Movies - An American Tail

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	Movies - An American Tail

An American Tail is an animated film produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, and directed by Don Bluth, originally released in movie theatres on November 21, 1986. It was the first full-length animated film released by Universal Pictures (then a division of MCA, now currently a division of GE's NBC Universal).

This film is the story of a family of Jewish-Russian mice who emigrate to New York City, believing that there are no cats in America. Once there, they immediately discover that there are indeed cats in America, and take up in typical late 19th/early 20th century immigrant style: working in a sweatshop, living in horrible conditions, and paying the cats tribute as an alternative to being eaten. The film follows Fievel Mousekewitz (his first name comes from that of Steven Spielberg's grandfather), who is separated from his family as the boat approaches America; the movie chronicles Fievel's search for his family.

The film is an allegory for the terrible conditions immigrants to the United States faced at the turn of the century (the mice represent the Jewish immigrants, and the cats their Anti-Semitic tormentors), and is similar in this respect to Art Spiegelman's Maus.

As such the ethnic and even religious backgrounds of characters are made somewhat more clear than is normal in animation. This is most true in the case of Fievel's family, but is also true with other characters. For examples characters discuss their lives "back home" in Ireland, Sicily, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. Later a dead mouse is shown clutching a rosary and a cross.

Fievel was voiced by Phillip Glasser. The voices of Mama and Papa are Erica Yohn and Nehemiah Persoff, who had no other roles in animation. Dom DeLuise, who also voiced Don Bluth's The Secret of NIMH
and All Dogs Go to Heaven
, was the voice of Tiger, a fat but friendly vegetarian cat that Fievel befriends.

The film was followed by its theatrical sequel An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
, the television series Fievel's American Tails
, and two direct-to-video sequels An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island
and An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster
, but most viewers consider the first film to be the best in the series.

Fievel later served as the mascot for Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio, appearing in its production logo.

Note that while all of the animal characters were animated from scratch, the human characters are portrayed using the rotoscoping technique, in which sequences were shot in live action and then traced onto animation cels. This provides a realistic look for human characters, and distinguishes the cartoonish animal characters from the more realistically-animated humans. Rotoscoping is frequently employed in Don Bluth films, including The Secret of NIMH
and Anastasia
.

The movie became the highest grossing animated feature in first release in history at the time, drawing over $47 million USD; this easily broke the previous record of $23 million USD set by The Care Bears Movie
the year prior.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack included a Grammy-winning James Horner song, "Somewhere Out There."

Soundtrack album track listing

Main Title (orchestral)
The Cossack Cats (orchestral)
There Are No Cats In America (song)
The Storm (orchestral)
Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor (orchestral)
Never Say Never (song)
The Market Place (orchestral)
Somewhere Out There (song)
Somewhere Out There (performed by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram)
Releasing the Secret Weapon (orchestral)
A Duo (song)
The Great Fire (orchestral)
Reunited (orchestral)
Flying Away and End Credits (orchestral)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for An American Tail ]

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Movies - An American Tail

Soundtrack

Soundtrack album track listing

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