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Ratatouille
Release Date June 29th,
2007
SYNOPSIS:
Despite his
sensational sniffer and sophisticated palate, Remy's dreams of becoming a world
class chef seem hopeless due to one small detail - he's a rat! Through a twist
of fate, he ends up in the world-famous restaurant of his late hero, Auguste
Gusteau. With a dash of culinary courage and the help of garbage boy Linguini,
Remy whips up exquisite meals that impress even the nasty chef Skinner and food
critic Anton Ego. Together they conquer the kitchen and prove that big dreams
can come true no matter how small you are.
FUN FACTS:
Ratatouille (French pronunciation: [ʁatatuj], English: /rætəˈtuːiː/) is a 2007 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar
Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the eighth
film produced by Pixar, and was directed by Brad Bird, who took over from Jan
Pinkava in 2005. The title refers to a French dish (ratatouille) which is
served in the film, and is also a play on words about the species of the main
character. The film stars the voices of Patton Oswalt as Remy, an
anthropomorphic rat who is interested in cooking; Lou Romano as Linguini, a
young garbage boy who befriends Remy; Ian Holm as Skinner, the head chef of
Auguste Gusteau's restaurant; Janeane Garofalo as Colette, a rôtisseur at Gusteau's
restaurant; Peter O'Toole as Anton Ego, a restaurant critic; Brian Dennehy as
Django, Remy's father and leader of his clan; Peter Sohn as Emile, Remy's
brother; Brad Garrett as Auguste Gusteau, a recently deceased chef; and Will
Arnett as Horst, the sous-chef at Gusteau's restaurant.
The plot follows Remy, who dreams of becoming a chef and
tries to achieve his goal by forming an alliance with a Parisian restaurant's
garbage boy. Ratatouille was released on June 29, 2007 in the United
States, to both positive reviews and box office success, and later won the Academy
Award for Best Animated Feature, among other honors.
Plot
Remy is an anthropomorphic rat gifted with highly
developed senses of taste and smell. Inspired by his idol, the recently-deceased
chef Auguste Gusteau, Remy dreams of becoming a cook himself. When his clan is
forced to abandon its home, Remy is separated from them and ends up in the
sewers of Paris. He hallucinates the spirit of Gusteau and takes his advice to
look around outside, eventually finding himself at a skylight overlooking the
kitchen of Gusteau's restaurant.
As Remy watches, Alfredo Linguini is hired as a garbage
boy by Skinner, the restaurant's current owner and Gusteau's former sous-chef.
When Linguini spills a pot of soup and attempts to recreate it with disastrous
results, Remy falls into the kitchen and cooks the soup to perfection rather
than escaping. Linguini catches Remy and misdirects the chef's attention from
him, whilst taking arguments from Skinner. While they are arguing, the soup is
accidentally served and found to be a success. Colette Tatou, the staff's only
female chef, convinces Skinner to retain Linguini, who is misattributed with
the soup's creation. Linguini discovers Remy's comprehension and intelligence
and he takes Remy home.
Remy and Linguini find a means to overcome the inability
to communicate, as Remy can control Linguini like a marionette by pulling on
his hair. Hidden under a toque blanche, Remy helps Linguini demonstrate his
cooking skills to Skinner. At that, Skinner assigns Colette to train their new
cook into the profession and the restaurant's practices.
Suspicious of Linguini's newfound talents, Skinner learns
that the boy is Gusteau's son and proper heir to the restaurant. Remy discovers
the evidence and, after eluding Skinner, brings it to Linguini, who removes
Skinner as owner. The restaurant continues to thrive, and Linguini and Colette
develop a budding romance, leaving Remy feeling left out.
France's top restaurant critic Anton Ego, whose previous
review cost Gusteau's one of its star ratings (and ultimately the chef's life)
announces he will be re-reviewing the restaurant the following evening. After
an argument between Remy and Linguini, Remy leads his clan in a raid on the
restaurant's pantries. Linguini catches them and throws them out. Skinner, now
aware of Remy's gourmet skills, captures Remy in an attempt of using him to
create a new line of frozen foods for him. Remy is freed by Django and Emile,
and he returns to the restaurant only to find Linguini was unable to cook
without him. Linguini, spotting the rat, apologizes to him, and explains the
truth to the rest of the staff. The staff then walks out, believing Linguini is
insane. Colette later returns after recalling Gusteau's motto, "Anyone can
cook," from a bookstore window.
Django arrives with the rest of the pack, offering to
help after seeing his son's determination. Remy directs the rats to cook for
the patrons while Linguini runs the front of the house. For Anton, Remy and
Colette create a variation of ratatouille which brings back to Anton memories
of his mother's cooking. After dining, Anton requests to see the chef; Linguini
and Colette wait until the rest of the diners have left to introduce Remy and
the rats to Anton. Anton writes a self-castigating and glowing review for the
newspaper the next day, stating that Gusteau's chef is "nothing less than
the finest chef in France."
