other films’ soundtracks.
Observing the incidence of the popular music, Mark Browning describes about:
“the retro rock is less intrusive in Fantastic Mr. Fox, possibly because there it
always appears combined with original music (composed by Desplat). It also
seems to be strongly motivated from within the action and the time when the
movie is set: that is, not sandpapering over emotional cracks. Instead, it marks a
hedonist action, such as the dance at the end, or Jarvis Cocker’s ‘Petey’s Song’,
an excuse for a gag about improvisation”12. However, in the pre-existing music,
11
(Browning 2011)
12
(Browning 2011)
36
there are several references of the groups of the middle of the twenty-century like
The Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, The Wellingtons and The Bobby Fuller Four.
All these popular music references reinforce the idea that the film is possibly set
it in a scenario close to the American fifties; even jazz is present with the music
of Cole Porter, performed by Art Tatum, and most of the other recursive elements
are a selection made by Anderson of several songs from the children oriented
album “Little White Duck” from 1959, performed by Burl Ives.
In the pre-existing music, Anderson also uses different pieces of other
soundtracks, for example “ ‘Love’ by Floyd Huddlestone and George Burns which
lightly accompanies the dividing scene and belongs to Robin Hood (a Wolfgang
Retherman film, 1973), in which the central couple, Robin and Marian,
coincidentally, were also both foxes”13.
The use of other soundtracks sources become much more evident with the
appearance of several compositions from Georges Delerue for different movies:
“Two English Girls” (François Truffaut, 1971), “Comptes à Rebours” (Roger
Pigaut, 1971) and “Day for Night” (François Truffaut, 1973). It seems that
Anderson is influenced by Delerue’s music.
13
(Browning 2011)
37
Annexes
Annex A: Music Department Crew14
Piers Adams
Richard Addison
Musician: Recorder
Musician: Woodwinds (Clarinet)
Jim Anderson
Musician: Brass (Tuba)
Wes Anderson
Song: Music And Lyrics By
David Arch
Musician: Celeste
Chris Baron
Musician: Percussions
John Barrett
Pro Tools Operator
Jean-Pascal Beintus
Orchestrator
Richard Berry
Musician: Brass (French Horn)
Dave Bishop
Musician: Saxophone
Dudley Bright
Musician: Brass (Trombone)
Nicholas Bucknall
Musician: Woodwinds (Clarinet)
Peter Clarke
Music Editor
Paul Clarvis
Musician: Percussions
Peter Cobbin
Score Recording Engineer
Jarvis Cocker
Song: Music And Lyrics By
David Coulter
Musician: Petey's Band (Mandolin, Ukulele)
Mitchell Dalton
Musician: Guitars (As Mitch Dalton)
Gordon Davidson
Assistant Score Mixing Engineer
Philippa Davies
Musician: Woodwinds (Flute)
Alexandre Desplat
Composer / Conductor / Orchestrator
Marie-Christine Desplat
Orchestrator
Jessica Dolinger
Music Clearance And Licensing
Andrew Dudman
Score Recording Engineer
Jim Dunbar
Music Coordinator
Richard Edwards
Musician: Brass (Trombone)
Tracey Edwards
Musician: Brass (French Horn)
Xavier Forcioli
Music Production Coordinator
Rod Franks
Musician: Brass (Trumpet)
Tristan Fry
Musician: Timpani
David Fuest
Musician: Woodwinds (Clarinet, Bass Clarinet)
Grégoire Garrigues
Musician: Petey's Band (As Gregoire Garrigues)
Nigel Gomm
Musician: Brass (As Nigel Gomme)
Isobel Griffiths
Musicians Contractor
Stephen Henderson
Musician: Percussions
14
(International Movie Database 2009)
38
Jill Kemp
Musician: Brass (Trombone)
Musician: Piccolo/Recorder
Piccolo Flute
Musician: Recorder
Gary Kettel
Musician: Percussions
Andy Kitchen
Pro Tools Operator
Annabel Knight
Musician: Recorder
Christopher Laurence
Musician: Double Bass (As Chris Laurence)
Dominique LeMonnier
Musician: Traffic Quintet (Violin)
Bill Lockhart
Musician: Percussions
The London Oratory School Schola
Musician: Boys Choir
Jean-Yves Lozac'h
Musician: Petey's Band (Banjo And Pedal Steel Guitar)
Sara Matarazzo
Music Clearance And Licensing
Glyn Matthews
Musician: Percussions
Gerard McCann
Supervising Music Editor
Tristan Montroco
Pro Tools Operator
Christophe Morin
Musician: Traffic Quintet (Cello)
Maurice Murphy
Musician: Brass (Trumpet/Piccolo Trumpet)
Anna Noakes
Musician: Woodwinds (Flute)
Philippe Noharet
Musician: Traffic Quintet (Double Bass)
Sam Okell
Score Recording Engineer (As Sam Ockell)
John Parricelli
Musician: Banjo/Ukulele/Guitar/Mandolin
Randall Poster
Music Supervisor
David Pyatt
Nina Robertson
Musician: Brass
Musician:
Keyboard
Percussions
Percussions
Musician: Woodwinds (Flute)
Claude Romano
Music Preparation
Ralph Salmins
Musician: Drum Kit
Owen Slade
Musician: Brass (Tuba)
Jean-Pierre Sluys
Music Recordist: Petey's Band
Darren Smith
Musician: Brass (Trombone)
Alison Stephens
Musician: Mandolin
Dave Stewart
Musician: Brass (Bass Trombone)
Jamie Talbot
Musician: Saxophone
Phil Todd
Musician: Saxophone
Jean Touitou
Musician: Petey's Band
Norbert Vergonjeanne
Music Preparation (As Norbert Vergonjanne)
Anne Villette
Musician: Traffic Quintet (Violin)
Estelle Vilotte
Musician: Traffic Quintet (Viola)
Sam Walton
Musician: Percussions
Lee Ward
Choirmaster
Felix Wareing
Musician: Solo Boy Vocalist
Richard Watkins
Musician: Brass (French Horn)
Mike Hext
Helen Keen
Frank Ricotti
39
Musician:
Woodwinds
/
Musician:
Lucy Whalley
Assistant Musician Contractor
Nigel Woodhouse
Musician: Guitars/Banjo/Mandolin
Robert Houston
Additional Music Editor (Uncredited)
Sylvain Morizet
Additional Orchestrator (Uncredited)
40
Annex B: Cue Sheet
Cue #
Time
Image Reference
1
0:01:04
Open Titles
2
0:01:20
Mr. Fox close to a tree
3
0:01:59
Mr. Fox's Wife comes to the tree where
Mr. Fox is
4
0:03:03
Mr. Fox and his wife are stealing in a Farm
0:04:33
Felicity confesses to Mr. Fox that she is
pregnant
The Fox's hole house
0:04:56
Family Fox breakfast
0:04:11
5
0:05:58
Mr. Fox. turns on the radio and finishes his
breakfast
Mr. Fox sees the tree house that he wants
to buy
Music (name
OST)
American
Empirical Pictures
The Ballad Of
Davy Crockett
Mr. Fox in the
fields
Heroes And
Villains
Alexandre
Desplat
The
Wellingtons
Alexandre
Desplat
The Beach
Boys
Source
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
"
"
"
00:20
"
Fooba Wooba
John
"
"
Source
Music
00:26
Composer
Burl Ives
Use
Length
Main Title
00:15
00:36
01:00
00:43
00:42
"
"
"
00:37
Mr. Fox in the
fields
(Based on Boggis,
Bunce, and Bean)
not included
Boggis, Bunce,
and Bean
(Chorus sings
Boggis, Bunce,
and Bean) not
included
Jimmy Squirrel
and Co.
