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      ‘Encanto’ May Be Accurate, but Can It Carry a Whole Country?

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      The filmmakers behind the Disney hit worked for cultural accuracy. Some Colombians and Colombian Americans are looking for more.“Encanto” wasn’t always set in Colombia.The germ of the idea for the Disney feature can be traced to 2016, when the “Encanto” directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard were still working on “Zootopia.” They knew they wanted to tell a story about family — and how family members can struggle to truly see each other. Then they asked: Where should this movie take place?Enter Natalie Osma and Juan Rendon, two Colombian filmmakers who worked on the behind-the-scenes documentary “Imagining Zootopia.”“As we were trying to figure out all of these perspectives and how to bring all the wonders and splinters of Latin America in a way that felt real,” Bush said, “they were like, ‘It’s the crossroads. Everything you can imagine is there.’”Osma and Rendon both became members of the Colombian Cultural Trust, a 10-member group of specialists — historians and anthropologists, biologists and botanists — dedicated to the movie’s details.“Encanto” has been praised for its cultural accuracy. And many Colombians and Colombian Americans loved the film — but it has also started a debate: What can and can’t one movie capture about a country?Whether it’s the racial dynamics that exist today or a strong sense of place in a country one-ninth the size of the United States, the film’s portrayal of nuanced and critical topics has sparked countless discussions among those of Colombian descent.“I found it charming,” the writer and editor Camilo Garzón said in an interview. “I found it beautiful. At the same time, it fell short in terms of what representation for representation’s sake can be.”He explained, “In the spirit of American meliorism, the criticism is to make things better, not necessarily because I didn’t like it.”Colombia, located where Central and South America meet, is home to more than 50 million inhabitants, and its rich cultural heritage reflects influences from Indigenous populations, European colonization, enslaved African people and later immigration.In Hollywood, the nation has been used mainly to tell stories about drugs, drug lords and violence — known as narconovelas — and that is why “Encanto” means so much: The country has never received treatment like this from a major American studio before.Explore the World of ‘Encanto’Disney’s new film, about a gifted family in Colombia, pairs stunning animation with spellbinding songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.Review: “Encanto” charms with its focus on family dynamics, fantastic feats of wizardry and respect for Latino culture, writes our film critic.Colombian Picture: The movie has been praised for its cultural accuracy. But for many Colombians, it has sparked a conversation about cultural representation.The Voice of Mirabel: Stephanie Beatriz, who won over fans with her role in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” discusses taking on the lead role in the film.An Enchanting Soundtrack: The film’s album of music recently climbed to the top of the Billboard 200, displacing Adele’s “30.”A Slice of His Homeland: A Times reporter watched “Encanto” with her Colombian father. Here’s what they thought.The film, which is up for the Oscar for best animated feature this month — follows the Madrigals. Years ago, Alma Madrigal fled her home to escape armed conflict. She saved her three infants but lost her husband. Devastated, the matriarch clung to the candle lighting her way, which became enchanted. Its magic imbues her family members with fantastical gifts when they come of age — except for Alma’s youngest granddaughter, Mirabel.In 2018, Bush; Howard; the executive music producer Tom MacDougall; Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote eight songs for the film; and Miranda’s father, Luis A. Miranda Jr., credited as a story consultant, traveled through Colombia for two weeks on a research trip.They started in sunny Cartagena on the Caribbean coast, drove roughly an hour and a half to San Basilio de Palenque, visited in and around the capital, Bogotá, and saw Bucaramanga, the city of parks. In Barichara, they heard traditional bambuco music, which would inspire the song “Waiting on a Miracle.” They ended in the Eje Cafetero, the coffee-growing region, including Salento and the Valle de Cocora. The soaring wax palm trees of the valley would later feature heavily onscreen.The research process continued throughout the five years of production. Familia, a group of Latino Disney employees, was assembled to share personal perspectives that would help shape the film. Iterations of the project were screened about eight times, said a producer of the film, Yvett Merino. Familia, which she is part of, watched each time and read early scripts.