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Ratatouille (film)

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For the video game based on the film, see Ratatouille (video game).
Ratatouille
US Poster
Directed byBrad Bird
Jan Pinkava
(Credited as co-director)
Written byBrad Bird
Story:
Jan Pinkava
Jim Capobianco
Brad Bird
Emily Cook
Kathy Greenberg
Produced byDarla K. Anderson
John Lasseter
Brad Lewis
StarringPatton Oswalt
Lou Romano
Peter Sohn
Brad Garrett
Janeane Garofalo
Ian Holm
Brian Dennehy
Peter O'Toole
Edited byDarren T. Holmes
Music byMichael Giacchino
Distributed byWalt Disney Pictures
Release dates
RUS June 28, 2007
NAJune 29, 2007
FRA August 1, 2007
AUS September 6, 2007
UK October 12, 2007
Running time
111 min
LanguageEnglish
BudgetUS$150 million[1]
Box officeWorldwide: US$608,948,588

Ratatouille (Template:PronEng; French: /ʁatatuj/[2]) is a 2007 animated feature film produced by Pixar and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It tells the story of Rémy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), a rat living in Paris who wants to be a chef. The film was directed by Brad Bird, who took over from Jan Pinkava in 2005, and it was released on June 29, 2007 in the United States, to both critical acclaim and box office success.

Plot

Rémy lives in a rat colony in the attic of a French country home with his brother Émile and father Django. Inspired by France's recently deceased top chef, Auguste Gusteau, Rémy does his best to live the life of a gourmet. Not appreciating his talents, his clan puts him to work sniffing for rat poison in their food.

The rats flee the house when the resident, an old woman, discovers the colony. Rémy is separated from the others and floats through the storm drains to Paris on a cookbook written by Gusteau, following the chef's image to his namesake restaurant, now run by former sous-chef Skinner. As Rémy looks into the kitchen from a skylight a young man with no culinary talent, Alfredo Linguini, arrives with a letter of introduction from his recently deceased mother, and is hired to do janitorial duties. While cleaning, Linguini spills a pot of soup and attempts to cover up his mistake by adding nearby ingredients. Horrified, Rémy drops into the kitchen and attempts to fix the ruined soup rather than trying to escape. Linguini catches Rémy in the act, just as Skinner catches Linguini. In the confusion some of the soup has been served. To everyone's surprise, the soup is a success.

File:Ratatouille-remy-control-linguini.png
Rémy discovers that he can control Linguini's movements by pulling on his hair.

The kitchen's sole female cook, Colette, convinces Skinner not to fire Linguini, and Skinner agrees, provided Linguini can recreate the soup. Just as Skinner makes his decision, he sees Rémy trying to escape out the window and pandemonium breaks out in the kitchen. Linguini traps Rémy in a jar and Skinner orders Linguini to take Rémy away. Linguini cannot bring himself to kill Rémy. As he tells Remy about his problems, he notices that Remy seems to understand him and responds with a series of nods and other gestures. The unlikely pair begin an alliance by which Rémy (now referred to by Linguini as "Little Chef") secretly controls Linguini's cooking in return for his protection. The two perfect a marionette-like arrangement by which Rémy tugs at Linguini's hair to direct his movements while hidden under Linguini's toque blanche.

Skinner, suspicious of Linguini's success in killing Rémy, plies Linguini with vintage Château Latour in an unsuccessful attempt to discover the secret of his unexpected talents and of his knowledge of rats. The next morning, hung over and disheveled, Linguini nearly confides his secret to Colette. Desperately trying to stop Linguini, Rémy pulls his hair, making him fall on Colette and leading the two to kiss. They begin dating, leaving Rémy to feel abandoned. Meanwhile, Skinner learns from the letter of introduction that, unknown to everyone but his mother, Linguini is in fact Gusteau's son and stands to inherit the restaurant and imperil Skinner's ambition to exploit Gusteau's image to market prepared frozen foods.

One night, Rémy and his colony are reunited. While scrounging food Rémy discovers Gusteau's will, which, after a chase by Skinner, he presents to Linguini. Linguini now owns the restaurant, fires Skinner, and becomes a rising star in the culinary world. Later, Rémy and Linguini have a falling out, with Linguini deciding he no longer needs Rémy's help. Rémy retaliates by leading a kitchen raid for his rat colony. Linguini attempts to apologize to Rémy, only to discover and expel his colony. Rémy feels guilty about hurting his friend, and refuses to join them in resuming the raid.