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:12
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:27
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:48
Alexandre
Desplat
Source
Music
00:10
Alexandre
Desplat
6
0:06:36
7
0:07:26
Mr. Fox sees Boggis', Bunce's, and Bean's
houses from the window
8
0:08:25
Clive describes (in off) Boggis, Bunce, and
Bean
9
0:09:16
Clive plays the tape recorder
10
0:10:00
Fox family moving
11
0:10:48
Kristofferson arrives to Fox house
Love
Nancy Adams
12
0:12:31
Mr. Fox and Kylie contemplate the night
landscape
Kristofferson's
theme
Alexandre
Desplat
13
0:13:07
Ash and Kristofferson in Ash's room
Buckeye Jim
Burl Ives
14
0:14:13
Ash turns on his toy train
High-speed
French Train
0:14:28
Boggis', Bunce's, and Bean's houses night
panorama, train is crossing
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
Source
Music
Background
Music
Source
Music
Source
Music
Background
Music
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:09
"
"
00:07
"
"
00:05
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:28
"
"
00:08
"
Alexandre
Desplat
"
Background
Music
00:25
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
Background
Music
Mozart
Source
Music
15
16
17
18
0:15:08
Mr. Fox. explains his plan to Kylie
0:15:32
"
0:15:42
"
0:17:01
Mr. Fox and Kilye try to come into Boggis'
farm
0:17:35
"
0:17:55
"
Mr. Fox throws a blueberry to Boggis'
beagle
0:18:24
"
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
"
"
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
"
"
Plan B *
0:19:15
Mr. Fox and Kylie throw several
blueberries to Boggis' beagles
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
0:19:37
Mr. Fox and Kylie are jumping the fence
"
0:19:58
Mr. Fox and Kylie are running from Boggis'
house
Plan B *
Mr. Fox and Kilye steal at Bounce's
refrigerated smokehouse
Horn Concerto No
4 in E Flat Major –
III Rondo - not
included
0:20:52
41
00:42
01:40
00:36
01:06
00:15
00:07
00:50
00:17
00:17
00:10
00:19
19
20
"
Whack-bat
Majorette
"
Alexandre
Desplat
"
Source
Music
"
"
"
"
Fox family are having dinner
The Grey Goose
Burl Ives
"
Source
Music
0:21:25
Ash and Kristofferson play Whack-bat
0:22:01
0:22:44
0:23:27
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
Bean's Secret
Cider Cellar
"
21
0:24:58
Mr. Fox, Kylie and Kristofferson try to steal
in Bean's cellar
22
0:25:47
Security Rat interposes in the theft
0:27:29
Bean's wife goes downstairs
0:28:11
0:31:05
Bean opens the cellar door
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean in a emergency
meeting
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean start a shootout
to Mr. Fox and Kilye
Bean takes Mr. Fox's tail
25
0:32:37
Fox Family digging
26
0:33:53
Felicity discusses with Mr. Fox
Une Petite Ile
23
0:28:27
24
0:30:15
Background
Music
"
"
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
"
Alexandre
Desplat
Georges
Delerue
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
"
Background
Music
Background
Music
"
Background
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
Background
Music
"
"
"
00:08
Fantastic Mr. Fox
AKA Petey's Song
Jarvis Cocker
Source
Music
01:18
Source
Music
01:21
Source
Music
00:27
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
01:32
I Get Around - not
included
Great Harrowsford
Square
Georges
Delerue
Georges
Delerue
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
"
Alexandre
Desplat
Georges
Delerue
The Beach
Boys
Alexandre
Desplat
"
"
Source
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
"
Background
Music
Source
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
Source
Music
"
Looking for cider *
Three Farmers *
"
Plan B *
Fox family digging
28
0:38:27
The siege begins
Three Farmers *
29
0:39:11
Clive and the neighbors appear in the hole
30
0:39:40
Clive is upset with Mr. Fox
31
0:41:05
Mr. Fox has an idea to scape of the
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean chase
Suspense Music not included
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
Mr. Fox in the
fields Medley *
32
0:42:14
Mr. Fox an his neighbors digging
Plan B *
0:42:55
34
0:45:31
Phil the mole plays the piano
35
0:47:15
Clive is preparing to give a speech
36
0:47:51
Ash and Kristofferson come in to Bean's
kitchen
37
0:49:23
Mr. Fox continues his speech
38
0:51:55
Mr. Fox close to a waterfall into the
pipeline
Une Petite Ile
39
0:53:29
Mr. Fox approaches Ash into the pipeline
Kristofferson's
theme
0:55:50
Rat gives to Clive and the others the
farmers message
Rat attacks to Ash
41
0:57:21
Rat dying
42
0:58:48
43
1:00:09
44
1:01:32
Mr. Fox tells to Felicity "Paint a X"
1:04:24
TV shows the animal attack
40
0:55:11
Mr. Fox turns on his radio and starts his
speech to the animals
Mr. Fox asks to the animal their specialties
to rescue his nephew
00:29
Alexandre
Desplat
"
0:35:10
33
00:42
Background
Music
27
Mr. Fox calls the others animals to rise the
henhouse
Mr. Fox turns on the radio in Boggis'
henhouse
00:32
Alexandre
Desplat
Street Fighting
Man
0:42:43
00:29
Night and Day
Adagio - not
included
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
Adagio - not
included
Rat Fight *
"
Death of Rat
Le Grand Chorale
42
Rolling Stones
Cole Porter /
performed: Art
Tatum
Georges
Delerue
00:20
01:22
00:27
00:10
00:42
00:45
00:15
00:47
00:55
01:14
00:28
00:17
01:10
00:48
00:18
00:22
01:30
01:12
00:35
01:15
01:08
01:04
01:05
02:51
00:14
"
"
Le Grand Chorale
Georges
Delerue
Background
Music
Background
Music
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
"
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Kern Hammerstein/
performed:
The Beach
Boys
Alexandre
Desplat
The Bobby
Fuller Four
"
Background
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
1:04:39
TV shows Bean on fire
45
1:04:50
Mr. Fox and Kylie emerge from the
pipeline in a motorcycle
46
1:06:43
Mr. Fox, Kylie and Ash get in to the Bean
Annex
1:10:35
Ash is apologizing with Kristofferson
Rescuing to
Kristofferson - not
included
"
47
1:11:36
The chase group comes to Bean Annex
Stunt Expo
48
1:12:59
Ash screams "Hot Box"
Stunt Expo
49
1:14:36
The wolf appears on the mountains
Canis Lupus
50
1:16:14
Camera shows the animals new home
Ol, Man river
51
1:18:30
Felicity confesses to Mr. Fox that she is
pregnant again
Mr. Fox in the
fields
52
1:20:02
Ash turns on his radio
53
1:22:38
Credits
Let Her Dance
Fantastic Mr. Fox
AKA Petey's Song
- instrumental
version
High-speed
French Train
Jarvis Cocker
Background
Music
Background
Music
Music on
Credits
Music on
Credits
Music on
1:25:36
Credits
Side Car Escape *
Credits
Total
* Included in the Album Fantastic Mr. Fox (Additional Music from the Original Score) [The Abbey Road Mixes]
1:24:12
Credits
43
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:09
00:57
03:42
00:20
01:14
01:15
01:12
02:00
01:16
02:31
01:31
01:22
01:07
00:45
References
Wikipedia. June 24, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Mr._Fox.
Weintraub, Steve 'Frosty'. Collider. 11 28, 2009. http://collider.com/wesanderson-interview-fantastic-mr-fox/.
Patches, Matt. Vanity Fair. February 20, 2014. http://www.vanityfair.com/vfhollywood/alexandre-desplat-interview.
Martens, Todd. Los Angeles Times. December 8, 2009.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/12/pop-hiss-goes-to-themovies-alexandre-desplat-gets-rootsy-for-fantastic-mrfox.html#sthash.UNrGBcIB.dpuf.
McDonal, Laurence E. The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History.
Second. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2013.
Browning, Mark. Wes Anderson: Why His Movies Matter. Santa Barbara: ABCCLIO, 2011.
International Movie Database. 2009.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432283/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm.