“I joke that they were like true family, because they gave us true feedback,” Merino said. “When they didn’t like something, they really let us know.”The opposite held true, too: Members of the Colombian Cultural Trust made clear what they thought should be included, like the story line of conflict and displacement.In 2016, the Colombian government signed a peace deal with the largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, supposedly heralding the end of a conflict that had left more than 220,000 people dead over more than half a century.“We were repeatedly asked, ‘Please don’t shy away from that; that is part of our history,’” Bush said. “By going through it, you also see the incredible resilience of Colombians.”Garzón, the writer and editor, was born in Bogotá and moved to the United States at the age of 18. “It’s beautiful to see different things that you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, this makes me feel back at home,’” he said in an interview. “And at the same time, that’s not home, because home wouldn’t look like that.”He contrasted the pueblo surrounding the Madrigal family’s enchanted house with the town of Macondo, where the Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez set his novel “100 Years of Solitude.” Both are fictional, but Macondo is believed to be based on Aracataca, García Márquez’s actual childhood home, while the pueblo is an amalgam of Colombian sites.“That cheapens the places, cheapens the significance of the geographies,” said Garzón, who critiqued the film’s generic setting in an article for Intervenxions, an online publication of the Latinx Project at New York University.He also saw a family whose members looked deeply different from one another, but lived in harmony — without ever talking about how race affects their lives.This, he said, was unrealistic: It was a representation of Colombia projected from an American perspective. But as he kept watching, he began to see the film’s depiction instead as an ideal to strive for — whether or not that was the filmmakers’ intent.Aiko Hilkinger, a Japanese German animation screenwriter from Colombia, thought “Encanto” was visually beautiful, stunning. It looked like Colombia, she said. But echoing Garzón, she said it didn’t feel like home. And she wrote as much, in an op-ed for Remezcla.“Because of the lack of Colombian people behind this film in positions where they could make decisions and actively influence people — particularly from the directing and the writing perspective — it doesn’t feel like a Colombian film,” Hilkinger said in an interview. “It doesn’t feel like you’re portraying Colombian culture and Colombian people in a way that’s authentic to Colombia.”Hilkinger said it seemed to her that the film was made more for Latinos who were born or living in the United States than for those from or living in Colombia. At the same time, though, she loves that young Latinos are seeing themselves onscreen, connecting with characters who look like them.Lina Britto, an associate professor of Latin American and Caribbean history at Northwestern University, agreed with the criticisms about place and race. “But I think expecting that from a movie like this would be not understanding the alphabet that they are using to write the story,” she said. “And the alphabet is the alphabet of magical realism.”The professor, who is from Colombia, said accuracy was not necessarily a concern or a goal in magical realism. She said the film’s premise — that the Madrigals received magical gifts as a result of overcoming tragedy — could open up a conversation about the history and reality of Colombia in an artistic manner.“Each person has his own unique talent,” Britto said, “that is the product of each one of them transmuting the trauma into something special and something unique and something that is going to be of service to others, not just to themselves.”Britto views each gift or talent as a form of justice and reparation. Which, she said, is “absolutely crucial” to Colombia at this moment, as the peace deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia threatens to unravel. In the courage of the young protagonist, Mirabel, and the receptiveness of young viewers, though, she sees hope for the future.“It’s the audience — and the insightfulness, the intelligence, the open-mindedness of this generation,” Britto said, “that has pushed older people — the producers, the creators — to be more daring.”In Colombia, “Encanto” was the highest-grossing film of 2021. According to the culture minister, Angélica Mayolo, almost four million people saw the movie in theaters, generating more than $10 million at the box office. (A percentage of that, totaling about $560,000, goes to the country’s Film Development Fund, which helps filmmakers with screenplay development, production and more.)“What, for me, would be the greatest win or success for ‘Encanto’ — aside from the three award nominations in the Oscars — is how the world now sees Colombia,” Mayolo said in an interview. “We’re no longer seen just as the country of drug lords. We are seen in a more positive way.”Mayolo pointed to the more than 16 companies currently working on production in the country — including Netflix, with “100 Years of Solitude” and “Freelance,” starring John Cena and Alison Brie — as proof that they way the world views Colombia is changing.She added: “We cannot deny our history and our conflict. But what we really want to reaffirm is our new moment.” More