Despite the positive review, Gusteau's is closed down due
to reports of a rodent infestation, and Anton loses credibility as a critic.
However, Anton eagerly helps fund a popular new bistro, "La
Ratatouille", created by Remy, Linguini and Colette.
Voice cast
Main characters
- Patton
Oswalt as Remy, a rat who strives to serve a grander purpose in life.
Director Brad Bird chose Oswalt to voice after hearing his food-related
comedy routine. Remy was named after director Brad Bird's dog, an American
Hairless Terrier.
- Lou
Romano as Alfredo Linguini, the son of Auguste Gusteau. He is hired as the
restaurant's kitchen cleaner, but befriends Remy in the process.
- Janeane
Garofalo as Colette Tatou, Gusteau's rôtisseur. She is assigned to
tutor Linguini in cooking, later becoming his girlfriend.
- Ian Holm
as Skinner, a diminutive chef and owner of Auguste Gusteau's restaurant.
He plans to use Gusteau's name to market a line of microwaveable meals.
Skinner's behaviour, diminutive size, and body language are loosely based
on Louis de Funès.
- Peter
O'Toole as Anton Ego, a restaurant critic. He openly dislikes Auguste
Gusteau's methods and opinions. Ego's appearance was modeled after Louis
Jouvet.
- Brad
Garrett as Auguste Gusteau (whose first name and last name are anagrams of
each other). The once greatest chef in France until his death by
heartbreak caused by Anton Ego's negative review of his restaurant. Many
reviewers believe that Gusteau is inspired by real-life chef Bernard
Loiseau, who committed suicide after media speculation that his flagship
restaurant, La Côte d'Or, was going to be downgraded from three Michelin
stars to two. La Côte d'Or was one of the restaurants visited by Brad Bird
and others in France.
- Brian
Dennehy as Django, the father of Remy and Emile. His name is never
mentioned in the film. Dennehy, during the 1980s, had previously worked
with Disney on films Never Cry Wolf and The Man from Snowy River
II.
- Peter
Sohn as Emile, Remy's older brother, who does not share his brother's
passion for cooking and eats whatever he can find out of the garbage. He
is also a thief.
Other characters
- Will
Arnett as Horst, Skinner's German sous chef.
- Julius
Callahan as Lalo, Gusteau's saucier and poissonnier.
Callahan also voices François, Skinner's advertising executive.
- James
Remar as Larousse, Gusteau's garde manger.
- John
Ratzenberger as Mustafa, Gusteau's head waiter.
- Teddy
Newton as Talon Labarthe, Skinner's lawyer. Labarthe bears resemblance to
French actor Jean Reno.
- Tony
Fucile as Pompidou, Gusteau's patissier. Fucile also voices the
health inspector.
- Jake
Steinfeld as Git, a former lab rat and member of Django's colony.
- Brad Bird
as Ambrister Minion, Anton Ego's butler.
- Stéphane
Roux as the narrator of the cooking channel.
- Thomas
Keller as the male dining patron who asks what's new.
- Jen
Herrmann as female dining patron.
Production
Jan Pinkava came up with the concept and directed the
film from 2001, creating the original design, sets and characters and core
storyline. Lacking confidence in Pinkava's story development, Pixar management
replaced him with Bird in 2005. Bird was attracted to the film because of the
outlandishness of the concept and the conflict that drove it: that rats feared
kitchens, yet a rat wanted to work in one. Bird was also delighted that the film could be
made a highly physical comedy, with the character of Linguini providing endless
fun for the animators. Bird rewrote the story, with a change in emphasis. He
killed off Gusteau, gave larger roles to Skinner and Colette, and also changed
the appearance of the rats to be less anthropomorphic.
Because Ratatouille is intended to be a romantic,
lush vision of Paris, giving it an identity distinct from previous Pixar films,
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. 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 Remy. A Pixar employee (Shade/Paint Dept Coordinator
Kesten Migdal) jumped into Pixar's swimming pool wearing a chef's uniform and
apron to see which parts of the suit stuck to his body and which became
translucent from water absorption.
The film's take on the traditional ratatouille dish was designed by gourmet
chef Thomas Keller, and later came to be known as confit byaldi.
A challenge for the filmmakers was
creating computer-generated food animations that would appear delicious.
Gourmet chefs in both the U.S. and France were consulted and animators attended
cooking classes at San Francisco-area culinary schools 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. Renowned 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. The same sub-surface light scattering
technique that was used on skin in The Incredibles was used on fruits
and vegetables, while new programs gave an organic texture and movement to the
food. 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. 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.