44
A MUSIC ANALYSIS
José Miguel Vargas Rojas
Department of Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games
Berklee College of Music
Valencia Campus
July 2, 2014
Table of Contents
Thesis Statement
2
Background of the Film and Storyline
3
Music Analysis and correlation with the Image
6
Orchestration and Instrumentation Resources
32
Conclusions
34
Annexes
38
References
44
1
Thesis Statement
In this Soundtrack Analysis I am going to focus and investigate the film score of
animation movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, one of the most representative films in stop
motion technique, because of its innovative combination of original and pop
music as well as the insight it will give my future work as an animation scorer for
my Culminating Experience.
2
Background of the Film and Storyline
Loosely based on Roald Dahl´s book, Fantastic Mr. Fox brings the viewer into
the child-friendly world of an intrepid speaking fox and his plans to live a better
life.
The movie stars with Mr. Fox and his wife Felicity assaulting a square farm, when
suddenly they fall into a trigger a fox trap and become caged. Felicity tells to his
husband that she is pregnant and implores him to find a more traditional life
when they get away.
After two years (twelve in Fox Years), the Foxes and their teenager son Ash, a
typical rebel without case, are living in a hole. Mr. Fox currently is a newspaper
journalist and he wants to move the family into a better home in the base of a
tree, which is situated very near to Walter Boggis, Nathaniel Bunce, and Franklin
Bean houses, three powerful farmers of the region.
Mr. Fox decides to move, disregarding the warnings of his lawyer Badger about
how dangerous the area is for him and his family. Being in the new house,
Kristofferson, Felicity's nephew, comes to live with them as his father has
become very sick with pneumonia.
Wanting to return to his wild life, Mr. Fox persuades to Kylie Sven, an opossum
that works as a building superintendent, to steal the resources from the three
farms. Boggis, Bunce and Bean, the farmers, resolve to exterminate Mr. Fox and
camp out near the family's tree. When Mr. Fox appears, the farmers shoot, but
3
achieve only to rip off his tail. They then tray to dig, forcing Mr. Fox to get out.
After bringing down the whole site of the tree, the farmers realize the Foxes have
fled digging a tunnel.
The farmers choose to wait at the tunnel entrance that the Foxes will have to
surface from, for food and water. Underground, Mr. Fox encounters Badger and
many other local animal residents whose homes have also been destroyed. As
the animals begin to be afraid of hunger, Mr. Fox leads a digging expedition to
tunnel to the three farms, stealing them clean. Whereas the animals feast, Ash
and Kristofferson, become friends after Kristofferson defended Ash from a bully,
return to Bean's farm, proposing to reclaim Mr. Fox's tail. When they are
interrupted by the arrival of Bean's wife, Ash escapes but Kristofferson is
captured.
Noticing that Mr. Fox has taken their produce, the farmers inundate the animals'
tunnel network with cider. The animals are forced into the sewers, and Mr. Fox
knows that the farmers plan to use Kristofferson to trap him into an ambuscade.
Rat, Bean’s security guard, confronts the animals. After a fight with Mr. Fox
leaves him mortally injured, Rat reveals Kristofferson's location before he dies.
Mr. Fox asks the farmers for a meeting in town close to the sewer hub; he will
surrender in interchange for Kristofferson's liberty. The farmers prepare an
ambush, but Fox and the others expect it and launch a counteroffensive. Fox,
Ash and Kylie slip into Bean’s farm. Ash, more mature, liberates Kristofferson
and braves enemy fire to release a rabid beagle named Spitz to keep the farmers
trapped.
4
The animals become habituated to living in the drains with others considering
moving in. Kristofferson and Ash resolve their differences. Fox leads his family to
a drain opening built into the floor of a supermarket owned by the three farmers.
Celebrating their new food source and the news that Felicity is pregnant again,
the animals dance in the corridors as the film ends.
Not included in the book, in the film Mr. Fox split by his dual nature: on one hand
he strives to protect his kin and intends to be the perfect family man yet, on the
other, he dreams about the wilderness and fantasizes about the freedom that
wolves enjoy. The final scene of the movie depicts a meeting between Mr. Fox
and his idealized Wolf, mirroring his final decision of staying with his family, and
giving closure to the proposed adaptation.
Wes Anderson adapted the book into a film. This was made using stop-motion
animation and features the voices of George Clooney as Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep
as Mrs. Fox, Bill Murray as Badger, Hugo Guinness as Bunce, and Michael
Gambon as Bean. The film plot emphases more on Mr. Fox's relationship to Mrs.
Fox and his son, which is opposed against Mr. Fox's wish to rob chickens as a
means of feeling like his natural self. “The movie adds scenes before Mr. Fox
attacks the three farmers and after their bulldozing of the hill, as well as a slightly
altered ending and more background on Mr. Fox's past life as a thief of food”.1
1
(Wikipedia 2014)
2
(Weintraub 2009)
5
Music Analysis and correlation with the Image
1. Opening Title
In the beginning of the movie the music stars with an introduction composed by
Desplat, based on the intro of the song: “The Ballad Of Davy Crockett”,
performed by The Wellingtons. This short intro accompanies the presentation of
the film, where it’s established that the film is based on the original tale.
It’s interesting as this small piece of music is converted from background music
to source music, becoming the music the Mr. Fox is listening on his radio.
The piece is written in crescendo mode, starting with one instrument and adding
a new one every two bars.
2. The Ballad Of Davy Crockett
This cue that is presented as source music, comes connected with previous cue.
This song “The Ballad Of Davy Crockett” was composed by George Bruns with
lyrics by Thomas W. Blackburn, and was created originally for the fifties’
television series “Davy Crocket”.
The song’s lyric represents rebellion, freedom and wildness of Mr. Fox, and
supports the introduction of the main character: “Born on a mountain top in
Tennessee, Greenest state in the Land of the Free, Raised in the woods so's he
6
knew every tree, Kilt him a b’ar when he was only three, Davy, Davy Crockett,
King of the wild frontier”
The music is interrupted when Mr. Fox’s wife coming to talk with him
3. Mr. Fox in the fields
The scene shows the youth of Mr. Fox and his wife Felicity.
The music presented in this scene contains the leitmotif of the main character Mr.
Fox. It stars with the harmony played by the banjo.
After that we can listen to three different melodies, which will are present in the
entire film, the plucked instruments, mandolin and ukulele, perform the first:
7
The second, more cantabile, is played by the cello:
And the last is presented by the celesta.
The strings in pizzicato create the accompaniment with the same syncopation
rhythmic formula of the banjo.
8
4. Heroes and Villains
The music for this sequence is the song “Heroes and Villains”, originally
composed by The Beach Boys, and it accompanies three special moments: The
first is an action sequence where Mr. Fox and his wife are stealing in a farm, this
stops suddenly when Mr. Fox runs into an animal trap and falls in it.
The music returns after Felicity declares to her husband that she is pregnant and
his reaction is between happiness and concern. The music stops again when she
decides that Mr. Fox should have another type of life and should not continue to
steal.
The third segment of the music appears after a leap in time when the film shows
the current married life of Mr. Fox. For this part the rallentando excerpt is chosen,
the last portion of the song, in form of a parody related to the drastic change of
Mr. Fox’s life mode, when he has gone from “rebel life” to a “standard” family life.
5. Fooba Wooba John
In this scene the song “Fooba Wooba John” is used like source music on the Fox
family radio. This song was composed and performed by Burl Ives, and it
appears in the album “Little White Duck” from 1959.
The music doesn’t make reference to the image, is only used for ambience. The
image is presented Mr. Fox’s son Ash in a typical family breakfast. The music
9
stops when Mr. Fox turns off the radio and tells Felicity that he wants to leave his
“hole house” to live in a comfortably “tree house”, buy his wife reasons with him
that they are too poor and can’t get an expensive place. Mr. Fox turns on the
radio after telling Felicity that he needs to do something to change their house.
There is a music edition trick, the original music has a length of one minute and
seven seconds, but in the total sequence one minute and nineteen seconds of
music are used. This happens when Mr. Fox turns on the radio again, and the
music starts before that the original off point.