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      How the ‘Encanto’ Soundtrack Became a Smash

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      With its eighth week at No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart, the LP featuring songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda is a lesson in how fans drive hits from social media to streaming services.The soundtrack to Disney’s “Encanto” had an inauspicious start on the Billboard 200 album chart, arriving at No. 197 after the animated film’s release in November, just below Bob Seger’s “Greatest Hits” and a Notorious B.I.G. reissue.But this week the soundtrack, featuring songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a score by Germaine Franco, notches its eighth week at No. 1 — one of only three albums with a run this long in the last five years — while Miranda’s song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” slipped to second place on the Hot 100 singles chart after five times at the top.What happened in between is an object lesson in how songs become hits now, with tracks elevated by fans through streaming and social media, and radio often lagging behind the curve.For “Encanto” and “Bruno,” the key factor was TikTok. Soon after the film became available for streaming on Disney+ on Christmas Eve, fans shared their reflections there and acted out scenes from the movie, about an extended family in Colombia that has been touched by magic.“The first instance on TikTok was people posting that these characters look like me and my family, that I’m seeing myself in this picture,” said Ken Bunt, president of the Disney Music Group. “Then it fairly quickly moved into another phase, where people were doing the dances and singing to it.”Explore the World of ‘Encanto’Disney’s new film, about a gifted family in Colombia, pairs stunning animation with spellbinding songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.Review: “Encanto” charms with its focus on family dynamics, fantastic feats of wizardry and respect for Latino culture, writes our film critic.The Voice of Mirabel: Stephanie Beatriz, who won over fans with her role in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” discusses taking on the lead role in the film.An Enchanting Soundtrack: The film’s album of music recently climbed to the top of the Billboard 200, displacing Adele’s “30.”A Slice of His Homeland: A Times reporter watched “Encanto” with her Colombian father. Here’s what they thought.Once ignited on TikTok — where videos tagged #wedonttalkaboutbruno have been viewed 3.5 billion times — “Bruno” and other soundtrack songs, like “Surface Pressure,” began to dominate Spotify, Apple Music and other audio streaming outlets. The soundtrack ousted Adele’s “30” from No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart in early January and has since held that slot every week but one.Since its release, “Encanto” has had the equivalent of just under one million sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, the tracking service used in compiling Billboard’s charts. This week, “Encanto” tops the rapper Kodak Black’s new “Back for Everything” (No. 2) and albums by Morgan Wallen (No. 3), Gunna (No. 4) and the Weeknd (No. 5).On the singles chart, “Bruno” was replaced at No. 1 by Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves,” a song released nearly two years ago that was resuscitated as a TikTok meme and recently got a fresh boost on the radio.Even with the imprimatur of Miranda, the Tony-, Emmy- and Grammy-winning creator of “Hamilton,” “Encanto” might have seemed a long shot as a mainstream pop hit. The album is a pan-Latin fusion that draws on Colombian folk styles like vallenato and bambuco, with touches of salsa, Broadway bombast and rock en Español.In the past, Disney might have leaned on a Broadway-style ballad, with a globally recognized star singing in English, to propel one of its soundtracks. (Think Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from “The Lion King,” which went to No. 4 in 1994.)“Encanto” flips that playbook, showcasing Colombian stars like Carlos Vives and Sebastián Yatra. “Bruno,” a complex ensemble piece with a classic cha-cha beat, is credited to six of the film’s cast members. “Dos Oruguitas,” the first song Miranda wrote from start to finish in Spanish, is nominated for an Oscar.To record the album, producers brought in Colombian specialists to help bring authenticity to the rhythms and instrumental arrangements; most of the sessions, which took place last year, were conducted remotely.But even with its use of acoustic instruments like the cuatro and the tiple — two relatives of the guitar — the sound of “Encanto” is not as distant from the pop mainstream as it may seem. Mike Elizondo, one of the album’s producers, who has worked with Dr. Dre, Fiona Apple and the band Twenty One Pilots, pointed out the heavy bass that drives songs like “Bruno,” and the presence of synthesizers that would not be out of place on a rap hit.“When we were making the music to the soundtrack, Lin was very encouraging,” Elizondo said in an interview. “‘Let’s not try and water anything down,’” he recalled Miranda saying. “‘Let’s not feel like we have to follow any of the rules of prior soundtracks.’”Even so, “Bruno” was almost entirely absent from radio for most of its ascent. Disney did not begin promoting it to radio stations until late January, Bunt said. In recent weeks, “Bruno” has had fewer than 4,000 spins a week on radio stations. By comparison, in the week that Adele’s “Easy on Me” first reached No. 1, in October, American radio stations played it more than 18,000 times.Videos shared on social media helped contextualize the story behind “Bruno” in a way that radio play never could. TikTok clips show fans enacting the story, while a Disney clip on YouTube translates the lyrics into 21 languages, including Norwegian, Thai and Korean. The latest viral mutation in the success of “Bruno” is mash-ups with Doja Cat or Bruno Mars (get it?).In a sense, those videos capitalize on one of the advantages of any successful soundtrack, from the days of “Saturday Night Fever” to “Frozen,” Disney’s last comparable blockbuster: a story line that links the songs together and lets fans relive the film through its hits. That has become vital in the streaming age, when individual songs are increasingly disconnected from their albums.“They’re like potato chips: you can’t eat just one,” said Gary Trust, Billboard’s senior director of charts. “With ‘Encanto’ songs, you can’t just listen to one. You want to relive the whole story.” More