Things come to a head the night of a planned review by food critic Anton Ego, whose contemptuous earlier review of Gusteau's cooking reduced his five-star restaurant to four stars and eventually led to Gusteau's untimely death (which ended up dropping his restaurant's rating down to three stars). When asked what he would like for the evening, Ego challenges the staff to prepare whatever they dare serve him. Linguini, unable to cook without the rat's guidance, admits his ruse to the staff as Rémy has returned to help Linguini impress Ego, leading them all to walk out. Colette returns after thinking of Gusteau's motto, "Anyone can cook!" Django, inspired by his son's courage in continuing his dream to cook, returns with the entire rat colony to cook under Rémy's direction, while Linguini, discovering his true talent, waits tables on roller skates. Rémy decides to prepare ratatouille, a traditional dish that would not usually be considered haute cuisine, but does it so well that one bite of it leads Ego to relive childhood memories of his mother. Ego asks to meet the chef and after a frantic consultation with Colette, Linguini and Colette insist he must wait until the rest of the diners have left. At the end of the service, Rémy and the rats are revealed. A changed man, Ego writes a glowing review, declaring that the chef at Gusteau's is the greatest chef in all of France.

In the dénouement Gusteau's is closed by a health inspector, who finds the rats after being tipped off by Skinner. Ego loses his credibility and job when the public discovers he has praised a rat-infested restaurant. Everything is for the best, however; with Ego as investor and regular patron, Linguini, Colette, and Rémy open a successful new bistro called "La Ratatouille," which includes a kitchen and dining facilities for both rats and humans.

Production

Jan Pinkava came up with the concept and directed the film from 2001, creating the original design, sets and characters and core storyline.[3] Pixar management replaced him with Bird in 2005.[4][5] Bird was attracted to the film because of the outlandishness of the concept and the conflict that drove it: that kitchens feared rats, yet a rat wanted to work in one.[6] Bird was also delighted that the film could be made a highly physical comedy,[4] with the character of Linguini providing endless fun for the animators.[7] Bird rewrote the story, with a change in emphasis. He killed off Gusteau, gave larger roles to Skinner and Colette,[8] and also changed the appearance of the rats to be less anthropomorphic.[9]

Because Ratatouille is intended to be a romantic, lush vision of Paris, giving it an identity distinct from previous Pixar films,[4] director Brad Bird, producer Brad Lewis and some of the crew spent a week in the city to properly understand its environment, taking a motorcycle tour and eating at five top restaurants.[10] There are also many water-based sequences in the film, one of which is set in the sewers and is more complex than the blue whale scene in Finding Nemo. One scene has Linguini wet after jumping into the Seine to fetch Rémy. A Pixar employee (Shade/Paint Dept Coordinator Kesten Migdal) wearing a chef uniform and apron jumped into Pixar's swimming pool to see which parts of the suit stuck to his body and which became translucent from water absorption.[11]

Food design

A challenge for the filmmakers was creating computer-generated food animations that would appear delicious. Gourmet chefs in both the US and France were consulted,[9] and animators attended cooking classes at San Francisco-area culinary schools,[12] to understand the workings of a commercial kitchen. Sets/Layout Dept Manager Michael Warch, a culinary-academy trained professional chef prior to working at Pixar, helped teach and consult animators as they worked. He also prepared dishes used by the Art, Shade/Paint, Effects and Sets Modeling Departments.[13][14] Celebrity chef Thomas Keller allowed producer Brad Lewis to intern in his French Laundry kitchen. For the film's climax, Keller designed a fancy, layered version of the title dish for the rat characters to cook, which he called "confit byaldi" in honor of the original Turkish name.[12] The same sub-surface light scattering technique that was used on skin in The Incredibles was used on fruits and vegetables,[15] while new programs gave an organic texture and movement to the food.[16] Completing the illusion were music, dialogue, and abstract imagery representing the characters' mental sensations while appreciating food. The visual flavor metaphors were created by animator Michel Gagné inspired by the work of Oscar Fischinger and Norman McLaren.[17] To create a realistic compost pile, the Art Department photographed fifteen different kinds of produce, such as apples, berries, bananas, mushrooms, oranges, broccoli, and lettuce, in the process of rotting.[18]

