Bill Condon: Dreamgirls (2006)

[Chris Knipp]

Bill Condon: Dreamgirls (2006)

Motown sliced too thin

Review by Chris Knipp

Dreamgirls is a filmed musical that by reports stays close to its Broadway source. It provides glitzy entertainment, with a tale of intrigue and manipulation and glamorous song performances featuring increasingly chic hairstyles and slimmer singers, as the central black girl song group based on the Supremes loses its more soulful, plumper member, Effie (American Idol’s Jennifer Hudson) along with its bad wigs and moves on to superstardom. Behind them is a promoter who himself achieves mega-bucks status and adopts hipper hairstyles, but not without bending a lot of rules and using a lot of people.

It may seem unsporting to say so, but this movie, despite its glitter and entertainment value, leaves an empty feeling. There are major questions about how American musical history gets treated here, for the sake of some fairly unexciting original musical numbers. One basic question is, if Effie was the singer who could move you, how did the group become a hit without her, regardless of the promotion?

It’s obvious Dreamgirls refers to Berry Gordy Jr.’s Motown in its focus on impresario Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx). First this Gordy-surrogate hires a soul singer, James “Thunder” Early, persuading a young black girl group, The Dreamettes, to sing backup for him and pushing out the Dreamettes’ sedate manager Marty Madison (Danny Glover). Next Taylor promotes the Dreamettes separately and eliminates Effie. He sells out his used car business to buy payola air time for the group’s songs.

Gordy pushed Florence Ballard out of The Supremes and made the slimmer more homogenized looking Diana Ross the lead singer. But there’s an important element missing from the movie: the charisma and magic of Diana Ross. Her stand-in here, Deena Jones (Beyoncé Knowles) just can’t come close, so the success of the Dreams (as they’re re-christened) without Effie remains a mystery.

Berry Gordy was involved in payola and he manipulated his groups. But this story is unfair to Gordy, Motown, and black music. It refers to male singers through a composite of James Brown, Little Richard, et al., represented by Jimmy Early (Eddie Muphy), whose performances are uninvolving mimicry and who dies early (get it) of a drug overdose. Motown’s greatest star Michael Jackson gets shrunken to ten seconds of a group mimicking the Jackson Five, not even getting the dancing right and seen only on TV. The many other sensational Motown stars beloved of black and white audiences are forgotten, as is the Disco era, since Diana Ross stand-in Knowles is seen as the only Disco diva in Taylor’s stable.

Subplots like Effie’s affair with Taylor and child by him whom he recognizes later, Early’s affair with Dreams member Lorell (Anika Nori Rose), and Deena’s attempt to star in a movie as Cleopatra, do nothing to make up for how the plot slights black musical history.

Jamie Foxx is uneasy and ill cast as the cruel manipulator, Curtis Taylor. This character gets muddled because as the screenplay makes him more and more evil, Foxx seems to be trying harder and harder to make us like him. Maybe he’s trying to show Taylor as more three-dimensional, but the character as written is too cardboard thin for that to work.

Sure, Motown groups were packaged, and we don’t know how many soul singers’ souls were destroyed in the process. But Dreamgirls fails to show how huge Motown was for American culture in general and African American culture in particular in the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties. Gordy’s was a big accomplishment, not a narrow con game. What of the “Motown sound”? There’s only one sound here, and it doesn’t sound right. The movie makes us long for little clubs with down-dressed performers like Effie as we see her eventually making a partial comeback helped by the faithful Marty Madison (a sugar-coating of Florence Ballard's real fate; she died broke and drunk at 32). Knowles has one big number, but Hudson soars every time she opens her mouth, even if she can’t act. While the big numbers are emotionally empty, the group's composer, Clarance "C.C." Brown (Keith Robinson) is moving in his song, "We'll always be family." Robinson gives his small role some feeling and intensity.