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      in Music

      ‘Encanto’ Soundtrack Continues to Dominate Billboard Charts

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      An album of music from Disney’s animated movie earned its sixth week at No. 1, while Eminem and Dr. Dre benefited from small Super Bowl boosts.A new album catches fire at the dawn of a new year and dominates the Billboard chart throughout the winter doldrums, helped by insatiable fan demand and a shortfall of competition.That is a common pattern in the music industry, and it was manifested most clearly last year, when “Dangerous: The Double Album,” by the country singer-songwriter Morgan Wallen, held No. 1 for 10 weeks. It’s being repeated now by the soundtrack to Disney’s “Encanto,” which has ruled the album chart almost every week this year, led by a song, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” that has also become the most popular single.This week, “Encanto” leads the Billboard 200 album chart for a sixth time with the equivalent of 98,000 sales in the United States, including 123 million streams and 12,500 copies sold as a complete package, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. The one week it wasn’t No. 1, “DS4Ever,” by the Atlanta rapper Gunna, took its place.For the last month, “Encanto” has had a lock on both of Billboard’s key rankings. This week, “Bruno” — if you’ve opened TikTok in the last month, you’ve seen that song’s appeal — holds at No. 1 on the Hot 100 singles chart for a fourth time. According to Billboard, it is the first time that a soundtrack and a corresponding song have dominated both charts at the same time in nearly 30 years — the last to do so was “The Bodyguard” and “I Will Always Love You,” sung by Whitney Houston, which led the charts simultaneously for 12 weeks in late 1992 and early 1993.Also this week, Gunna’s “DS4Ever” holds at No. 2, and Wallen’s “Dangerous” — now in its 58th week out — rises one spot to No. 3. Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” is No. 4, and “The Highlights,” a year-old compilation album by the Weeknd, is No. 5.Eminem and Dr. Dre, who performed at the Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 13, had chart boosts this week. Eminem’s “Curtain Call: The Hits” rises 118 spots to No. 8, and Dr. Dre’s 1999 album “2001” moves up 99 spots to No. 9. More

