Dreamgirls (or, I see some drag acts coming...)
Bill Condon (I bet he got ribbed at school - okay, that was uncalled for) has done it again; he has taken a successful stage musical and turned it into a successful movie musical. Hoorah. Sorta.If Dreamgirls isn't as successful as Chicago before it much of the fault lies with the musical itself. Yes, some of the performances could have been toned down just a touch - Jennifer Hudson belting out her torchsong at the end of what I suppose would have been the first act borders on laughable as she hoofs around the stage hysterically screaming to herself - but on the whole the film has the right look and feel. It is just lacking a decent score.
The whole scenario is pretty much lifted (inspired by?) the rise of Motown Records and Diana Ross and the Supremes (with bonus adulating Michael Jackson). It is a tale of business, fame and betrayal, in that order. The performances are uniformly excellent (excepting a few OTT blips) especially Hudson and Eddie Murphy, who should win the Best Supporting Actor nod just for that look - see the film, you'll know which look I am talking about, it is a harrowing moment. It is just a pity that the source material couldn't keep up.
With Chicago or even Hal Prince's Cabaret before it, there was a clever choice to remove or adapt many of the "non-performance" numbers. Chicago found us drifting into Zelleweger's fantasy world and allowed us to cleveryly sidestep the "excuse me, I'm excited/distressed/reflective, I think I may spontaneously break into song" moments. Don't get me wrong, I love those moments when they are done well but to do them well the switch from speech to song needs to be clean (think Dancer In The Dark) and the song needs to be worthy (think, dare I say it, Evita). Unfortunately, Dreamgirls was often lacking on both counts and much of this was down to the original show.
Here we have a musical, which has actual performances within it. The songs that are "performed" need to be structured differently to the the more recitative-based numbers and less obviously related to the narrative of the book. Instead we get Beyoncé singing to Foxx that she is going to assert herself and we are to believe he is listening to her recording it in front of him. That has to stress the suspension of even the most hardened musicals fan's disbelief.
Growing up with musical theatre means taking a lot of shitty music and even shittier lyrics and learning to forgive the mis-steps for the sake of the whole. On stage or in a recording, that is all well and good but celluloid straps boots on these mis-steps and they echo thunderously. Dreamgirls has some truly cringe-worthy numbers that should have been cut, instead they have been cheesily orchestrated and left to batter our eardrums and offend our intelligence.
Thankfully, the lighting, cinematography, editing and art direction more than make up for these inadequacies. Dreamgirls is a, well, dream to look at. It glitters and sparkles in all the right places. Some of the scenes are jaw-dropingly gorgeous. It is glossy but still textured and nuanced.
I think I'll leave it there. On a high note. It would be easy to bitch and moan forever but in the end Dreamgirls is enjoyable, even memorable. It won't be a classic of the genre but I'd certainly recommend it for a night out.
Labels: adaptation, cinema, film, movie musicals, movie review, musical
posted by walypala @ 10:33 pm
4 Comments:
I agree on the whole stage/reality thing. Because so many of the musical scenes were on stage, it was strange when characters just started singing. Either all your performances are on a stage (Chicago -imaginative as it is- and Cabaret as you say) or it's all in a world where people break out into song. You can't have both.
And while some of the musical scenes were indeed impressively edited, I found that the constant cutting from a musical sequence to something else half way through was distracting. I don't wanna see Beyonce looking through Foxx's draw and calling Effie while she's singing "Listen". You wanna just have the song be centre stage. Otherwise it takes the attention away from the song.
I thought though that "And I Am Telling You" was a stunner. The only qualm I have is the constant cut backs to Jamie Foxx because it was in his contract, presumedly. And then when he left she was just singing to herself.
But I still really liked it. Just not as much as Chicago because, as you say, the songs just aren't that memorable here compared to that one.
I didn't have any problem with Jamie Foxx, I actually quite liked him.
I did laugh though when he walked out and Hudson was left bawling her pipes out on stage, stomping around with her hands flailing like Frankenstein's monster.
It wasn't almost comical, it was fucking hilarious.
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I share the same opinion of Kamikaze Camel. The editing drove me crazy. Like CHICAGO, the producers just assumed that an audience doesn't have an attention span long enough to stick with one storyline happening one at a time.
The score is a little more intense and harrowing in the stage version - it hasn't really been watered down too much but some amazing bits were cut - a longer much more angst-ridden version of HEAVY, one brief song where Effie seduces Curtis, tons of WHEN I FIRST SAW YOU, which is the best part of the 2nd half on stage, etc.
A longer review is here:
http://stornisse.squarespace.com/journal/2007/1/4/and-i-have-had-the-most-beautiful-dreams-any-mans-ever-had.html
PS - I am an old friend of your flatmate's...
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