Chicago

[bix171]

“Chicago” barely qualifies as a movie—it’s a filmed presentation of a Broadway musical. Somewhere there’s a script (Bill Condon wrote it) and some characters (John C. Reilly plays one) but in the end it’s a series of loosely strung together numbers intending to insult the audience, sneeringly identifying it as a scandal-loving, celebrity-mad, indiscriminate horde. Choreographer Rob Marshall turns his directorial debut into a slavish homage to Bob Fosse but where Fosse had the good sense to surround non-dancer Roy Scheider in “All That Jazz” with Ann Reinking and Ben Vereen, Marshall surrounds non-dancer Renee Zellweger with the equally lead footed Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere and suddenly editor Martin Walsh is everyone’s best friend. It’s all a trick; none of it’s credible: you spend the entire film guessing where the dancing doubles are inserted (though the credits trumpet the fact that when you see the leads dance…they’re really dancing—which is the same as saying whatever beef is used in an all-beef hot dog really is all beef). There’s probably only about twenty minutes of actual dialogue and the material is so thin (two murderesses turn their crimes into a media circus in Chicago’s immoral twenties) that the film must depend on its musical staging to keep you interested; but even there you’re presented with an unoriginal patchwork of fantasy sequences (you’ve seen this kind of stuff on PBS’ “Great Performances” hundreds of times) intended to move character development along but in reality only stalls what little plot there is. The film is way overpopulated with songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb and they’re relentlessly similar—loud, brassy and bearing very little of the sardonic wit and pointedness of their “Cabaret”. Let’s not even get started on the leads’ singing voices. With Taye Diggs (an direct imitation of Joel Grey in “Cabaret” and Ben Vereen in “All That Jazz”) and Queen Latifah, both of who seem out of place in this white-bread world. Somewhere in there is Chita Rivera. really dancing

[tabuno]

I can't figure out whether you're complaining about musicals or about movies. On the one hand you say that Chicago "barely qualifies as a movie" yet on the other hand you complain about Chicago lacking musical qualities of the stage production. I don't think you can have it both ways. Either Chicago IS a movie that uses non-musical elements like non-dancers like you seem to imply later in your critique or it DOES need the musical song and dance which you also complain that it has too much of about. I believe Rob Marshall deliberately translated this stage musical production into a theatrical full-length feature film by deliberately using non-professional Broadway Stage actors because it was a film for a movie audience.

I would be curious about your thoughts about Madonna's film version of Evita - now that was some musical stage production shot on film which I found quite amazing. And then there's The Little Shop of Horrors. It was Chorus Line that I felt was destroyed when it came out as a movie.

As an obvious musical stage production critic you obviously prefer the real thing, but to shot the real thing as a movie is a totally different matter. You then just take a number of cameras, set them up in the theater and shoot the live production with no re-takes. I guess if you do that then you'd be happy.

[bix171]

{Tabuno: On the one hand you say that Chicago "barely qualifies as a movie" yet on the other hand you complain about Chicago lacking musical qualities of the stage production. I don't think you can have it both ways.}

It's neither.

I don't want it both ways but I certainly don't consider what I saw to be a film. If it had been approached as a filmed replication of a play with static camerawork and a proscenium arch, I could at least accept that. But this tries to pass itself off as something different, a Hollywood star turn by people who would've embarrassed themselves on Broadway, made by a director who seems to have trouble differentiating between film and theater and who thinks closeups of tap dancing shoes can substitute for the inabilities of its performers.

And, again, if I want mere reproduction, I can turn on PBS or A&E most evenings.

As far as the other films you reference, I haven't seen them. But I think if Rob Marshall needed to see a film that properly blurred the line between cinema and theater, he should review Bob Fosse's "Sweet Charity". At least there the artificiality of the staging is upfront.

[tabuno]

"I don't want it both ways but I certainly don't consider what I saw to be a film. If it had been approached as a filmed replication of a play with static camerawork and a proscenium arch, I could at least accept that." Your version of a film is a stage production that is captured and recorded on film, but surely it isn't a movie in the true sense of the term.

"But this tries to pass itself off as something different, a Hollywood star turn by people who would've embarrassed themselves on Broadway, made by a director who seems to have trouble differentiating between film and theater and who thinks closeups of tap dancing shoes can substitute for the inabilities of its performers." Rob Marshall deliberately did not want a stage production on film because it wouldn't be a movie. He clearly knew what the film industry wanted and the producers and money backers looked for in order to please the movie going audience which it has done as one obviously see by the box office receipts and its Oscar nominations. In today's world of movies just like radio to movies, the transition from stage to movie screen isn't always what one looks for. Rob correctly picked the right combination of star power and song and dance performing talent to strike the balance that the movie going audience would accept.