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      in Television

      Oscars Will Require Covid Tests for All, Vaccines for Most

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      After much internal discussion, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has come to an agreement on coronavirus safety measures for attendees of the 94th Oscars, which will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles: The audience of 2,500 invited guests — including all nominees — will be required to show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus and at least two negative P.C.R. tests.Performers and presenters also must undergo rigorous testing — but those people will not need to show proof of vaccination, a decision that an academy spokeswoman said on Thursday was in keeping with virus safety protocols on some television sets and return-to-work standards set by Los Angeles County.Under an agreement last year between entertainment unions and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, production companies (in this case the academy) have the option to mandate vaccinations for cast and crew. But it is not a requirement, and some companies separate productions into zones, with different testing and social distancing requirements depending on how closely casts and crews need to work together.Face covering requirements also will vary, the academy said. Nominees and their guests will be seated in the orchestra and parterre areas of the Dolby Theater and will not be required to wear masks. These attendees will be seated with more spacing than usual. The Dolby seats 3,317 people and 2,500 people will be invited, the academy said.Those in the mezzanine may be required to wear masks, as they will sit shoulder-to-shoulder. Infections are declining rapidly in Los Angeles County, and the academy said it was consulting with government officials, infectious disease experts and an independent vendor, Cosmos Health Solutions, on a policy.Last week, following a report in The Hollywood Reporter that the academy was planning to forgo a vaccine mandate across the board, the organization was pummeled on social media by fans, stars, politicians and others for what appeared to be an effort to accommodate unvaccinated celebrities. Seth MacFarlane, who hosted the Oscars in 2013, was among those who criticized the academy on Twitter.The academy declined to say anything publicly about The Hollywood Reporter’s article, but officials insisted that no decisions had been made.Coronavirus safety protocols have been changing rapidly as infections have declined. On Tuesday, Disney eased its mask mandate for fully vaccinated theme park visitors in California and Florida. This week, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival said attendees (up to 125,000 fans a day in the prepandemic era) would not be required to be vaccinated, tested or masked.According to government data, 1,713 coronavirus-positive patients were hospitalized in Los Angeles County as of Thursday, a 54 percent decline since Feb. 1. Over the last week, the county has reported an average of about 4,100 new cases per day, a decline of 77 percent from two weeks ago.The academy’s decision puts it at odds with some award shows that are scheduled to take place in the weeks before the Oscars, including the Critics Choice Awards on March 13. Joey Berlin, the force behind the awards, told The Hollywood Reporter that everyone involved would be vaccinated. “I can’t invite people to a show where they’re not going to feel safe,” he said.The academy emphasized on Thursday that it would be in direct touch with nominees and studios to walk them through the various safety requirements. More

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      ‘Uncharted’ Review: Steal, Fight, Repeat