It’s hard not to see this as really the story of Effie—she’s the only singer we really care about. The audience is electrified by Hudson’s farewell song, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" (though it goes on too long and is poorly directed) and can’t wait for her to come back onscreen. The elaborate production numbers staged with The Dreams are just flash. But the movie doesn’t show that Motown performances, with Diana Ross at the center, could be both glitzy and musically enchanting, and these forgettable showtunes don't begin to remind us how often songs out of Motown had a hypnotic, felt quality that made them stay engraved on our hearts and minds forever.

[mouton]

DREAMGIRLS
Written and Directed by Bill Condon


A few short years ago, a little musical called CHICAGO came along and set the new standard for the modern movie musical. Picking up where CABARET left off fifteen or so years earlier, CHICAGO featured quick-paced editing that compartmentalized and sexualized many a shake and just as many a gyration. Its polished glitz and glamour announced the second coming of a genre that had been struggling for years. Long gone were the days of showcasing talent, leaving composition and aesthetic to bring up the rear. From now on, talent would be constructed to work with the visuals, allowing the musical genre to appeal to a generation that can’t hold its focus longer than the time it takes to execute a four-step combination. The bar had been raised and no film has come close to CHICAGO’s caliber since, until now. Following 1960’s girl group, The Dreams, from their humble beginnings to their ultimate dissolution, DREAMGIRLS brings the musical back to the multiplex with a brand new R&B groove to back it up. Director Bill Condon hopes DREAMGIRLS will follow in CHICAGO’s successful footwork all the way to solid box-office gold and with it, he throws his hat into the Oscar race one more time (following moderately successful bids with GODS AND MONSTERS and KINSEY). What all this repackaging suggests though is that a musical is a naturally difficult sell and though DREAMGIRLS had me bopping along, rootin’ for the girls and crying out loud, it never let me forget how much it was trying to get me to like it.

Condon paints a colorful scene, rich with deep blues and golds but all his aesthetic work is overshadowed by the brazen performances of his exuberant cast. Much has been said already but everything you’ve heard is actually true. As James Early, a womanizing, coke-snorting master of funk, Eddie Murphy is sneaky and sleazy and enjoying every minute of it. His descent from fame weathers his face but his spark always manages to find its way through the funk that finds itself watered down through the years. In many ways, Murphy’s career mirrors Early’s so the applause echoes both on and off screen. With Murphy showing new life later in his career, Beyonce Knowles shows a promise I had not expected so early in hers, if at all. Months of acting classes were a great investment for Knowles. As Deena Jones, Knowles transitions from a naïve girl hoping to succeed into a grown woman at the forefront of a groundbreaking female trio struggling to take back some control over her life, which has been directed entirely by the recording industry. It might not sound like a stretch for Knowles given her experience with Destiny’s Child but her performance as Jones shows both vulnerability and desire. Perhaps her most impressive feat is scaling back her trademark vocals to play someone who supposedly has no colour in her voice. And then there is Jennifer Hudson, this year’s breakout star. Your eye is instantly drawn to her and you wait for her to show you what she’s got. When she does, you’ll see why everyone is talking. Hudson’s voice is so powerful and exudes so much character and emotion that it brought me to tears more than once. Hudson’s Effie White gets all the best songs and the best trajectory as well but if Hudson didn’t own every aspect of this character’s fragile ego as it crumbles and falls hard, no one would care about this movie. That only leaves Jamie Foxx as Dreams manager, Curtis Taylor JR. You haven’t heard much about Foxx but that’s probably because he underplays the role so much that he ends up leaving no mark at all.