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." For example, according to Pinkava, the critic
Anton Ego was designed to resemble a vulture. Rat expert Debbie Ducommun
(a.k.a. the "Rat Lady") was consulted on rat habits and
characteristics. A vivarium containing pet rats sat in a hallway for more than
a year so animators could study the movement of the animals' fur, noses, ears, paws,
and tails as they ran. The cast members strove to make their French accents
authentic yet understandable. John Ratzenberger notes that he often segued into
an Italian accent.
To save time, human characters were designed and animated
without toes. Despite this, the movie had such high design values that the
human characters were even given burn marks on their forearms, as if they had
received them from the kitchen stoves.
Music
Brad Bird reteamed with Michael Giacchino on the score
for Ratatouille since they got along well during the scoring of The
Incredibles. Giacchino had written two themes for Remy, one about his thief
self and the other about his hopes and dreams. He also wrote a buddy theme for
both Remy and Linguini that plays when they're together. In addition to the
score, Giacchino wrote the main theme song, "Le Festin", about Remy
and his wishes to be a chef. Camille was hired to perform "Le Festin"
after Giacchino listened to her music and realized she was perfect for the
song; as a result, the song is sung in French in all versions of the film.
The music for Ratatouille gave Giacchino his first
Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score as well as his first Grammy
Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album. Giacchino returned to Pixar to score
their 2009 blockbuster Up.
|
No.
|
Title
|
Length
|
|
|
1.
|
"Le
Festin" (performed by Camille)
|
2:50
|
|
|
2.
|
"Welcome to
Gusteau's"
|
0:38
|
|
|
3.
|
"This Is
Me"
|
1:41
|
|
|
4.
|
"Granny Get
Your Gun"
|
2:01
|
|
|
5.
|
"100 Rat
Dash"
|
1:47
|
|
|
6.
|
"Wall
Rat"
|
2:41
|
|
|
7.
|
"Cast of
Cooks"
|
1:41
|
|
|
8.
|
"A Real
Gourmet Kitchen"
|
4:18
|
|
|
9.
|
"Souped
Up"
|
0:50
|
|
|
10.
|
"Is It Soup
Yet?"
|
1:16
|
|
|
11.
|
"A New
Deal"
|
1:56
|
|
|
12.
|
"Remy
Drives a Linguini"
|
2:26
|
|
|
13.
|
"Colette
Shows Him le Ropes"
|
2:56
|
|
|
14.
|
"Special
Order"
|
1:58
|
|
|
15.
|
"Kiss &
Vinegar"
|
1:54
|
|
|
16.
|
"Losing
Control"
|
2:04
|
|
|
17.
|
"Heist to
See You"
|
1:45
|
|
|
18.
|
"The Paper
Chase"
|
1:44
|
|
|
19.
|
"Remy's
Revenge"
|
3:24
|
|
|
20.
|
"Abandoning
Ship"
|
2:55
|
|
|
21.
|
"Dinner
Rush"
|
5:00
|
|
|
22.
|
"Anyone Can
Cook"
|
3:13
|
|
|
23.
|
"End
Creditouilles"
|
9:16
|
|
|
24.
|
"Ratatouille
Main Theme"
|
2:09
|
Release
Ratatouille's world premiere was on June 22, 2007 at
Los Angeles' Kodak Theater. The commercial release was one week later, with the
Academy Award nominated short film Lifted preceding Ratatouille
in theaters. A special pre-release of the film was shown at the Harkins Cine
Capri Theater in Scottsdale, Arizona on June 16, 2007 at which a Pixar
representative was present to collect viewer feedback.
Marketing
The trailer for Ratatouille debuted with the
release of its immediate predecessor, Cars. It depicts an original scene
where Remy is caught on the cheese trolley in the restaurant's dining area sampling
the cheese and barely escaping the establishment, intercut with separate scenes
of the rat explaining directly to the audience 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. The
Ratatouille Big Cheese Tour began on May 11, 2007, with cooking
demonstrations and a film preview. Voice actor Lou Romano attended the San
Francisco leg of the tour for autograph signings.
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.
In
the United Kingdom, in place of releasing a theatrical trailer, a theatrical
commercial featuring Remy and Emile was released in cinemas prior to its
release to discourage obtaining pirated films. Also in the United Kingdom, the
main characters were used for a theatrical commercial for the Nissan Note, with
Remy and Emile watching an original commercial for it made for the
"Surprisingly Spacious" ad campaign and also parodying it
respectively.
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. For similar reasons, in the American release of the film,
on-screen text in French was printed in English, such as the title of Gusteau's
cookbook and the sign telling kitchen staff to wash their hands, though in the
British English release, these are rendered in French. In Canada, the film was
released theatrically with text in English, but on DVD, the majority of the
text (including Gusteau's will) was in French.
