The sultry trumpet solos augmented by lounge pianos, plucked basses, brushed snares, and smooth strings, give the character a weary feel, as if the cares of the world are on his shoulders, but there are hints of optimism and nostalgia too, especially when the violins occasionally adopt a hint of an old Hollywood sheen. The theme for Bob Hoskins’s character, Eddie Valiant, appears at the beginning of the third cue, “Valiant & Valiant.” The theme is a wonderful piece of music noir, perfect for a booze-soaked private dick with little on his mind except where to get his next shot of bourbon. Once the movie moves from the animated world and into the ‘real’ world, Silvestri begins introducing his character themes. The orchestrations, as they always are in these things, are wonderfully rich, and the technique he shows in being able to successfully mirror the Stalling style is very impressive. The score begins with the “Maroon Logo,” a sprightly and upbeat piece that is intentionally similar to the Merrie Melodies logo that fronted a hundred classic cartoons this leads immediately into “Maroon Cartoon,” a fun, whimsical, lively piece of pastiche in the great Carl Stalling/Scott Bradley tradition, which underscores the film’s opening cartoon sequence where Roger babysits the mischievous Baby Herman, and all hell breaks loose! Silvestri’s music here is expressive and onomatopoeic, intentionally following every beat of the action with pointed orchestral gestures and phrases. Silvestri combines with some raucous comedy music for the cartoon sequences, and some terrific punchy action music for the film’s rousing second half, while interpolating a handful of character themes for the primary protagonists. In order to capture the sound and feel of Los Angeles in the 1940s, Silvestri augmented his now-ubiquitous large symphony orchestra with a healthy doze of smoky film noir cool and upbeat toe-tapping big band jazz. This score is unique, however, because it gave him the chance to write in a style which was, at that point in his career, new to him – classic jazz. The score for Who Framed Roger Rabbit is by Alan Silvestri, whose career was in the ascendancy in the summer of 1988 off the back of classic scores like Back to the Future and Predator. Many people have actually credited the film with ushering in a renewed interest in the Golden Age of American animation, as well as spearheading modern American animation and the Disney Renaissance that began with The Little Mermaid in 1989. This was in the days before actors regularly worked with green-screens and tennis balls on sticks instead of third parties, and Bob Hoskins said the entire experience drove him a little insane, but the end result is a bonafide classic – a loving homage to classic Hollywood with a clever plot, appealing performances, memorable characters, and genuine technical genius. The film co-stars Christopher Lloyd and Joanna Cassidy, as well as the voices of Charles Fleischer and Kathleen Turner.Īlthough humans and animated characters has shared the silver screen before – who can forget Jerry Mouse dancing with Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh, for example – nothing like Roger Rabbit had ever been attempted before, with so many animated characters in the film simultaneously, physically interacting with the real world around them, and sharing moments of emotion and action with the human actors. As the plot progresses Eddie and Roger team up when Roger is accused of murder as Eddie tries to exonerate the bothersome bunny he crosses paths not only with Roger’s sensationally seductive wife Jessica, but a creepy law enforcement officer named Judge Doom, who has a pathological hatred of cartoons, and wants Roger to pay the ultimate price for his alleged crime. But here’s the catch: the star in question is a cartoon rabbit named Roger, and this version of Los Angeles is an alternate universe where all the classic animated characters from Disney and Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes live side-by-side with humans. Set in Los Angeles in the 1940s, the film stars Bob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant, a down-on-his-luck private detective who is hired by the head of a movie studio to investigate the wife of one of its box office stars there are rumors that she is having an affair, and the studio feels that the scuttlebutt is affecting their star’s performances. It’s an anarchic action-comedy-murder mystery directed by Robert Zemeckis, adapted from a novel by Gary K. When cinematic scholars make lists of truly groundbreaking films, very few of them ever mention Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but in my opinion they absolutely should.
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