THE COMFORT ZONE
WRITER/DIRECTOR BRAD BIRD ON TURNING A FRENCH PEASANT DISH INTO A CRITIC-SOFTENING FLOOD OF NOSTALGIA
The section guaranteed to make you feel good, whatever’s going on outside. This month featuring: rats and prison. It’s a lot more feelgood than that sounds — honest.
FFAR MORE TERRIFYING than anyone working at this magazine, fearsome restaurant critic Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O’toole) haunts every moment of Pixar’s 2007 classic Ratatouille, the whimsical tale of Remy, a rat who dreams of becoming a chef. Ego is seemingly impossible to impress. But in the climactic scene, when he tastes Remy’s gourmet twist on the (appropriately named) ratatouille, the critic is transported to memories of being served the dish as a child, and his sternness melts. In a comfort movie about comfort food, it’s a perfectly baked moment — one that, as director Brad Bird explains, works as a metaphor for reconnecting with all kinds of art.
You joined the project late. Where did the scene originate from?
That moment, the [Proustian] ‘madeleine moment’, was in the film for years, but it was originally Chef Gusteau’s moment. Gusteau was alive in all the previous versions. It was a lovely moment, but it didn’t mean anything. A friend of mine said, “Does Gusteau have to be alive in the movie?” I thought, “Well, maybe not!” That moment then naturally fell to Anton Ego. And it suddenly had real meaning and emotion behind it, because it was about a guy who was so caught up in his own opinion that he’d ceased to enjoy things — and how he recaptured that joy by having all these emotions wrapped up into a taste and a smell.
That’s what cooks exist for — or if you want to expand it, artists. Artists are constantly trying to reconnect with the reason that they got drawn into an art. Sometimes, when I see a really bad movie, I get depressed about movies. And I go, “Ah, it’s an old art form, everything’s been done, it’s all over with.” All it takes to cure me is ten minutes of film I love. I can watch the opening to Once Upon A Time In The West, and all is well. I guess what I’m saying is, Ratatouille is about trying to connect with why somebody loves something.
What about Anton Ego’s character design — was he based on anyone?
He was part of the project when I got involved. Jan [Pinkava, Ratatouille’s original director] developed him, and I think Jan wanted him to kind of look like a vulture. So he’s tall and severe. He has a beak-like nose. That was the idea: his criticism that is so severe that it’s almost heading towards some kind of death.
And what about the design of the ratatouille dish itself ?
Ratatouille is not a particularly spectacularlooking dish. It just looks like a vegetable stew. So we had Thomas Keller — a Michelin-star chef, and one of the top chefs in the United States — on the film as a consultant. I tasked him with making a ratatouille that looks like something you would dream about. He proceeded to reinvent it as ‘confit byaldi’. We filmed him making it so that we could see the steps. He passed that assignment with flying colours. I felt like that looked delicious and like something that was special.
How did you approach Ego’s review, heard in voiceover?
It didn’t fall into the way movies are supposed to go. When you have a big, whimsical movie, you’re supposed to have a flourish at the end. Things are supposed to get louder and faster and more energetic. And yet I had this ending that got slower and quieter. Plus, one of the other concerns was that we were just begging for critics to hate us, because you’re calling them out! But it’s meant to be a moment of epiphany, reconnecting with something he loves. The critic is forced to re-examine his criticism. I was really happy that 99 per cent of the critics got it the way I intended it to be taken. There were a couple who thought I was taking a cheap shot at critics, but, you know, I can’t help those people.
What was it like directing Peter O’toole for that scene?
It was one of the happiest moments I’ve ever had. I’m such a fan of Peter O’toole. When I got involved with the project, they actually had someone else set up to do the voice of Ego. Someone that I liked very much. But I didn’t see them as Ego. From the moment I heard about Ego, I’d been imagining Peter O’toole. He took a bit of convincing. He was a little dismissive of animation. He said [adopts British accent], “I think I did something animated once. Some sort of Nutcracker thing.” [1990’s The Nutcracker Prince.] Which he said as if flicking off a piece of lint on his jacket.
I had to say to him, “This is gonna be an interesting role and you loom over the movie, even when you’re not there.” He liked that. I think he played it perfectly. Animators were practically battling each other to try to get Ego scenes, because his line readings were so delicious.
It’s been over a decade since Ratatouille was released and people are still watching it. Is it gratifying that it’s become a comfort film?
Well, cooking is a giving art. There’s something very generous about the act of cooking for somebody. We’re into the idea of comfort foods when we’re stressed — foods that make us feel grounded and satisfied and give us pleasure and a feeling of nourishment. Good art does that, too. It does it for your soul. We try, every single time, to make something that is still going to be powerful, ten, 20, 100 years from now. And I think that the value of storytelling becomes crystal-clear in times like this, when people are distracted and unnerved and want some sort of human touch. Hearing other people’s stories, whether they’re true or fictional, is, I think, incredibly valuable.