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      This inaptly titled treasure-hunt adventure recycles all the familiar clichés while giving Tom Holland a strenuous physical workout.At least give Sony credit for recycling. That is the best that can be said for its nitwit treasure-hunt movie “Uncharted,” an amalgam of clichés that were already past their sell-by date when Nicolas Cage plundered the box office in Disney’s “National Treasure” series. Now, it is Tom Holland’s turn to cash in with a musty story about ancient loot, old maps, lost ships, invisible ink and a wealthy scoundrel with disposable minions. But while he’s following in Cage’s inimitable footsteps, Holland also seems in training to become Tom Cruise 2.0.The similarities between “Uncharted” and the first “National Treasure” are notable, with both movies adhering to the same booty-questing template. Each opens with a flashback of the protagonist as a wee lad eagerly being primed for adventure by an older male relative, a misty rite of passage that seems calculated to put a family-friendly stamp on an otherwise greed-driven setup. In “National Treasure,” the kid soon becomes a character played by Cage, whose singular, offbeat performance style can elevate and disrupt crummy material.In “Uncharted,” the boy grows up to become a neo-buccaneer played by the boyish Holland, a likable, exuberantly physical performer who has traded his Spider-Man responsibilities for more old-school heroic duty. The Hollywood action movie seems an open field right now partly because most of the male stars who headline non-comic-book blockbusters are middle-aged or older. Holland is 25. He’s cute without being threatening or distractingly, Chalamet-esquely beautiful, and has enough presence and training (dance, gymnastics, parkour) that he can bluff and breeze past clichés while gracefully bouncing through fights and obstacles.Cruise will be 61 when the next “Mission: Impossible” finally (maybe) opens in July 2023. He’s likely to keep going Energizer Bunny-style for years to come. Still, the paucity of young male actors who have the profile, credits and skill set to sell studio goods like “Uncharted” may prove a lucrative opportunity for Holland and his treasure-seeking handlers. At any rate that may explain the images of his character, Nate Drake, a thief who moonlights as a bartender (or vice versa), pulling some smooth moves on the job, a bit of juggling tomfoolery that instantly triggers images of Cruise in “Cocktail.”Soon enough, though, Nate leaves behind his gig and his New York pad for an international escapade that he embarks on in tandem with Mark Wahlberg’s Sully, a more experienced, openly untrustworthy thief. A veteran of workaday blockbusters, Wahlberg serves twinned functions here as a presold pop-culture brand and an archetypal mentor for Nate. Sully can sprint, fight and trade unfunny quips without breaking a sweat, and Wahlberg is just fine delivering the same gruff, regular-guy performance that he always does. He shares top billing with Holland, but Wahlberg is largely onboard as training wheels for the younger actor.“Uncharted” is based on a PlayStation game of the same name that first hit in 2007 and that tracks the globe-trotting doings of its Everyman hero, said to be descended from the British privateer Sir Francis Drake. The movie, directed by Ruben Fleischer, nods to the game and Sir Francis, who circumnavigated the globe in the 16th century and was instrumental in England’s challenge to Spain. Given the current climate, though, it’s a surprise that the movie didn’t quietly ignore Sir Francis, who participated in establishing the slave trade. In 2020, a statue of Sir Francis in Britain was draped in chains with a sign reading “decolonize history.”Hollywood’s penchant for ignoring inconvenient historical truths means that the movie leans into Sir Francis’s globe-trotting and plundering as well as his fight against the Spanish, in this case through the proxy figure of Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas). A Barcelona moneybags, Santiago is out to enhance his fortune with the same treasure that Nate and Sully are chasing. It’s a bit of a bummer to see Banderas back in this type of throwaway role, though presumably stars can’t live on Pedro Almodóvar movies alone. Mostly, Banderas handsomely scowls, barks orders and helps keep the machinery chugging.For his part, Nate grins and grimaces, runs and leaps, nimbly going through many of the same action-movie paces that heroic avatars have long gone through. He also types on a computer keyboard, wears a tux at a fancy party à la James Bond and flirts with a romantic foil, Chloe (Sophia Ali). Like the movie’s scariest baddie, Braddock (Tati Gabrielle), Chloe is one of those tough — but sexy! — female characters who’s more physically in the mix than she would have been in the past, back when the love interest was played by the blonde du jour. But while Chloe and Braddock are clearly adding something new to the same old story, they’re still performing the same old roles for yet another Hollywood male contender.UnchartedRated PG-13 for relatively bloodless death and violence. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Encanto’ Soundtrack Tops Billboard Chart for Fifth Week

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      Propelled by streams of the hit “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” the album notched the most weeks at No. 1 for a soundtrack since Disney’s “Frozen.”Another week, another No. 1 for Disney’s “Encanto” soundtrack.The album, with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, continues its blockbuster run on Billboard’s chart by notching its fifth week at No. 1, beating out new releases by Yo Gotti and Mitski.Propelled by the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” which remains the most-streamed song in the United States on Spotify — as well as a popular TikTok meme — the “Encanto” soundtrack had the equivalent of 110,000 sales last week. That was down just 2 percent from the week before, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm.“Encanto,” released nearly three months ago, has held the top spot every week this year except one, and posted steady numbers. Its total this week includes 135 million streams — last week it was 140 million; the week before, 139 million — and 17,000 copies sold as a complete package. It is the first soundtrack to earn at least five weeks at No. 1 since Disney’s “Frozen,” which enjoyed 13 times at the top in 2014.This week, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is also No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart for a third time.Also this week, “DS4Ever” by the Atlanta rapper Gunna rises one spot to No. 2 on the album chart, while the veteran Memphis rapper Yo Gotti opens at No. 3 with “CM10: Free Game,” his highest chart position.Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album,” a chart mainstay for more than a year now, holds at No. 4, and “Laurel Hell” by Mitski, a star indie singer-songwriter, opens at No. 5, a career high. More