The musical is not always simply song and dance; the musical can also be meaningful. DREAMGIRLS has plenty to say and it says it directly and without shame. The bulk of its malice is pointed straight at the music industry. The first point of its one-two punch assault is in regards to the treatment of artists in the industry. Deena replaces Effie as lead singer of The Dreams because there is more chance for The Dreams to crossover with a smoother, more accessible (read, more white, but more on that later) sound and the group gets no say. One artist will rerecord another’s song and usurp all of their radio play if the label executives say so. The girls eventually lose all say over what they want to do with their own lives for the sake of their careers. In Deena’s case, this is even more abusive as her manager, Taylor, is also her husband. The second punch attacks the industry for its whitening of soul music. Often, the songs that were being rerecorded were being done so by white recording artists with more popular appeal. This is what made The Dreams so important. They were able to crossover from the R&B stations to the pop stations. While the industry was exploiting their artists and exploiting an entire race, these same black artists managed to make their own inroads towards fighting racism by appealing to white listeners who were forced to face images they were not willing to before. That’s the healing property of music, I suppose.

DREAMGIRLS is not simply a monumental musical but it is a mammoth film. It is grand in scope and large in life. Though it stumbles at times, its soul is infectious and its satisfaction is sweet. Mr. Condon, you needn’t have tried so hard. I would have liked you just the same.

[Chris Knipp]

I am disappointed that you didn't deal with any of my objections. I disagree with you at many points. First of all, the idea that musicals are like technology, that they are perfectable and are constantly getting better, as if after the coming of Chicago we could just forget about all the great musicals of the past. I don't iknow if you are talking about movies or musicals.

Second, you talk about the plot and what it says without any references to the musical history the plot is based upon. You didn't have to reply to my review, but you needed to show some awareness of the context.

[mouton]

My apologies Chris. I was just posting my own review. In all honesty, I spent so long working on it today that I didn't have a chance to read yours afterwards. I was going to look at it tomorrow and then see how it compares.

I will respond about the tone. I was not trying to suggest that musicals are constantly getting better and therefore negating all the brilliance of the past. I am a lover of musicals, new and old, stage and screen. Perhaps I wasn't clear but I was trying to say that musicals today need to be more dynamic, which is not to say better, in order to be seen. One simply cannot make em like they used to. Major audiences don't have the patience for that. This is why something like Chicago works for today. It's merely a generational difference, I suppose.

As for leaving out the musical history, I simply did not have the time to get into it. I had too much to say about other subjects. The comparisons are obvious and should not be ignored but I did not have much to say about them. I saw the film as somewhat detached from its history. I felt the points it had to make about the racism and the music industry to be more important that who they might have been about.

Sadly I am too tired tonight to read your review. I will definitely get to it then and get back to you.

Good night!

[mouton]

Morning Chris ...

Alright, first off. Can you please send me an example of something Armond White enjoyed? I have this very narrow view of him as a very angry, unhappy man right now. Clearly, I have finished reading his review of DREAMGIRLS. Wow. He has nothing good to say at all.


Dreamgirls threatens to leave audiences ignorant of how showbiz operates, how black artists and hustlers compromise, how American pop culture thrives.

I understand, as does he, that DREAMGIRLS is confection. However, and again I agree with him to some extent, the film is irresponsible historically. That being said, I left the theatre thinking about the very issues he lists above as issues that will be lost in this representation. He is faulting the film but also not giving enough credit to the audience.

DREAMGIRLS could have been a much deeper film. Clearly, it had a deep well to take from. My viewing focused, as I mentioned earlier, more so on the plight of its characters. I sympathized with Effie's overblown ego being deflated, forcing her to reevaluate her priorities. I felt, through her vocal performance, Deena's need to break out of the prison that had become her career when she sang "Listen".

Is it fair to fault the film for recreating a musical that supposedly got it wrong to begin with? When the musical played to live audiences, from what White describes, the show was guilty of packaging black artistry to be digested by white audiences just as much as the music industry it was faulting for doing so. That was then and this is now. Yes, the film could have reworked the original script but the music industry packages black artists for both black and white audiences today. The pop charts are dominated by hip-hop to the extent that white artists are tailoring their styles with a hip-hop sound in order to just get play. Yes, the white artists sell more than the black artists but the black artsts aren't hurting.