6. Mr. Fox’s theme (2)
When Mr. Fox sees the tree house that he wants, the banjo intro performs for few
seconds.
7. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean
Mr. Fox is in the tree house that he wants buy, and suddenly he sees through the
windows the houses of Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. At this moment the leitmotif of
these characters is presented.
The brass, split in a few fragments, plays the first line of the melody,
10
A piccolo plays the seconds’ four bars.
The plucked instruments: banjo and guitar perform the harmony in a tango
rhythm escorted with a snare drum.
8. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean (2)
Mr. Fox is speaking with Clive Badger, a real estate lawyer responsible for selling
the house. Clive tries to deter Mr. Fox from buying the house, explaining that
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean live nearby and they are very dangerous.
The Boggis, Bunce, and Bean theme plays again, while Clive describes each one
of the characters, but this time the music works like a variation: the tuba starts
with the melody seconded by a muted trumpet, after that the French horns take
the melody and returns again to the tuba. The melody ends with a military
melodic phrase performed by the trumpet.
11
While the banjo plucked strings in arpeggiato formula create a harmony
accompanied by the glockenspiel, the other plucked strings make the
accompaniment in syncope with the percussion.
9. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean chorus (3)
Clive turns on a tape recorder and shows Mr. Fox the “Boggis, Bunce, and Bean”
theme sung by kids. The lyrics, like a child derision, describe the characters:
“Boggis, Bunce, and Bean One fat, one short, one lean. Those horrible crooks so
different in looks are nonetheless equally mean”
About of the origin of the song, the director Wes Anderson comments in an
interview given to the Collider online cinema magazine: “That was working with
Alexandre Desplat our composer. I said, “You know,” it was literally this. “Okay,
so I’m going to come back on Tuesday. Oh, by the way, see if there’s like a tune
for this farmer’s song. These are the words here.” Ba ba ba ba bum and he
hummed it immediately using a theme he’d already written for the farmers, and
within 20 seconds he had the song and that was that. Which I will say is exciting
if you have somebody who’s that kind of talented and versatile who can just
adapt the thing you’re talking about immediately. The next thing we knew we
were kind of expanding it into this whole song for this showdown scene.”2
2
(Weintraub 2009)
12
10. Jimmy Squirrel and Co.
This scene shows the moving to the tree house, and the background music helps
create a fast movement feeling.
The mandolin plays the melody accompanied in harmony by the guitar. Then the
recorder plays the same phrase and the orchestration increases with the
introduction of the glockenspiel in broken chords. After that, the melody is played
again, but this time for the string section in pizzicato, a counterpoint melody
appears which the cello plays.
At the end of this cue, when Kristofferson appears, the music changes and the
glockenspiel performs the leitmotif of this character.
11. Love
While the Fox family and their nephew, Kristofferson, enjoy of a typical family rest
day the song “Love” is played in a turntable. This song was written by Floyd
Huddleston and George Burns and sung by Nancy Adams, and was composed
originally for the animation film of 1959 “Robin Hood”.
12. Kristofferson's theme
Mr. Fox and Kylie contemplate the night landscape and Mr. Fox ponders about
his own natural animal behavior. The music attached for this meditation moment
is the Kristofferson theme, which begins with a string pizzicato making the
13
harmony. The melody, a small pattern in ostinato, is played a few bars after by
the glockenspiel,
This is accompanied by a long notes phrase performed by viola and the bassoon.
After this, the melody returns but this the time, besides the glockenspiel, the
plucked strings are included and the bassoon with cello replaces the viola in the
harmony because the tessiture is lower now.
13. Buckeye Jim
This song, performed by Burl Ives, which appears in the same album “Little White
Duck” works as source music while Ash and Kristofferson argue because
Kristofferson wants to have a better place to sleep and Ash refuses.
14. High-speed French Train
Ash turns on his toy train to comfort Kristofferson, who is crying because of their
discussion. In this moment the previous music (Buckeye Jim) fades out while the
music of the train starts. Suddenly, the image changes to a panorama view of the
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean houses where a real train is crossing, the source train
music switches to background music, becoming louder and making the music
more present.
14
The glockenspiel creates the melody followed by a march rhythm in the
percussion, tuba and plucked strings.
15. Mr. Fox’s master plan A
Mr. Fox explains his master stealing plan to Kylie, and persuades him to work
together. While Mr. Fox explains the plan, an action music performed by a low
drum and a ukulele is played.
The scene has many interruptions: images of Mr. Fox developing the plan are
interjected with Kylie and Mr. Fox´s conversation. The music always joins in the
developing of the plan images.
16. Mr. Fox’s master plan Boggi’s chicken house (2)
Mr. Fox and Kylie carry out the plan to steal Boggi’s chickens. In the background
the previous music sounds again, this time the percussion is increased with a
snare. In the end the whistle plays the melody that is escorted by snaps.
The sequence has several pauses, which occur when Mr. Fox and Kylie find
trouble in their plan.
17. Mr. Fox stealing chickens (Plan B music)
Mr. Fox throws a blueberry with sleeping powder to Boggi’s beagle, and
immediately a melody in the best Bluegrass style starts. The main melody is
15
performed by the mandolin and accompanied by the banjo, guitars, bass, drums,
even a jew’s harp.
In this long sequence the action music and the Bluegrass theme appear
simultaneously, credited as Plan B in the album: Fantastic Mr. Fox (Additional
Music from the Original Score) [The Abbey Road Mixes]
18. Horn Concerto No 4 in E Flat Major – III Rondo
Mr. Fox and Kylie steal in Bunce’s refrigerated smokehouse and Bounce doesn’t
realize because he is distracted listening through his headphones the Third
Movement of Mozart’s Horn Concerto No 4 in E Flat Major.
19. Whack-bat Majorette
Kristofferson receives instructions from the coach to play Whack-bat and
replaces Ash on the playing field. The music that accompanies the scene is a
theme performed like a school marching band melody.
The music is performed as if a school band was rehearsing. When Kristofferson
makes a great move the drums escorts him.
16
20. The Grey Goose
The Fox family and Kylie are having dinner and the source music is the song
“The Grey Goose” performed by Burl Ives, included in the album “Little White
Duck” as the rest of the songs of this artist used in this film.
21. Mr. Fox Master Plan A (3)
This time the music appears in an action sequence played by the drums. The
scene shows Mr. Fox, Kylie and Kristofferson trying to steal in Bean’s secret
cider cellar.
22. Bean's Secret Cider Cellar
Mr. Fox, Kylie and Kristofferson get in to Bean´s cellar; the security Rat gets in
their way trying to stop them from stealing. The music is in this scene reminds us
of the most popular western films, as Laurence Mc Donald describe in his book
The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History “The high trumpet and
whistled tones in the score evoke the sounds of Ennio Morricone’s music for
Spaghetti Westerns”3.
The plucked strings and low drums accompany in a strong pattern rhythm, while
the whistle performs the main melody:
3
(McDonal 2013)
17
The jaw harp appears again on that music. Later the banjo plays a second
melody
followed by the flute.
23. Looking for cider
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean make an emergency meeting to talk about of Fox´s
theft in their farms. A march, like funeral pomp, escorts the scene. This music is
part of the Additional Music album.
The melody starts with tuba, and this is based on the Boggis, Bunce and Bean
theme:
24. Three Farmers
Mr. Fox and Kylie leave Mr. Fox’s house, but they don’t expect that Boggis,
Bunce, and Bean are waiting outside to shoot them. After the shootout Mr. Fox
and Kylie are alive, but Mr. Fox has lost his tail.
18
The music in the background is Three Farmers, which it appears in the album
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Additional Music from the Original Score) [The Abbey Road
Mixes]. This theme is based in the Boggis, Bunce, and Bean music, but with a
slower tempo closer to a funeral march.
25. Family digging (Plan B Music)
Mr. Fox and his wife are talking in bed when they realize that the house is being
demolished. Together with their family, they decide to dig to save their lives.