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      Lin-Manuel Miranda on His 'Encanto' Oscar Nomination and His EGOT Prospects

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      It was just one of those Tuesdays for Lin-Manuel Miranda. The composer, lyricist and actor — known for “In the Heights” and “Hamilton” — had trouble getting his youngest off to preschool, and his older son’s school bus was running late.He sat down with his wife, the attorney and engineer Vanessa Nadal, just in time to catch the Oscar nominations. The real joy in watching, he said, was “how many friends I’m lucky enough to know that made such amazing work this year.”He texted Ariana DeBose when she was nominated for best supporting actress for “West Side Story” and hit up the costume designer Paul Tazewell when he scored a nod for the same film. When Germaine Franco was recognized for best original score on the Disney animated film “Encanto,” which Miranda wrote songs for, he screamed for the whole neighborhood to hear.“Encanto” follows Alma Madrigal, who fled her home years ago while escaping conflict. She saved her three infant children, but lost her husband, Pedro. Devastated, Alma clung to the candle she was using to light her way, which became enchanted — hence the “encanto” — and imbued her family members with magical powers, all except her grandchild Mirabel.Miranda also received a nomination for the film: best original song for “Dos Oruguitas,” a heart-rending ballad at the emotional climax of “Encanto.” To top it off, the film — directed by Byron Howard and Jared Bush and co-directed by Charise Castro Smith — garnered a nomination for best animated feature.Miranda, who lives in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York, jogged across the George Washington Bridge and back in his excitement.Although he has written his fair share of music — his “How Far I’ll Go” for Disney’s “Moana” picked up a best original song nomination in 2017 — “Dos Oruguitas” is the first song Miranda had written from start to finish in Spanish.“I really went pretty far out of my comfort zone to write the tune, so I’m really just thrilled it’s been recognized,” he said. “It just makes you want to push more: lean into the things that scare you and do those things. That’s what’s worth doing, because that’s what makes you grow.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.When did you write this song? What did that process look like?It’s probably early last year, like March or April. But I remember the idea came on a brainstorm with Jared and Charise on the phone. Just sort of like, “I think the butterfly metaphor is already there visually. What if this song goes to nature’s original miracle?” And then, when I thought of the idea of two caterpillars in love, it was a wrap.There’s so much that it was able to hold: both Abuela [Alma] and Pedro, and what the family is doing to each other by holding on too tight. I wanted it to feel like a song that always existed. All of my favorite folkloric songs all have nature metaphors embedded in them. I started dreaming in Spanish again while I was writing it. It was like my whole brain was trying to make it happen, even my subconscious.Once you had that idea — caterpillars in love — were you able to write smoothly or did it take awhile to write in Spanish?I think I wrote the first verse and chorus in, like, a week. Sent it to the creative team. They were all sniffling and they were like, “You’re on the right track; keep going.” I needed to reach for a poetic language that is beyond my standard conversational Spanish. I’m pretty fluent in conversational Spanish, but this needed to be elevated. I ran the grammar by my dad. And looked for the words that aren’t in my everyday usage: crisálidas [chrysalises], desorientadas [disoriented]. You do whatever you need to do to get the hook out.Why did it feel like this song had to be in Spanish?Because honestly, all of the words central to the metaphor are more beautiful in Spanish, on a technical level: oruguitas, crisálidas, mariposas [butterflies] are just beautiful words. But also I think there’s a subtle generational play happening with the way we use language in this movie: The younger siblings are all expressing themselves in pretty contemporary genres: reggaeton for Luisa, ’90s rock en español for Isabela [Mirabel’s sisters]. And so it felt like the matriarch of the family and the central, foundational story of this family and this miracle should be in Spanish.How did you choose Sebastián Yatra — a younger, pop-y singer — to voice that sentiment?We went back and forth initially over whether it was a female or male vocal. And we kind of felt like, “Well, if it’s female, it will feel like Abuela is singing it.” It didn’t feel quite right. I tell the story a lot, but a lot of writing the right song is figuring out what is not the right song. It didn’t feel right for Abuela to sing a song to Mirabel, full stop. So that’s what gets you to the male vocalist.When we started working on this together — Jared, Charise, Byron and I — we all sort of made mixtapes for each other. We all did our own