Despite its ostentatious build-up, “And I Am Telling You” has not entered the Broadway canon: It’s a number white actresses don’t/won’t attempt because it’s culturally stigmatized. The song is so wildly humiliating that it can only be rationalized as a cartoonish black stereotype

I doubt very much that white singers won't tackle this song due to cultural stigmatization. They probably just can't do it vocally. It is this kind of statement that makes it very dfficult to hear White's argument fairly. Effie's supposed cartoonish black stereotype is his reading, rooted in his own fears about representation. I saw a woman who had finally ran into a wall after regularly demanding attention and affection. She Stands there unknowingly pregnant, seeing her entire future, both career and love, dissolve before her eyes. Yes, it is dramatic but since when did dramatic become synonamous with the black experience?

I admit my ignorance to the history and I acknowledge that that alone supports White's theory to an extent. However, I do believe there is something to be taken from the film (aside from some great tunes) regardless ... It's not that I don't understand the frustrations and importance of representation but you can miss out on a lot when that's all you focus on. C'mon ... "And I'm Telling You" is a rousing number, plain and simple. I cried, man.

(I will read your review next)

[mouton]

And now I have finally read your review. Regardless of your cultural reading of the film, I think it is fair to say it left you left feeling rather uninspired. Comparing your writing to White's, I have a much easier tme accepting your points because your opinion has more balance. I also want to thank you for teaching me without realizing. Your comment on Effie's showstopper number lacking direction helps to remind me of the definition of the director's role.


One basic question is, if Effie was the singer who could move you, how did the group become a hit without her, regardless of the promotion?

Taylor wanted to make money .. to make the kind of money he wanted to, he had to sell to white audiences. What white audiences could not handle from black artists was the intensity of their passion. Hence, throwing Deena to the forefront with her "colourless" voice. Not to suggest The Supremes were nothing more than easily digestable but they were soothing and warm. Music is still packaged that way today. The brave music stands out amongst few but the accessible gets downloaded by so many more. This says nothing of looks either. Deena clearly thinner than Effie is easier on the eyes. When selling to an audience that already has a problem with looking at black people, you want to make it easier on them. Please don't mistake this for my opinion but rather just a rational of music marketing.

I guess my biggest complaint about your review is your disappointment with the film's lack of focus on the history of Motown records. You criticize the film for giving you nothing The Jackson 5 or how it summed up all male performers through Jimmy Early. To that I say, this was a movie about The Dreams. They were a part of something monumental but it is still their story. I do agree with you though that the film has trouble grounding itself in reality. A more clear view of how impactful Motown was would have made for a much stronger desperatio in The Dreams success and a much more painful sadness when they broke up.

I felt the film flawed but enjoyable. Honestly, Chris, I saw this the day after Christmas and wanted to have fun. I did and I stand by that. If I wanted a serious piece about the exploitation of black artists throughout history, I would not be going to DREAMGIRLS for it.

[Chris Knipp]

I have a much easier tme accepting your points because your opinion has more balance. I also want to thank you for teaching me without realizing. Your comment on Effie's showstopper number lacking direction helps to remind me of the definition of the director's roleThanks for taking my arguments so seriously. I now White is an extremist, but I feel a review should present an argument, so you have to consider objections from the other side, just like in a debate--and White is nothing if not provocative.. True it is preferable to achieve more balance, but White is often thought-provoking. I try for balance in what I write.

There was a mainstream white critic who basically agreed with the same criticisms of Dreamgirls. This was Stephanie Zacharek in
Salon (http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2006/12/15/dreamgirls/index_np.html?source=CP=IMD&DN=110) . Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central (http://filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/dreamgirls.htm) also objects to the film. He's another extremist, like White, who often undermines his negative opinions by being abusive; but in this case he just says Dreamgirls is a success because of a lack of good competition--by abusing the competition, agreed, but without his usual vitriol.
Taylor wanted to make money .. to make the kind of money he wanted to, he had to sell to white audiences. What white audiences could not handle from black artists was the intensity of their passion. Hence, throwing Deena to the forefront with her "colourless" voice.I agree with all that; I'm just saying that Beyonce Knowles doesn't convey the magic of Diana Ross as a performer, and hence doesn't make sense out of the big success of the group with a mainstream, i.e., white, audience--just the glitsy spectacular productions wouldn't get them beyond Las Vegas, say.