The music that escorts the scene is Plan B, which it appears again with a drum
intro and is followed by a bluegrass pattern.
26. Une Petite Ile
Felicity argues with Mr. Fox because of the recent events, she is upset because
Mr. Fox has failed to fulfill his promise to not steal anymore.
The music used to accompany is “Une Petite Ile”, it was composed by Georges
Delerue for the Francis Truffaut movie: “Lex deus anglaises et le continent”, it
was called “Two English Girls” for the American audience.
27. Street Fighting Man
The Fox family must dig deeper because Boggis, Bunce, and Bean decide to find
them at all cost.
19
The background music used for this scene is “Street Fighting Man” composed by
Rolling Stones, song that appears in the album “Beggars Banquet”, released in
1968.
28. The siege begins (Three Farmers music)
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean are looking for Mr. Fox desperately, for that reason
they design an exhaustive search.
The last part of the music Three Farmers, included in the album Fantastic Mr.
Fox (Additional Music from the Original Score) [The Abbey Road Mixes], appears
accompanying this fragment. The melody is alternated between the different
brass instruments and the plucked strings and mallets present the harmonic
rhythmic pattern.
29. New friends in the hole
Clive the lawyer and other neighbors appear in the same hole that Mr. Fox and
his family are.
Desplat uses a suspense music for this segment, instrumented by the Jew harp
and strings, using extended techniques in harmonics.
20
30. Mr. Fox Master Plan A (4)
In this sequence several events happen; the most important is Kristofferson
defends Ash in a fight.
The music used to escort is the long drum pattern, which has been presented
before.
31. Mr. Fox in the fields Medley
Being in the hole, Mr. Fox has an idea to escape the Boggis, Bunce, and Bean
chase. The music used for this scene is Mr. Fox in the fields, but this time
Desplat uses a variation on tempo and orchestration.
32. Digging – One human Hour Later (Plan B music)
Mr. Fox and his neighbors are digging again, following Mr. Fox’s plan. The
background music for this fragment, as usual, is the Bluegrass of the Plan B
music.
The music starts again when Mr. Fox arrives to Boggis’ henhouse.
33. Fantastic Mr Fox AKA Petey’s Song
Mr. Fox celebrates having reached to Boggis’ henhouse turning on the radio, the
source music on the radio becomes a real performance by Petey and his band.
21
Jarvis Cocker, the famous Rock Star front man of British band “Pulp”, becomes
the character Petey. The song is a short story about the Mr. Fox chase: Bout a
handsome little fox Let me sing you folks a yarn Hey, diddle-dee, duddleda, doddle-do, doodle-dum
‘Twas a splendid little fella Full of wit and grace and charm Say zippy-zee, zappyza, yappy-yo, goggle-gum. Well, like any little critter needing Vittles for his littleuns Well, he stole and he cheated And he lied just to survive. With a doodle-dum,
diddle-da, duddle-diddle-doodle-dum With a zippy-zo, zippy-zay, zippy-zappyzoopy-zee. Oh, doo-dah, doo-dah, day! Let me take a little tick now To color in
the scene ‘Cross the valley lived 3 yokels Name of Boggis, Bunce and Bean.
Now these 3 crazy jackies Had our hero on the run Shot the tail off the cuss With
a fox-shooting gun But that stylish little fox Was clever as a whip Dug as quick as
a gopher That was hyperactive. Now those 3 farmers sit ‘Twhere there’s a hole
’twas once a hill Singing diddle-dee, duddle-da, doddle-do, doodle-dum. And as
far as I can reckon They’re sitting up there still Singing zippy-zee, zappy-za,
yoppy-yo…
34. Night and Day
Phil the mole plays the popular tune “Night and day” on the piano while the rest
of the animals celebrate the robbery in the Boggis, Bunce and Bean properties.
Cole Porter originally composes this song and the instrumental version played in
the movie is by Art Tatum, the famous pianist.
22
This melody was recorded in 1946, and was released in the album “Master of
Jazz” of 1984.
35. Adagio
Clive is preparing to give a speech when Mr. Fox interrupts him. The source
music used in this scene is the Adagio composed by Georges Delerue, that it is
originally for “Comptes à Rebours” the French – Italy movie of 1970 directed by
Roger Pigaut.
36. Master Plan (5)
Ash and Kristofferson come into Bean’s kitchen to rescue Mr. Fox’s tale. As
usual, the suspense music used by Desplat is the long drum pattern, intercalated
with different percussion instruments and varying the dynamics in order to
increase the tension.
37. Adagio (2)
Mr. Fox continues with his speech and Delerue’s Adagio appears again. The
music stops suddenly and Mr. Fox, worried, asks about Ash and Kristofferson.
38. Une Petite Ile (2)
Mr. Fox is pondering about his owns acts close to a waterfall that falls into the
pipeline, when Felicity comes to him. In this moment of closeness between Mr.
Fox and his wife, the music “Une Petit Ile” sounds again. It was used before in a
23
similar context, as a leitmotif of Mr. Fox and Felicity in their moments of
thoughtfulness and privacy.
39. Kristofferson theme (2)
Mr. Fox approaches Ash to tell him that he is very proud of him. The music that
accompanies the scene is the Kristofferson theme.
It is interesting that the music used is only the first part of the entire melody. The
decision for this long cue was to restart the initial melody instead of using the full
theme.
40. Rat Fight
The Rat gives Clive and the others the farmers’ message where they say that
they have Mr. Fox’s son. After that, a fight starts where Rat, Ash, Felicity and Mr.
Fox are involved.
The music for this long sequence is based on the Rat theme, presented before in
the Bean's Secret Cider Cellar cue. The music is including in the album Fantastic
Mr. Fox (Additional Music from the Original Score) [The Abbey Road Mixes].
24
41. Death of Rat
Rat is dying after the fight with Mr. Fox. Desplat uses the Rat theme to create this
musical section, but this time with a slow tempo and an arpeggio as
accompaniment in the glockenspiel.
The melody is included in both albums: Fantastic Mr. Fox in the last part of the
track Just Another Dead Rat in a Garbage Pail (behind a Chinese Restaurant),
and also in the album of the Additional Music.
42. Le Grand Chorale
Mr. Fox turns on his radio and starts his speech to the animals to rescue his
nephew. The source music is “Le Grand Chorale” composed by Georges
Delerue. This music was written originally for the film of 1973 “Day for Night”,
directed by the French filmmaker François Truffaut.
43. I get Around
The animals are agreed to help to Mr. Fox in the rescue of his nephew. The
background music for this scene is “I get around” the famous song performed by
The Beach Boys.
This song is originally included in the album “All summer long” of 1964.
25
44. Great Harrowsford Square
Mr. Fox makes his plan, writing a letter to Boggis, Bunce and Bean. The music
that accompanies this long sequence is based on the Boggis, Bunce and Bean
theme: the banjo plays the accompaniment with a slow rhythm pattern with the
timpani; the tuba shows the melody in a very slow tempo
The music continues but with different changes, a whistle solo, accompanied in
the rhythm by footsteps like a march, interprets the second part.
The theme is developed and the trumpet performs the melody.
A new element appears in the melody, which is performed by the plucked strings.
In the background of the music we can listen to the a voice speaking Boggis,
Bunce, Bean, one fat, one short, one lean”.
The entire atmosphere reminds us of the western movies; like in a cowboy duel,
Desplat manages to synthesize the whole environment in his music.
26
The music changes radically when Mr. Fox and his friend attack the city with burn
seeds, thenceforth the boys voice choir appear singing the Boggis, Bunce and
Bean theme in a faster tempo.
It interesting that the music converts in source music in certain point and backs
again to background music.
45. Le Grand Chorale.
Mr. Fox and Kylie emerge from the pipeline in a motorcycle. Le Grand Chorale
music, composed by George Delerue, appears again, but this time as
background music.
