By Mark Sung Apr 5, 2005, 19:18 GMT
Since the original movie was over 50 years old, there was only limited original source material. Several sources were used in the restoration of the original recording: three-element music only tracks, various music and effects tracks, and the Walt Disney Records Bambi soundtrack album master. The restoration process involved combining the best parts from the available sources. The soundtrack was then balanced, equalized and then de-noised. The result is a soundtrack which sounds pretty good for a movie that was released in 1942.
There are some soundtracks that many will agree enhances a movie greatly and that the film would be a lesser film without the soundtrack. In the case of Bambi, the soundtrack doesn’t so much enhance the movie, but more so defines it. As mentioned in one of the accompanying interviews on the CD with Walt Disney, there are only 950 words of dialogue in the entire movie. When asked why there were so few words in a feature motion picture, Walt Disney replied that he ‘wanted the action and the music to carry’ the movie. And that’s one of the first things which you notice when you listen to the soundtrack. You can tell very easily that the Bambi soundtrack is trying to tell a story. There is so much character and liveliness in the soundtrack, that someone who hadn’t seen the movie could enjoy this.
The main recurring theme of the soundtrack is introduced in the opening track ‘Love is a Song’ sung by Donald Novis. The song also introduces the choral voices which are used throughout the soundtrack. As mentioned in the accompanying interview on the CD with Henry Mancini, this was one of the first times when mixed chorus voices were used as a background, singing vowels and used as a scoring tool rather than just for singing songs. As a result the voices helped to humanize the movie and help give certain scenes a heart. The following track ‘Sleepy Morning in the Woods’ is very successful in capturing the essence of springtime and the awakening of all the different animals in the woods. Towards the end of the track we hear the accompanying music for the scene when Bambi tries the learn how to walk. With its unsteady tempo, the track is able to capture the curiosity, hesitance and innocence of the character in the scene.
The last music track on the CD is the demo recording of the song ‘Rain Drops’ which never made it to the movie. The most striking thing about this track is probably how old the song sounds from the sound quality and it makes you wonder how much work they had to do to restore the rest of the soundtrack.
Following that are a series of interviews with the filmmakers including Walt Disney. Over 13 minutes of interviews cover topics such as the soundtrack music, the art research that had to be done and how they cast the voices of the characters.
The Bambi Remastered Original Soundtrack is an impressive soundtrack which has a lot of heart. The tracks throughout are intriguing and engaging and keep your interest right through to the end. In a age where more score composers are working closer with sound engineers and movie scores are increasingly becoming more like sound design, this soundtrack is a good reminder of how effective actual music can be in telling a story.
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