A recent film White has come out in favor of is The Good Soldier. http://www.nypress.com/19/51/film/ArmondWhite.cfm. I don't read him all the time, just when I'm in NYC--The New York Press is free on street corners so I pick it up and go right to his latest reviews. Two other films he was wildly enthusiastic about, as I recall, were Munich and The New World (which I don't agree on--I do like The Good Shepherd, though not as much as he does.) Google "Armond White" and "The New York Press" for more of his reviews.


I guess my biggest complaint about your review is your disappointment with the film's lack of focus on the history of Motown records. You criticize the film for giving you nothing The Jackson 5 or how it summed up all male performers through Jimmy Early. To that I say, this was a movie about The Dreams. They were a part of something monumental but it is still their story. I do agree with you though that the film has trouble grounding itself in reality.I think we're largely agreed on this.About Motown: The movie could be mainly about The Dreams and still give more of an account of the "monumental" nature of Motown and the myriad great stars Motown introduced to the mainstream audience. However, the show-tune music of the musical does not convey the catchiness and emotional force of Motown music and that reamins a fundamental additional flaw.As for wanting to be entertained, sure, one wants to be entertained by a musical, but what's wrong with being entertained and informed about musical history too?
I saw the movie on Christmas day myself, and I didn't want to see a United 93 on that day, believe me. I wanted to enjoy myself. And I did, but when I wrote a review of it, I had to note the lacks that I felt. On looking into the reviews, I have found that I was not alone in my objections. Check out Zacharek. She is not writing from a black point of view but her stance is really very similar to White's.

Again, I appreciate your taking the time to consider my arguments and suggestions and have enjoyed this exchange of ideas.

[Chris Knipp]

P.s.

If thre is something I didn't respond to that you brought up for my response, let me know.

[oscar jubis]

My opinion of Dreamgirls has been widely and clearly expressed by a number of critics. I don't think you'll find anything below that hasn't been said before.

Basically, one cannot make a great musical film out of this source play (book and lyrics by Tom Eyen and music by Henry Krieger). If you are familiar with Hitsville,U.S.A., if "The Sound of Young America" was the soundtrack of your childhood, there's no way you'll be satisfied with Dreamgirls. Perhaps if I was in my twenties or younger I could write a review that doesn't mention Gordy or Motown or The Supremes, regard the whole thing as a piece of fiction detached from history, and marvel at the pleasures to be had, mostly the performances. But there are too many parallels and signifiers to overlook the fact that Dreamgirls is supposed to be about how Berry Gordy created a distinctive sound, discovered The Supremes and made them as popular as The Beatles (at least between '64 and '67, when the Supremes had 15 Top 10 hits, ten of which made it to the top). One can spent a lot of time documenting how Dreamgirls trivializes and simplifies Motown, Gordy and The Supremes, and to some extent this is inevitable. But the source play doesn't even try to approximate Gordy's feat and the brilliance of the music. Dreamgirls mostly ignores the crucial role played by the songwriting trio of Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier in the success of The Supremes and other Motown acts. But ultimately, the gravest sin perpetrated by Dreamgirls is turning Diana Ross into a singer who got promoted based on her looks. Just like Ms. Ross failed to convey in Lady Sings the Blues the genius of Billie Holiday, Beyonce Knowles cannot approximate Diana Ross' charisma and talent.