46. Rescuing to Kristofferson
Mr. Fox, Kylie and Ash get in to the Bean Annex, to rescue to Kristofferson.
Desplat writes the music for this scene, which stars with a rhythm pattern
syncopated performed by snaps. The melody is performed by the timpani in the
very beginning.
The melody turns in different instruments, like voices, banjo, the woodwinds and
the glockenspiel; a roll in the drums alternates the rhythm pattern, but the snap is
sustained in the whole fragment.
27
47. Stunt Expo (First Part)
Mr. Fox, Kylie, Ash and Kristofferson is trying to scape from the Bean Annex,
suddenly they encounter to Boggis, Bunce, Bean and their chase group.
Desplat wrote a music for this scene based in the countermelody of the Boggis,
Bunce and Bean choir theme. The strings play the melody, while the snare in a
march roll makes the rhythm and the brass perform the harmony.
Afterwards, the plucked strings join to brass in to the accompaniment.
On the second part of the music we can listen clearly to the Boggis, Bunce and
Bean melody played by the brass.
28
48. Stunt Expo (Second Part)
Ash achieves to overcome the obstacles. He shoots and he opens the door so
that the beagle watchdog can escape and begins to chase to Boggis, Bunce,
Bean and the others.
The music used for this cue is the Boggis, Bunce and Bean choir theme.
49. Canis Lupus
Mr. Fox stops the motorcycle and tries to talk with a wolf that they found on the
way. This a dramatic moment in the movie because the wolf reflects the wild side
of Mr. Fox.
Desplat composes the music for this scene, based in the Boggis, Bunce and
Bean countermelody, that he has used before for the Stunt Expo piece. The
music starts with a boy voice solo, which performs the melody
Later on, the horns make harmony
29
Afterwards, the harmony adds up other orchestral instruments. Finally, the music
ends with the boy voice solo again.
50. Ol‚ Man River
The animals are shown into their new home, after the chase to which they have
been subjected.
The music choosen to accompany this scene is the song “Ol, Man River”
composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, in the The Beach
Boys’ version. This music was part of the compilation album “Hawthorne” of
2001.
However, the second part played when Mr. Fox opens the sewer cover, is the
version of the remasterized album “Friends” of 2001, with guitar accompaniment.
30
51. Mr. Fox in the fields (2)
Felicity lets Mr. Fox know that she is pregnant again. Desplat uses the music of
Mr. Fox in the fields again; as he used in the beginning, now he uses it for the
end.
The scene is long, for that reason the music starts again in this cue.
52. Let Her Dance
Mr. Fox finishes his toast and Ash turns on his radio. The music for the end is the
song “Let her Dance” performed by The Bobby Fuller Four. This song belongs to
the homonymous single of 1965.
53. Music on the credits:
Fantastic Mr Fox AKA Petey’s Song, instrumental version by Jarvis Cocker
High-speed French Train – Alexander Desplat
Side Car Escape – Alexander Desplat
31
Orchestration and Instrumentation Resources
“Anderson instructs Desplat to veer away from conventions for a more reflective,
personal score. On Fantastic Mr. Fox, the director suggested that since it was a
stop motion puppet movie, the orchestra should be puppet-size. ‘I shrunk a string
orchestra to five musicians and the brass to one of each. All of the other
instruments were micro instruments: mandolins, little banjos, little toys, a
glockenspiel’.”4
This way, Desplat wrote for a reduced orchestra: one musician for every
instrument, achieving more intimate and closer sound, but with the idea to have
all the orchestral timbre in the soundtrack.
In addition to those instruments, Desplat utilized the traditional instruments of
bluegrass, an American folklore genre of the fifties, in order to create in his music
an ambience of this style. For that reason he used banjo, ukulele, steel guitar,
mandolin and Jew harp.
The result is a mixture of a condensed orchestra with a bluegrass band. Desplat
was interviewed by Todd Martens, for Los Angeles Times, and he expresses in
this interview: “It's (the soundtrack of the film) instrumentation you'd use in
bluegrass or country music,” Desplat said, “but I think I twisted it by adding
4
(Patches 2014)
32
instruments that would not be a part of the usual instrumentation for this kind of
music.”5
Desplat was assisted for the orchestration by Jean-Pascal Beintus and Sylvain
Morizet, with whom he had worked before in films like “The Twilight Saga: New
Moon" and "Un prophète", among others. Additionally, his sister Marie-Christine
Desplat also worked as an orchestrator for the film. A list of the entire
instruments and the musical crew is annexed on the end of this document (see:
Annex Music Department Crew)
5
(Martens 2009)
33
Conclusions
Fantastic Mr. Fox Soundtrack is a well achieved combination between folk music
and orchestral music, including romantic intimate music and suspense music with
a great reminiscence of spaghetti westerns; all of this with an acquired reference
of the popular American music of the middle of the twenty century.
The intention of Desplat in his score was very pragmatic and at the same time
ludic. Thereby, the music is used a little more playfully than in the other films: for
example, “Anderson pauses the music twice as Fox stops to listen while running
through the wheat field en route to the first break-in”. 6 Desplat creates this
“dialogue” leaving spaces in the music and image to emphasize the film events
and get a stronger dramatic effect.
“At times, folksy and often referencing rootsy Americana sounds, Desplat's score
contains flashes of Ennio Morricone as well as playful riffs on hillbilly music. Yet
it's not completely old-school. Banjos and mandolins give way to a "minuscule
orchestra" of five string players, and minimalist keyboard and percussive patterns
throw off any sense of time or place”7.
Todd Martens, in the interview made to Alexander Desplat, makes an accurate
description about Desplat’s score: “Not quite Western and not quite orchestral,
perhaps a better word to describe Alexandre Desplat's score for Fantastic Mr.
Fox is fragile. Like the meticulously detailed stop-motion creatures that populate
6
(Browning 2011)
7
(Martens 2009)
34
the Wes Anderson film, Desplat's score is one that's finely drawn, with each
pluck of a banjo or flicker of a harp clearly audible.
For Fantastic Mr. Fox, Desplat was thinking small, so small that he wanted the
music to sound as if it were being performed by the foxes, badgers and rats that
inhabit the world of the film: ‘I just felt that if we found a sound that would belong
to these little puppets, it would make them come alive,’ Desplat said. ‘I suggested
to Wes that we do a sort of puppet orchestra. I wanted to make everything sound
like they were playing. I wanted little things the mandolin, the banjo, the whistle,
the recorder and all these little families of instruments. They weren't toys but kind
of toy-ish instruments’.”8
The other important point is the use of leitmotivs during the entire film: “there is a
feeling of Sergey Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf (1936) in Desplats’s composition
of themes for different animal characters, which are then modulated according to
circumstances”9. For example, “the score’s principal theme is introduced when
Mr. Fox is warned about the three farmers through a song the local children sing,
the theme returns in cues that also feature trumpet and drums; a whistled version
is included when Mr. Fox, along with Ash and their opossum friend, rescue his
nephew” 10.
Another example of the importance between characters and distinctive
instruments can be observed in the “Rat’s theme, it is full of bravado when he
8
(Martens 2009)
9
(Browning 2011)
10
(McDonal 2013)
35
first confronts Fox with dramatic drums, Spanish-style guitar, pipes and whistles,
all creating evocations of Ennio Morricone’s score for Sergio Leones’s Dollars
trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), A Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the
Bad and the Ugly (1966). As Rat’s fortune change and he is about to die, a more
melancholic version is heard with the glockenspiel and bells sounding his death
knell, to be replaced by a single voice accompanied by a horn effectively singing
his requiem”.11
Fantastic Mr. Fox Soundtrack has a peculiar particularity, it is eclectic from
different points of view: first, the timbre turns between orchestral and pop music;
second, the different dramatics genres approach: romantic, suspense, action and
playful; and lastly, it also includes pre-existing music as part of the soundtrack,
becoming even more varied, because includes different references from pop, folk
and going through other films’ soundtracks.