Home media
Ratatouille was released on high-definition Blu-ray
Disc and DVD in North America on November 6, 2007. 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.
The disc also includes a CG short entitled Lifted.
This is the short that aired before the film during its theatrical run. It
depicts an adolescent extraterrestrial attempting to abduct a sleeping human.
Throughout the sequence, he is graded by an adult extraterrestrial in a manner
reminiscent of a driver's licensing exam road test. The entire short contains
no dialogue (which is typical of Pixar Shorts not based on existing
properties). Also included among the special features deleted scenes, a
featurette featuring Brad Bird discussing filmmaking and Chef Thomas Keller
discussing culinary creativity entitled "Fine Food and Film", and
four Easter eggs. Although the Region 1 Blu-ray edition has a French audio
track, the Region 1 DVD does not, except for some copies marked as for sale
only in Canada.
It was released in DVD on November 6, 2007, and earned
4,919,574 units (equivalent to $73,744,414) on its first week (Nov. 6–11, 2007)
during which it topped the DVD charts. In total it sold 12,531,266 units
($189,212,532) becoming the second best-selling animated DVD of 2007, both in
terms of units sold and sales revenue, behind Happy Feet.
Reception
Box office
In its opening weekend in North America, Ratatouille
opened in 3,940 theaters and debuted at No.1 with $47 million, the lowest Pixar
opening since A Bug's Life. However, in France, where the film is set,
the film broke the record for the biggest debut for an animated film. In the
UK, the film debuted at No.1 with sales over £4million. The film has grossed
$206,445,654 in the United States and Canada and a total of $623,722,818
worldwide, making it the fifth highest grossing Disney·Pixar film now, just
behind Toy Story 3, Finding Nemo, Up and The
Incredibles.
Critical reception
Ratatouille received mostly positive reviews from
critics. On film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Ratatouille has a
96% rating from a sample of 205 reviews, while it has a Metacritic score of 96
based on 37 reviews indicating "universal acclaim", which in June
2009 was the seventh-highest of all scores on the website.
Ratatouille was nominated for five Oscars including Best
Animated Feature Film, which it won. At the time, the film held the record for
the greatest number of Oscar nominations for a computer animated feature film,
breaking the previous record held by Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo
and The Incredibles at four nominations, but tied with Aladdin
for any animated film. In 2008, WALL-E surpassed that record with 6
nominations. Now, Ratatouille is tied with Up and Toy Story 3
for animated film with the second greatest number of Oscar nominations. Beauty
and the Beast still holds the record for most Oscar nominations (also 6)
for a traditional hand-drawn animated film.
A. O. Scott of The New York Times called Ratatouille
"a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most
persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film"; echoing the
character Anton Ego in the film, he ended his review with a simple "thank
you" to the creators of the film. Richard Roeper deemed it "a very
interesting film, it's working on a very different level." Both Roger
Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times (giving the movie a perfect four stars)
and Jeffrey Lyons from NBC's Reel Talk said in their reviews that they
loved the film so much, they are hoping for a sequel. Reaction to the film in
France was also extremely positive. Thomas Sotinel, film critic at the daily
newspaper Le Monde, hailed Ratatouille as "one of the
greatest gastronomic films in the history of cinema". Several reviews
noted that Anton Ego's critique at the end of the movie could be taken, and at
least in one case was taken (by Roger Moore, who gave the film 3/5 stars.) as
"a slap on the wrist" for professional critics.
Accolades
The film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best
Original Score, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Original Screenplay
and Best Animated Film, which it lost to Atonement, The Bourne
Ultimatum (for both Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing) and Juno,
respectively, winning only the last one. Furthermore Ratatouille was nominated
for 13 Annie Awards including twice in the Best Animated Effects, where it lost
to Surf's Up, and three times in the Best Voice Acting in an Animated
Feature Production for Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm, and Patton Oswalt, where Ian
Holm won the nomination. It won the Best Animated Feature Award from
multiple associations including the Chicago Film Critics, the National Board of
Review, the Annie Awards, the Broadcast Film Critics, the British Academy of
Film and Television (BAFTA), and the Golden Globes.
Video game
A video game called Kinect Rush: A Disney Pixar
Adventure was released on March 20, 2012 for Xbox 360, and it featured
characters from Ratatouille, Up, The Incredibles, Cars,
and Toy Story.
Similar films
If magazine described Ratatoing, a 2007 Brazilian computer
graphics cartoon by company Video Brinquedo, as a "ripoff" of Ratatouille.
Marco Aurélio Canônico of Folha de S. Paulo described Ratatoing
as a derivative of Ratatouille. Canônico discussed whether lawsuits from
Pixar would appear. The Brazilian Ministry of Culture posted Marco Aurélio
Canônico's article on its website. In the end, Pixar reportedly did not seek
legal action.