[Chris Knipp]

Bingo! You said it all, and with better information and more succinctly than me. My only disagreement is that, though Ross may not do full justice to the talent and tragedy of Lady Day, it seems unfair to compare her to Beyonce Knowles. Ross does have a tragic quality in Lady Sings the Blues, and that film deeply moved me at the time.

[oscar jubis]

This bit from Variety's review describes my reaction perfectly:

Given that the script and production emphasis is on Ross as Holiday (and not on Holiday's life as interpreted by Ross), it still requires a severe gritting of teeth to overlook the truncations, telescoping and omissions.

Actually, I would be less critical if they had used Ms. Holiday's actual recordings (the "Ray approach") simply because of the moviegoing masses being exposed to the real thing. I went to a performance of a play about Billie (I think it was called "Lady Day at the Bar & Grill") in which the singer/actress did a better job of approximating the voice of my favorite singer. Anyway, I can see how one would be moved by Lady Sings the Blues just like I can see how one would be entertained by Dreamgirls (and moved, if only during a few numbers involving Effie).

[Chris Knipp]

I was a lot younger, though I was not unaware of Billie Holliday's singing, I have always been a jazz fan since I was a young kid. I just was moved by the movie, as a movie. I also saw it in Baltimore where I grew up--and where Lady Day lived at one point. But what I am suggesting in my last post is that Ross is more effective as Billie than Beyonce is as Ross. Nothing more.

[cinemabon]

I sat on the runway. She walked right past me, singing "Baby Love" I was in heaven. She exuded personality in ways indescribable. It's ironic that by the late 1960's, Motown was issuing 'greatest hits' albums as most of the groups had already peaked by 1970, including the Supremes. I wouldn't say they were on par with the Beatles, but they did generate tremendous excitement and had incredible charisma (they appeared with the Osmonds, including little Donny!). I saw them at their peak in 1967. By that time they already had a repertoir longer than your arm. Unfortunately, their 'style' died with the 60's. By the time the 1970's rolled around, they and so many other groups were yesterday's news. I can't imagine how the Broadway play tried to capture that essence, but I can imagine how a film would try to capitalize on it.

[oscar jubis]

Right on all counts. I also would NOT say The Supremes were on par with The Beatles. However, if using hit singles as a measuring stick, I would say The Supremes were as popular (not as talented or important) as The Beatles between the Summer of '64 and the end of '67.
The Beatles: 16 Top 10 Hits, 11 reached #1.
The Supremes: 15 Top 10 Hits, 10 reached #1.

[Chris Knipp]

The movie Dreamgirls notes that about their competing with the Beatles for a while.


By the time the 1970's rolled around, they and so many other groups were yesterday's news. Music that was moving and fun isn't really "yestrday's news" though it may be out of style; it's what they call Golden Oldies. And of course Billie Holliday's recordings are far beyond that; they're classics, like all the best jazz, and will never go out of style.

[cinemabon]

If you really like classic female jazz singers I would highly recommend Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn. Long before Aretha Franklin bent a note (often called the Queen of Soul), these ladies set the standard by which every singer today vocalizes. Even the Beatles owe much of their style to American jazz, blues, and the early Black rock of players like Chuck Berry. The pop sound of the Supremes may have given them a permanent place in the history of music, but every serious musician alive will tell you that the roots of rock go back to the likes of Louis Armstrong and the New Orleans sound of the south (a mix of gospel, swing, and dixieland).

But the man who really brought the sound to downtown was none other than Chick Webb (he introduced Ella Fitzgerald, too). Webb elevated swing into a place not even Benny Goodman with all the talent in his band could touch. Webb's orchestrations bordered on genius. An early death in 1939 cut short one of the greatest contributors to American music since Copland and Gershwin. Most people outside of New York never heard of Chick Webb. But if you ever listen to one of his recordings, you'll understand why everyone else tried to copy him.

Listen to a 20 year old Ella swing it with Chick's band circa 1937; http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Chick_Webb.html

From these roots every rock and pop musician in America should humbly pay tribute like Christmas every year.