Observing the incidence of the popular music, Mark Browning describes about:
“the retro rock is less intrusive in Fantastic Mr. Fox, possibly because there it
always appears combined with original music (composed by Desplat). It also
seems to be strongly motivated from within the action and the time when the
movie is set: that is, not sandpapering over emotional cracks. Instead, it marks a
hedonist action, such as the dance at the end, or Jarvis Cocker’s ‘Petey’s Song’,
an excuse for a gag about improvisation”12. However, in the pre-existing music,
11
(Browning 2011)
12
(Browning 2011)
36
there are several references of the groups of the middle of the twenty-century like
The Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, The Wellingtons and The Bobby Fuller Four.
All these popular music references reinforce the idea that the film is possibly set
it in a scenario close to the American fifties; even jazz is present with the music
of Cole Porter, performed by Art Tatum, and most of the other recursive elements
are a selection made by Anderson of several songs from the children oriented
album “Little White Duck” from 1959, performed by Burl Ives.
In the pre-existing music, Anderson also uses different pieces of other
soundtracks, for example “ ‘Love’ by Floyd Huddlestone and George Burns which
lightly accompanies the dividing scene and belongs to Robin Hood (a Wolfgang
Retherman film, 1973), in which the central couple, Robin and Marian,
coincidentally, were also both foxes”13.
The use of other soundtracks sources become much more evident with the
appearance of several compositions from Georges Delerue for different movies:
“Two English Girls” (François Truffaut, 1971), “Comptes à Rebours” (Roger
Pigaut, 1971) and “Day for Night” (François Truffaut, 1973). It seems that
Anderson is influenced by Delerue’s music.
13
(Browning 2011)
37
Annexes
Annex A: Music Department Crew14
Piers Adams
Richard Addison
Musician: Recorder
Musician: Woodwinds (Clarinet)
Jim Anderson
Musician: Brass (Tuba)
Wes Anderson
Song: Music And Lyrics By
David Arch
Musician: Celeste
Chris Baron
Musician: Percussions
John Barrett
Pro Tools Operator
Jean-Pascal Beintus
Orchestrator
Richard Berry
Musician: Brass (French Horn)
Dave Bishop
Musician: Saxophone
Dudley Bright
Musician: Brass (Trombone)
Nicholas Bucknall
Musician: Woodwinds (Clarinet)
Peter Clarke
Music Editor
Paul Clarvis
Musician: Percussions
Peter Cobbin
Score Recording Engineer
Jarvis Cocker
Song: Music And Lyrics By
David Coulter
Musician: Petey's Band (Mandolin, Ukulele)
Mitchell Dalton
Musician: Guitars (As Mitch Dalton)
Gordon Davidson
Assistant Score Mixing Engineer
Philippa Davies
Musician: Woodwinds (Flute)
Alexandre Desplat
Composer / Conductor / Orchestrator
Marie-Christine Desplat
Orchestrator
Jessica Dolinger
Music Clearance And Licensing
Andrew Dudman
Score Recording Engineer
Jim Dunbar
Music Coordinator
Richard Edwards
Musician: Brass (Trombone)
Tracey Edwards
Musician: Brass (French Horn)
Xavier Forcioli
Music Production Coordinator
Rod Franks
Musician: Brass (Trumpet)
Tristan Fry
Musician: Timpani
David Fuest
Musician: Woodwinds (Clarinet, Bass Clarinet)
Grégoire Garrigues
Musician: Petey's Band (As Gregoire Garrigues)
Nigel Gomm
Musician: Brass (As Nigel Gomme)
Isobel Griffiths
Musicians Contractor
Stephen Henderson
Musician: Percussions
14
(International Movie Database 2009)
38
Jill Kemp
Musician: Brass (Trombone)
Musician: Piccolo/Recorder
Piccolo Flute
Musician: Recorder
Gary Kettel
Musician: Percussions
Andy Kitchen
Pro Tools Operator
Annabel Knight
Musician: Recorder
Christopher Laurence
Musician: Double Bass (As Chris Laurence)
Dominique LeMonnier
Musician: Traffic Quintet (Violin)
Bill Lockhart
Musician: Percussions
The London Oratory School Schola
Musician: Boys Choir
Jean-Yves Lozac'h
Musician: Petey's Band (Banjo And Pedal Steel Guitar)
Sara Matarazzo
Music Clearance And Licensing
Glyn Matthews
Musician: Percussions
Gerard McCann
Supervising Music Editor
Tristan Montroco
Pro Tools Operator
Christophe Morin
Musician: Traffic Quintet (Cello)
Maurice Murphy
Musician: Brass (Trumpet/Piccolo Trumpet)
Anna Noakes
Musician: Woodwinds (Flute)
Philippe Noharet
Musician: Traffic Quintet (Double Bass)
Sam Okell
Score Recording Engineer (As Sam Ockell)
John Parricelli
Musician: Banjo/Ukulele/Guitar/Mandolin
Randall Poster
Music Supervisor
David Pyatt
Nina Robertson
Musician: Brass
Musician:
Keyboard
Percussions
Percussions
Musician: Woodwinds (Flute)
Claude Romano
Music Preparation
Ralph Salmins
Musician: Drum Kit
Owen Slade
Musician: Brass (Tuba)
Jean-Pierre Sluys
Music Recordist: Petey's Band
Darren Smith
Musician: Brass (Trombone)
Alison Stephens
Musician: Mandolin
Dave Stewart
Musician: Brass (Bass Trombone)
Jamie Talbot
Musician: Saxophone
Phil Todd
Musician: Saxophone
Jean Touitou
Musician: Petey's Band
Norbert Vergonjeanne
Music Preparation (As Norbert Vergonjanne)
Anne Villette
Musician: Traffic Quintet (Violin)
Estelle Vilotte
Musician: Traffic Quintet (Viola)
Sam Walton
Musician: Percussions
Lee Ward
Choirmaster
Felix Wareing
Musician: Solo Boy Vocalist
Richard Watkins
Musician: Brass (French Horn)
Mike Hext
Helen Keen
Frank Ricotti
39
Musician:
Woodwinds
/
Musician:
Lucy Whalley
Assistant Musician Contractor
Nigel Woodhouse
Musician: Guitars/Banjo/Mandolin
Robert Houston
Additional Music Editor (Uncredited)
Sylvain Morizet
Additional Orchestrator (Uncredited)
40
Annex B: Cue Sheet
Cue #
Time
Image Reference
1
0:01:04
Open Titles
2
0:01:20
Mr. Fox close to a tree
3
0:01:59
Mr. Fox's Wife comes to the tree where
Mr. Fox is
4
0:03:03
Mr. Fox and his wife are stealing in a Farm
0:04:33
Felicity confesses to Mr. Fox that she is
pregnant
The Fox's hole house
0:04:56
Family Fox breakfast
0:04:11
5
0:05:58
Mr. Fox. turns on the radio and finishes his
breakfast
Mr. Fox sees the tree house that he wants
to buy
Music (name
OST)
American
Empirical Pictures
The Ballad Of
Davy Crockett
Mr. Fox in the
fields
Heroes And
Villains
Alexandre
Desplat
The
Wellingtons
Alexandre
Desplat
The Beach
Boys
Source
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
"
"
"
00:20
"
Fooba Wooba
John
"
"
Source
Music
00:26
Composer
Burl Ives
Use
Length
Main Title
00:15
00:36
01:00
00:43
00:42
"
"
"
00:37
Mr. Fox in the
fields
(Based on Boggis,
Bunce, and Bean)
not included
Boggis, Bunce,
and Bean
(Chorus sings
Boggis, Bunce,
and Bean) not
included
Jimmy Squirrel
and Co.