Character design

According to Pixar designer Jason Deamer "Most of the characters were designed while Jan [Pinkava] was still directing," "He has a real eye for sculpture."[19] For example, according to Pinkava, the critic Anton Ego was designed to resemble a vulture.[20] Rat expert Debbie Ducommun (a.k.a. the "Rat Lady") was consulted on rat habits and characteristics.[21] A vivarium containing pet rats sat in a hallway for more than a year so animators could study the movement of the animals' noses, ears, paws, and tails as they ran.[15] The cast members strove to make their French accents authentic yet understandable. John Ratzenberger notes that he often segued into an Italian accent.[10]

Cast

Main characters

  • Patton Oswalt as Rémy, a country rat who winds up in Paris where he abandons his poison-checking occupation to fulfill his lifelong dream of cooking in a formerly great French restaurant. Director Brad Bird chose Patton Oswalt to voice Rémy after hearing his food-related comedy routine.[6]
  • Ian Holm as Skinner, the Napoleon-esque, Facel Vega driving, owner of "Gusteau's" (after Gusteau's demise) and the main antagonist of the film. He sells out Gusteau's image to market TV dinners and tries to undermine Linguini's abnormal success. Skinner's behaviour, diminutive size, and body language are loosely based on Louis de Funès.[22]
  • Lou Romano as Alfredo Linguini, a timid and clumsy garbage boy who becomes a famous chef when Rémy takes the helm of his arm control nerve. However, he lets the success go to his head and strikes up a relationship with Colette (despite her intially curt behavior towards him) after an unexpected kiss caused by Rémy.
  • Peter O'Toole as Anton Ego, a feared and loathed food critic whose harsh criticsm drove Gusteau to depression and eventually death. He claims to love food and refuses to swallow any that do not match up to his lofty expectations. Anton Ego's appearance was modelled after Louis Jouvet.[23]
  • Brad Garrett as Auguste Gusteau, a deceased chef who inhabits Rémy's mind as a figment of the latter's imagination and tells him what to do in his time of need, as well as acting as a conscience against Rémy's initial inclination to steal food. Many reviewers drew upon similarities between Gusteau and the real-life chef Bernard Loiseau, who committed suicide after media speculation that his flagship restaurant was going to be downgraded from 3 Michelin stars to 2.[24] Loiseau's restaurant La Côte d'Or was one of the restaurants visited when Brad Bird and others visited France [10].
  • Janeane Garofalo as Colette Tatou, the only female chef in the kitchen. Linguini was charged to her care after claiming to have made a delicious soup, to be trained under her mentorship. She intially displayed a curt and almost hostile front to him due to her reluctancy to jeopardize her career in the kitchen should Linguini fail as a chef under her. However, after an unexpected kiss caused by Rémy, she and Linguini started dating, leaving Rémy to feel left out.
  • Brian Dennehy as Django, the father of Rémy and Emile. He wants nothing more than his son to be just like the rest of the colony, and has a bias against humans. He leads Rémy to a store selling mousetraps to persuade the latter to leave being in such close proximity to humans, namely Linguini, and rejoin the colony.
  • Peter Sohn as Emile, a brother of Rémy's. He wolves down anything that seems remotely edible, much to Rémy's chagrin.

Other characters

Ratatouille is the first full-length Pixar film without Joe Ranft following his death in August 2005.

Release

Ratatouille's world premiere was on June 22, 2007 at Los Angeles' Kodak Theater. [25] The commercial release was one week later, with the Academy Award nominated short film Lifted preceding Ratatouille in theaters.[26]

Marketing

The trailer for Ratatouille debuted with the release of its immediate predecessor, Cars. It depicts an original scene where Rémy is caught on the cheese cart in the restaurant's dining area sampling the cheese and barely escaping the establishment, intercut with separate scenes of the rat explaining why he is taking such risks. Similar to most of Pixar's teaser trailers, the scene was not present in the final film release.

A second trailer was released on March 23 2007.[27] The Ratatouille Big Cheese Tour began on May 11 2007, with cooking demonstrations and a film preview.[28] Voice actor Lou Romano attended the San Francisco leg of the tour for autograph signings.[29]

The front label of the planned Ratatouille wine to have been promoted by Disney, Pixar, and Costco, and subsequently pulled for its use of a cartoon character.

