Brad Bird Whips Up a Little "Ratatouille"

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文章轉載自Disney inside°

"You're trying to get a lot of different ingredients to work well together -- that's what moviemaking is. It's very much like cooking and trying to make the ingredients balance just right," says Brad Bird. "You take every other art -- composition, design, acting, writing, cartooning, music, and sound -- you're trying to blend them all into one experience."

And, maybe more than anyone, Bird is in a position to know. The director of Disney·Pixar's "The Incredibles" has spent many months cooking up his latest offering, with a talented crew of "cooks." Opening this Friday, June 29, Disney·Pixar's "Ratatouille" is a tale of creativity and honesty, as two unlikely friends join forces to take Paris' world of haute cuisine by storm. It's a unique blend of moviemaking, fine food, and ... rats.

"People usually have a little laugh when they hear the premise, but then they go 'but ... RATS?'" Bird laughingly admits. "I think the guy who originally developed this idea, Jan Pinkava, actually... ... moved away from them being ratty -- they had them all on two legs and shortened their tails. They didn't want any ratlike behavior. When I got on the project I went the opposite way, because I felt that the power of the story was about a rat who wants to enter the human world. He wants to cross over and be allowed to express himself creatively. If that's the core of the story, you don't want to deny him his rattiness. You want to play on it and show that he chooses to be nonratlike."

And indeed, the film's protagonist, Remy, is downright appealing, with his delicate pink paws, wistful expressions, and translucent, squeaky-clean pink ears. For Brad, Remy's appeal goes beyond his looks -- he feels a certain kinship with his lead character. "This film was not my original idea, but when I got involved with it I found myself connecting with Remy. What he wants to do more than anything is express himself, but the world has not made it easy for him," Brad explains. It's a struggle he's familiar with himself. "I had a lot of really good, lucky breaks as a kid, but when I actually started working in the industry, I encountered a lot of obstacles."

Those early experiences in overcoming roadblocks may have prepared Brad for "Ratatouille." Asked which part of the movie is his favorite, he laughs and replies "The part between the very beginning and the very end! It was a very difficult project for me because I was entering the film late and I had a very tight schedule. But I couldn't have a better studio on the planet to rally behind me than Pixar. I'm very, very pleased with end result. I couldn't ask for a finer crew to go through it with."

"Ratatouille" was challenging, but then cooking up a masterpiece is never easy -- whether you're creating a magnificent souffl? or an enthralling film. It takes real dedication to perfection, including being willing to scrap what doesn't work. Pixar is famous for this -- never releasing a movie until it's not just "good enough," but the best it can be. Brad says it's not hard to find the inspiration behind this philosophy.

"A lot of what makes Pixar work so well is, in fact, from the old Walt Disney play book," he observes. "Walt himself would go through a movie and take out sequences that had a lot of work done on them if they weren't playing well. Even 'Snow White' had a very long sequence that was all animated, where the dwarfs eat soup. He cut it at the last minute because it wrecked the flow of the story. The bottom line was that he wanted what was best for the movie, and I think this place is following very much in Walt's tradition in that regard."

From a mouse with can-do spirit to a rat who's chasing a dream, "Ratatouille" fits nicely into the Disney tradition of stories about little guys who tackle big odds. It's a delicious addition to an animated legacy, and Brad is hoping that audiences will eat it up.