Jim on Film: Something More
Page 2 of 3

The music in these films was all created by very different talents. Cinderella sang courtesy of the Tin Pan Alley talents Mack David, Jerry Livingston, and Al Hoffman. Tin Pan Alley was essentially the main supplier of pop music of its day. Writers from Tin Pan Alley often found placement of specialty songs in vaudeville shows and revues, but it seems like, if these folks were around today, their talents would be the equivalent of those who supply popular songs to the likes of Mary J. Blige, Usher, and Kelly Clarkson rather than providing the scores to the latest Broadway shows.

Beauty and the Beast, of course, was blessed with Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, who had had a big hit off-Broadway with Little Shop of Horrors and were both steeped in the tradition of musical storytelling on Broadway.

Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, like Menken and Ashman, came to work on Anastasia with several impressive stage musicals under their belt, most significantly Once on this Island. In the same year that their music was nominated for an Academy Award for Anastasia, they would win the Tony for their majestic score for Ragtime. Like Menken and Ashman, Ahrens and Flaherty are very steeped in the Broadway tradition, having met at the BMI musical workshop in New York City.

Stephen Schwartz, who worked on Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Alan Menken, also brought a Broadway background to The Prince of Egypt, for which he would win an Oscar for his amazing song “When You Believe.�? Prior to his work for Disney—which includes his score for the television musical Gepetto and lyrics for the forthcoming Enchanted—he wrote music for such stage shows as Godspell, Pippin, and Children of Eden, though he is best known among a new legion of young fans for his fantastic music and lyrics for the Broadway smash Wicked.

Each of the four films provides their leads with a solo to establish something about their characters. Cinderella gets “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,�? while Belle gets “Belle;�? Anastasia gets “Journey to the Past,�? and Moses has “All I Ever Wanted.�? What’s interesting is that Cinderella’s song establishes clearly that she’s wishing for something, but that is mostly because of the dialogue that comes before it. Her song does add to this, but it also works hard to establish relationship and character development. However, never once is what Cinderella wants clearly identified in the song; it is only implied from the narration that opens the film. Belle, of course, clearly states that she “wants more than this provincial life,�? later indicating that she wants “adventure in the great wide somewhere.�? In these two movies, the main character’s establishing song opens the film, but in Anastasia, “Journey to the Past�? is actually the second full tune the audience hears. Like “Belle,�? this is a song that establishes what Anastasia wants more than anything, though it is stated indirectly through her longing for a family—“Home, love, family. There was once a time I must have had them, too.�? Unlike these characters, Moses never actually has a moment to sing about what he wants. He’s the main character and his life drives the narrative, but “All I Ever Wanted�? is Moses’ attempt to satiate himself after his curiosity is aroused by his accidental run-in with his biological sister, Miriam. Like Cinderella, what Moses wants isn’t really all that important for an “I Want�? song. In fact, if Moses were to sing an “I Want�? song earlier in the film, he’d have to sing a different “I Want�? song mid-way through.

These differences are significant because it establishes the different ways animated films can tell stories with music and how they can be structured to tell those stories with music. The Prince of Egypt could easily have been written along the Ashman/Menken style, but the filmmakers, according to Charles Solomon’s book The Prince of Egypt: A New Vision in Animation, strove to create a new structure. That an animated film could have a different structure is apparent in films like Cinderella, but there needs to be different voices to create that structure.

I love a good love song. I never seem to tire of “Once Upon a Dream�? or “A Whole New World,�? so I’m hoping Rapunzel and The Frog Princess have great love songs in them. However, that doesn’t mean they have to be like love songs done previously. Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast have love songs that are performed over moments when the main characters fall in love. But Cinderella and her prince sing inside their heads about the love they are developing, much in the grand Broadway tradition of “I’ve Never Been in Love Before�? from Guys and Dolls or “A Heart Full of Love�? from Les Miserables. In Beauty and the Beast, on the other hand, Mrs. Potts comments on what she’s seen happening over time. It’s a beautiful expression of Belle and the Beast’s emotions, but it is not a first-hand expression of affection. Ahrens and Flaherty handle love in Anastasia in a very unique way. With the popularity of Disney’s love songs, had they wanted to be derivative, they could have. Instead, the development of the love between Anastasia and Dimitri occurs during a reprise, when Vlad sings “Learn to Do It (Waltz Reprise)�? and, for Dimitri, is taken to another level in “Paris Holds the Key (To Your Heart)�? as he longingly realizes, “No more pretend,/You’ll be gone,/That’s the end . . .�? Much of this stems from the nature of Anastasia’s and Dimitri’s personalities, which would never allow them to easily admit their feelings to each other unless they were almost killed. The Prince of Egypt has a strong love relationship between Moses and Tzipporah, but the story is constructed in such a way that a love song would be inappropriate. Their love is not the focus of the story, more of a footnote. Instead, the fruition of their affection happens during a thematic song, the masterpiece “Through Heaven’s Eyes.�?

Cinderella doesn’t really have any big production numbers. The closest it has is “The Work Song,�? in which the mice fix up the dress for Cinderella. It is a lively tune with plenty of humor in its visualization, but there is no section in the film for a pull-out-the-stops, get the town involved sort of number. Like Rodgers and Hammerstein would later do, they could have added a big, lively production number for the townspeople, but the way the story is constructed, it’s not required. The Menken films really became known for jaw-dropping spectacle numbers like “Be Our Guest.�? And a jaw-dropping spectacle it is. It’s an amazing piece of film-making, and I still remember how exciting it was to see it on the big screen for the first time. Anastasia’s big production number, however, falls early in the film. “A Rumor in St. Petersburg�? follows the prologue, and it even includes a large ensemble of dancers, much like the opening of a Broadway musical. Another number that has the same feel is the previously mentioned “Paris Holds the Key (To Your Heart),�? which brings the “Pure Entertainment�? song quota to two. Similar in energy and tempo is “Learn to Do It,�? which is only a song between three people. The Prince of Egypt, on the other hand, really has no such song. “Through Heaven’s Eyes�? is very up-tempo, but the song charts Moses’s life outside of Egypt and his growth from juvenile teen to adult, and while there is some dancing, it is a more naturalistic use of dance—dance where it would be in real life. From the same film, “Playing with the Big Boys�? has elements of production to it, but it isn’t that fun of a song, instead having a more sinister tone than carefree.

In looking at the categories of songs in Don Hahn’s wonderful Disney’s Animation Magic, there isn’t a full representation in all four films. There is no song for the villain in Cinderella. I think hearing Lady Tremaine sing would have been a very bad choice. Gaston in Beauty and the Beast has his wonderful song, in which his character is further delineated and, in the reprise, his evil plan is concocted, and Anastasia has a similar song for Rasputin. In “In the Dark of the Night,�? Rasputin concocts his plan and sets it in motion. Like Cinderella, there is no solo for the villain in The Prince of Egypt. Rameses never gets a chance to sing about his concern over failing his father or about his refusal to let Moses’s people go. He does sing in the powerful “The Plagues,�? but that is to further the plot and not to establish motives or reveal character. Hotep and Huy get “Playing with the Big Boys,�? but they are not really the villains, and the song doesn’t really establish a plan or the inner workings of their minds.