deep dives of Colombian music, and Sebastián just popped up in all our mixes. He’s got such a beautiful voice, and he’s around the age of Abuelo Pedro when the film takes place, so it’s just kind of a perfect fit.Mirabel (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz) in a scene from “Encanto.”DisneyWhat specific aspects of Colombian folk music inspired you?First of all, the folkloric music we heard over there, which was so beautiful — basically anything with a tiple on it, I was kind of in love with. But then the other thing I really thought about was, “What are just the Latin songs that live forever?” I was thinking about “Guantanamera” and “Cielito Lindo.” I don’t feel like anyone ever wrote those songs. Although of course they all have incredible songwriters. I just feel like they always existed. So I really listened to those and the shape of them. The verse and chorus of it owes a lot to those hits.The only other song that feels close to it in songs I’ve written is a snippet of a song called “Siempre” in “In the Heights,” where I wanted that to feel like a bolero that always existed. But again, that’s not a full song. It’s like a verse in the chorus for a record-scratch joke.In the scene where we hear “Dos Oruguitas,” golden butterflies are everywhere, which evokes a favorite motif of the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. Did his butterflies inspire the metaphor in any way, or did they just happen to align once you found the caterpillar idea?Absolutely. The song itself was absolutely inspired by the visual metaphor that the animation team was already playing with. That scene in all of its conception hadn’t existed yet, but I had seen the candle which turned into a butterfly. And that was the inspiration for going to that metaphor. So it’s also of a great example of how much collaboration happens in an animated movie. It’s like writing for theater to the nth power.Like I write a rap section for Dolores in “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” and the writers take that and ran that vibe for her throughout the movie, and in turn, the animation department thinks of this butterfly metaphor absolutely inspired by García Márquez. And then I get to run with that as a song idea. You know you’re cooking with gas when you’re all kind of feeding each other.This song makes me cry every time. Did you cry at all while writing it?Oh yeah. I always think of myself as Tita in “Como Agua Para Chocolate” [“Like Water For Chocolate”]: I cry in the recipe.I thought about my first serious relationship and how we were two people who loved each other very much, but the world was bigger and we were going in different directions. I definitely went there in my heart while I was writing it. You pull on all of it. And also moments in your life when you were so scared of change, and you just have to trust that there’s a reason it’s happening. That, to me, strikes a deeper chord than even the themes as they appear in the movie itself.This is your second Oscar nomination, and if you were to win, you’d become the 17th person to attain EGOT status. How does it feel?On one level, it feels totally silly, because that is a term that got popularized by “30 Rock,” which is a hilarious thing for anyone to chase: that you’re chasing something Tracy Jordan chased.But on another level, the thing that always feels special about this is that artists vote on it. My fellow moviemakers, my fellow songwriters, the music branch. I’ve met some of those folks, and they’re like the most incredibly, wildly intelligent folks who have made music that I love. More

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      With Little New Competition, ‘Encanto’ Is No. 1 a Fourth Time

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      The soundtrack to Disney’s latest animated film holds at the top of Billboard’s album chart in its 10th week out.Disney’s “Encanto” soundtrack, with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, tops the Billboard album chart for a fourth time this week, with no major new releases to challenge it.The “Encanto” soundtrack, which has been out since November, had the equivalent of 113,000 sales in the United States in its 10th week on the chart, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. That total — down only 2 percent from the previous week — included nearly 140 million streams and 16,000 copies sold as a complete package.Last week, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” the film’s breakout hit, reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, displacing Adele’s “Easy on Me” after its 10th week at the top.The last soundtrack album to notch four weeks at No. 1 was “A Star Is Born,” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, in late 2018 and early 2019.Also this week, the Weeknd’s “Dawn FM” rises two spots to No. 2 in its fourth week out, after the album was released on CD. Gunna’s “DS4Ever” is No. 3, Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 4 and YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s “Colors” fell three spots to No. 5 in its second week out. More