Disney and Pixar were working to bring a French-produced Ratatouille-branded wine to Costco stores in August 2007, but abandoned plans because of complaints from the California Wine Institute, citing standards in labeling that restrict the use of cartoon characters to avoid attracting under-age drinkers.[30]

In the United Kingdom, in place of releasing a theatrical trailer, a theatrical commercial featuring Rémy and Émile was released in cinemas prior to its release to discourage obtaining pirated films.[31] Also in the United Kingdom, the main characters were used for a theatrical commercial for the Nissan Note, with Rémy and Émile watching an original commercial for it made for the "Surprisingly Spacious" ad campaign and also parodying it respectively.[32]

Disney/Pixar were concerned that audiences, particularly children, would not be familiar with the word "ratatouille" and its pronunciation. The title was therefore also spelt phonetically within trailers and on posters.[33][34]

Blu-ray Disc & DVD release

Ratatouille was released on high-definition Blu-ray Disc and standard DVD in North America on November 6, 2007.[35] One of the special features on the disc is a new animated short film featuring Remy and Emile entitled Your Friend the Rat, in which the two rats attempt to entreat the (human) viewer to welcome rats as their friends, demonstrating the benefits and misconceptions of rats towards humanity through several historical examples. The eleven minute short uses 3D animation, 2D animation, live action and even stop motion animation, a first for Pixar.[36] Also included among the special features are Lifted, deleted scenes, a featurette featuring Brad Bird discussing filmmaking and Chef Thomas Keller discussing culinary creativity entitled "Fine Food and Film", and two easter eggs.

Reception

Box office

In its domestic opening weekend, Ratatouille opened in 3,940 theaters and debuted at #1 with $47 million,[37] the lowest Pixar opening since A Bug's Life. However, in France, the location in which the film takes place, the film broke the record for the biggest debut for an animated film.[38] In the UK, the film debuted at #1 with sales over £4million.[39] As of December 2, 2007 the film has grossed $206,325,587 in North America and a total of $608,948,588 worldwide, making it the 3rd highest grossing Pixar film of all time just behind Finding Nemo and The Incredibles .[40]

Critical reaction

Critical reaction to the film was mostly positive. On film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Ratatouille has a 97% rating from 195 reviews,[41] while it has a Metacritic score of 96% based on 39 reviews, the sixth highest score of all on the website as of December 2007.[42]

Awards

Ratatouille was nominated for thirteen Annie Awards,[43] and got a Best Animated Feature nomination at both Broadcast Film Critics Association[44] and Golden Globe Awards.[45] The film also won Best Animated Feature at the Satellite Awards, Best Screenplay at the Boston Film Critics, and Best Family Film by the Las Vegas Film Critics.[46] Michael Giacchino's score was nominated for an Grammy Award.[47]

Ratatouille was chosen as the Best Animated Feature of 2007 by the film critic associations of Austin, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Las Vegas, Los Angeles (tied with Persepolis), Toronto, Washington D.C., Phoenix, San Diego, and the National Board of Review.[46]