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:12
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:27
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:48
Alexandre
Desplat
Source
Music
00:10
Alexandre
Desplat
6
0:06:36
7
0:07:26
Mr. Fox sees Boggis', Bunce's, and Bean's
houses from the window
8
0:08:25
Clive describes (in off) Boggis, Bunce, and
Bean
9
0:09:16
Clive plays the tape recorder
10
0:10:00
Fox family moving
11
0:10:48
Kristofferson arrives to Fox house
Love
Nancy Adams
12
0:12:31
Mr. Fox and Kylie contemplate the night
landscape
Kristofferson's
theme
Alexandre
Desplat
13
0:13:07
Ash and Kristofferson in Ash's room
Buckeye Jim
Burl Ives
14
0:14:13
Ash turns on his toy train
High-speed
French Train
0:14:28
Boggis', Bunce's, and Bean's houses night
panorama, train is crossing
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
Source
Music
Background
Music
Source
Music
Source
Music
Background
Music
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:09
"
"
00:07
"
"
00:05
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:28
"
"
00:08
"
Alexandre
Desplat
"
Background
Music
00:25
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
Background
Music
Mozart
Source
Music
15
16
17
18
0:15:08
Mr. Fox. explains his plan to Kylie
0:15:32
"
0:15:42
"
0:17:01
Mr. Fox and Kilye try to come into Boggis'
farm
0:17:35
"
0:17:55
"
Mr. Fox throws a blueberry to Boggis'
beagle
0:18:24
"
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
"
"
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
"
"
Plan B *
0:19:15
Mr. Fox and Kylie throw several
blueberries to Boggis' beagles
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
0:19:37
Mr. Fox and Kylie are jumping the fence
"
0:19:58
Mr. Fox and Kylie are running from Boggis'
house
Plan B *
Mr. Fox and Kilye steal at Bounce's
refrigerated smokehouse
Horn Concerto No
4 in E Flat Major –
III Rondo - not
included
0:20:52
41
00:42
01:40
00:36
01:06
00:15
00:07
00:50
00:17
00:17
00:10
00:19
19
20
"
Whack-bat
Majorette
"
Alexandre
Desplat
"
Source
Music
"
"
"
"
Fox family are having dinner
The Grey Goose
Burl Ives
"
Source
Music
0:21:25
Ash and Kristofferson play Whack-bat
0:22:01
0:22:44
0:23:27
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
Bean's Secret
Cider Cellar
"
21
0:24:58
Mr. Fox, Kylie and Kristofferson try to steal
in Bean's cellar
22
0:25:47
Security Rat interposes in the theft
0:27:29
Bean's wife goes downstairs
0:28:11
0:31:05
Bean opens the cellar door
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean in a emergency
meeting
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean start a shootout
to Mr. Fox and Kilye
Bean takes Mr. Fox's tail
25
0:32:37
Fox Family digging
26
0:33:53
Felicity discusses with Mr. Fox
Une Petite Ile
23
0:28:27
24
0:30:15
Background
Music
"
"
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
"
Alexandre
Desplat
Georges
Delerue
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
"
Background
Music
Background
Music
"
Background
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
Background
Music
"
"
"
00:08
Fantastic Mr. Fox
AKA Petey's Song
Jarvis Cocker
Source
Music
01:18
Source
Music
01:21
Source
Music
00:27
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
01:32
I Get Around - not
included
Great Harrowsford
Square
Georges
Delerue
Georges
Delerue
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
"
Alexandre
Desplat
Georges
Delerue
The Beach
Boys
Alexandre
Desplat
"
"
Source
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
"
Background
Music
Source
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
Source
Music
"
Looking for cider *
Three Farmers *
"
Plan B *
Fox family digging
28
0:38:27
The siege begins
Three Farmers *
29
0:39:11
Clive and the neighbors appear in the hole
30
0:39:40
Clive is upset with Mr. Fox
31
0:41:05
Mr. Fox has an idea to scape of the
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean chase
Suspense Music not included
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
Mr. Fox in the
fields Medley *
32
0:42:14
Mr. Fox an his neighbors digging
Plan B *
0:42:55
34
0:45:31
Phil the mole plays the piano
35
0:47:15
Clive is preparing to give a speech
36
0:47:51
Ash and Kristofferson come in to Bean's
kitchen
37
0:49:23
Mr. Fox continues his speech
38
0:51:55
Mr. Fox close to a waterfall into the
pipeline
Une Petite Ile
39
0:53:29
Mr. Fox approaches Ash into the pipeline
Kristofferson's
theme
0:55:50
Rat gives to Clive and the others the
farmers message
Rat attacks to Ash
41
0:57:21
Rat dying
42
0:58:48
43
1:00:09
44
1:01:32
Mr. Fox tells to Felicity "Paint a X"
1:04:24
TV shows the animal attack
40
0:55:11
Mr. Fox turns on his radio and starts his
speech to the animals
Mr. Fox asks to the animal their specialties
to rescue his nephew
00:29
Alexandre
Desplat
"
0:35:10
33
00:42
Background
Music
27
Mr. Fox calls the others animals to rise the
henhouse
Mr. Fox turns on the radio in Boggis'
henhouse
00:32
Alexandre
Desplat
Street Fighting
Man
0:42:43
00:29
Night and Day
Adagio - not
included
Mr. Fox Master
Plan A - not
included
Adagio - not
included
Rat Fight *
"
Death of Rat
Le Grand Chorale
42
Rolling Stones
Cole Porter /
performed: Art
Tatum
Georges
Delerue
00:20
01:22
00:27
00:10
00:42
00:45
00:15
00:47
00:55
01:14
00:28
00:17
01:10
00:48
00:18
00:22
01:30
01:12
00:35
01:15
01:08
01:04
01:05
02:51
00:14
"
"
Le Grand Chorale
Georges
Delerue
Background
Music
Background
Music
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
"
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Kern Hammerstein/
performed:
The Beach
Boys
Alexandre
Desplat
The Bobby
Fuller Four
"
Background
Music
Background
Music
Background
Music
1:04:39
TV shows Bean on fire
45
1:04:50
Mr. Fox and Kylie emerge from the
pipeline in a motorcycle
46
1:06:43
Mr. Fox, Kylie and Ash get in to the Bean
Annex
1:10:35
Ash is apologizing with Kristofferson
Rescuing to
Kristofferson - not
included
"
47
1:11:36
The chase group comes to Bean Annex
Stunt Expo
48
1:12:59
Ash screams "Hot Box"
Stunt Expo
49
1:14:36
The wolf appears on the mountains
Canis Lupus
50
1:16:14
Camera shows the animals new home
Ol, Man river
51
1:18:30
Felicity confesses to Mr. Fox that she is
pregnant again
Mr. Fox in the
fields
52
1:20:02
Ash turns on his radio
53
1:22:38
Credits
Let Her Dance
Fantastic Mr. Fox
AKA Petey's Song
- instrumental
version
High-speed
French Train
Jarvis Cocker
Background
Music
Background
Music
Music on
Credits
Music on
Credits
Music on
1:25:36
Credits
Side Car Escape *
Credits
Total
* Included in the Album Fantastic Mr. Fox (Additional Music from the Original Score) [The Abbey Road Mixes]
1:24:12
Credits
43
Alexandre
Desplat
Alexandre
Desplat
Background
Music
00:09
00:57
03:42
00:20
01:14
01:15
01:12
02:00
01:16
02:31
01:31
01:22
01:07
00:45
References
Wikipedia. June 24, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Mr._Fox.
Weintraub, Steve 'Frosty'. Collider. 11 28, 2009. http://collider.com/wesanderson-interview-fantastic-mr-fox/.
Patches, Matt. Vanity Fair. February 20, 2014. http://www.vanityfair.com/vfhollywood/alexandre-desplat-interview.
Martens, Todd. Los Angeles Times. December 8, 2009.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/12/pop-hiss-goes-to-themovies-alexandre-desplat-gets-rootsy-for-fantastic-mrfox.html#sthash.UNrGBcIB.dpuf.
McDonal, Laurence E. The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History.
Second. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2013.
Browning, Mark. Wes Anderson: Why His Movies Matter. Santa Barbara: ABCCLIO, 2011.
International Movie Database. 2009.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432283/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm.
44
Media of