References

  1. ^ Michael Cieply (2007-04-24). "It's Not a Sequel, but It Might Seem Like One After the Ads". New York Times. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ Dictionary.com. "Ratatouille - Definitions from Dictionary.com".
  3. ^ Leo N. Holzer (2007-06-29). "Pixar cooks up a story". The Reporter. Retrieved 2007-06-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ a b c Bill Desowitz (2007-04-25). "Brad Bird Offers an Early Taste of Ratatouille". Animation World Magazine. Retrieved 2007-05-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Jim Hill (2007-06-28). "Why For did Disney struggle to come up with a marketing campaign for Pixar's latest picture ? Because the Mouse wasn't originally supposed to release "Ratatouille"". Jim Hill Media. Retrieved 2007-07-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ a b Drew McWeeny (2007-05-21). "Moriarty Visits Pixar To Chat With Brad Bird And Patton Oswalt About RATATOUILLE!". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved 2007-05-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ "Linguini a la Carte". Yahoo!. 2007-05-22. Retrieved 2007-05-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ Helen O'Hara (2007-06-28). "First Look: Ratatouille". Empire. p. 62. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ a b Scott Collura & Eric Moro (2007-04-25). "Edit Bay Visit: Ratatouille". IGN. Retrieved 2007-05-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ a b c "Parlez-vous Francais". Yahoo!. 2007-05-22. Retrieved 2007-05-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ "The Technical Ingredients". Official site. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
  12. ^ a b c Stacy Finz (June 28, 2007). "Bay Area flavors food tale: For its new film 'Ratatouille,' Pixar explored our obsession with cuisine". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-06-29. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ "Cooking 101". Official site. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
  14. ^ Kim Severson (June 13, 2007). "A Rat With a Whisk and a Dream". Retrieved 2007-06-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. ^ a b Anne Neumann (2007-04-25). "Ratatouille Edit Bay Visit!". Comingsoon.net. Retrieved 2007-05-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ Walt Disney Pictures (2007-05-24). "Cooking Up CG Food". Comingsoon.net. Retrieved 2007-05-24. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ Michel Gagné. "Taste Visualization for Pixar's Ratatouille". Gagne International. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
  18. ^ "Ratatouille (review)". Radio Free Entertainment. Retrieved 2007-07-01.
  19. ^ Barbara Robertson. ""Fish, Rats, Chefs and Robots"". CGSociety. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
  20. ^ Bruce R. Miller (2007-06-30). ""Book shows how 'Ratatouille' was made"". Sioux City Journal. Retrieved 2007-06-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. ^ Cynthia Hubert (2007-06-22). "Rat fanciers hope animated film will help their pets shed bad PR". Sacramento Bee. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ "Ratatouille, le film" (in French). Telemoustique. 2007-08-08. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  23. ^ "Louis De Funès, Louis Jouvet, Charles De Gaulle… Le jour de gloire est arrivé. Et au diable les « freedom fries » !" (in French). Lesoir.be. 2007-08-01. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  24. ^ Molly Moore and Corinne Gavard. ""A Taste of Whimsy Wows the French"". Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-08-14.
  25. ^ "Audiences in on 'Ratatouille' pack". Variety. 2007-06-25. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  26. ^ Eric Vespe (2007-06-09). "Quint orders a giant plate of RATATOUILLE and eats it up!!!". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved 2007-06-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  27. ^ Walt Disney Pictures (2007-03-19). "New Ratatouille Trailer Coming Friday". Comingsoon.net. Retrieved 2007-03-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ Walt Disney Pictures (2007-05-11). "Disney/Pixar's RATATOUILLE to Kick off the Summer with Big Cheese Tour". Yahoo News. Retrieved 2007-05-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  29. ^ "Ratatouille Big Cheese Slide With Lou Romano". JustPressPlay.net. 2007-07-16. Retrieved 2007-07-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  30. ^ Lifster, Marc (2007-07-28). "Disney backs out of wine promotion". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2007-08-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  31. ^ "RATATOUILLE'S Remy fights movie piracy". The Film Factory. Retrieved 2007-12-23.
  32. ^ "Nissan Note Exploding Cars It's Possible". Visit4Info. Retrieved 2007-12-23.
  33. ^ Eggert, Brian (2007-06-29). "Ratatouille review". DeepFocusReview.com. Retrieved 2007-10-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  34. ^ Graser, Marc (2007-06-15). "Pixar hopes auds find 'Ratatouille' tasty". Variety.com. Retrieved 2007-10-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  35. ^ "Disney Serves Up 'Ratatouille' on Blu-ray this November". High Def Digest. 2007-08-10. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  36. ^ Patrick Lee (2007-10-30). "Rat DVD Has First Pixar 2-D Toon". Sci Fi Wire. Retrieved 2007-10-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  37. ^ Pamela McClintock (2007-07-01). "Audiences chow down on "Ratatouille"". Variety. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  38. ^ Ratatouille Breaks French Record, Starpulse, retrieved 2007-08-13
  39. ^ "UK Film Box Office: Oct. 12 - Oct. 14". UK Film Council. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  40. ^ "Pixar Box Office History". The Numbers. Retrieved 2007-10-30.
  41. ^ "Ratatouille (2007)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  42. ^ "All-Time High Scores: The Best-Reviewed Movies". Metacritic. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  43. ^ "Annie Awards 2008 nominations". International Animated Film Association. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  44. ^ "BFCA Nominees 2007". Broadcast Film Critics Association. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  45. ^ "HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION 2008 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2007". HFPA. 2007-12-13. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  46. ^ a b "Awards for Ratatouille (2007)". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  47. ^ "50th Annual GRAMMY Awards Nominations List". NARAS. Retrieved 2007-12-22.

External links

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