Scrooge

Directed by Ronald Neame (1970) Starring: Albert Finney, Alec Guinness, David Collings, Edith Evans, Kenneth More

The more adaptations of A Christmas Carol I see, the more unlikely it feels that I will ever read the book.  Once you get over the cartoon versions (the various Disney incarnations, the specials created for a series) and the darker, made for TV versions, and the various in betweeners, the book seems secondary.

Scrooge is on the dark side, but it’s also a gleeful musical.  The movie just finished, and I already know that “Thank You Very Much” will be stuck in my head all day.  Also, the choreography was pretty sweet– they used updated versions of period dress and during the big marching scenes kept the dancing simple.  Considering these were often huge crowd scenes, the simpler movements created a bigger effect.

I figured that Finney would have been too young to play old Scrooge in 1970 (case in point, he was only 34), but the make up they used looked great and they fleshed out his young scenes a bit more in this adaptation.

On the whole, the production is very theatrical.  They used a strange, wide-angle lens for everything, which was great for the details, but also made it really obvious that they were on a set.  A lot of the camera movement and character movement just made it seem like this was supposed to be  stage production, rather than a movie–then, of course, there are the large scenes on the street or outside, and that hypothesis is ruined.

 

 

 

A Star is Born

Directed by George Cukor (1954) Starring: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson, Charles Bickford, Tom Noonan

A Star is Born is an epic at 176 minutes long, complete with a lengthy song-and-dance number, a strange avant-garde sequence, and plain, good acting.  I watched it thinking “Huh, the depressing Singing in the Rain,” since it follows a similar, Hollywood-centric plot and has the same amount of prestige attached to it.

When Norman Maine (Mason) appears drunk at a benefit, his dignity is saved with the quick thinking of Esther Blodgett (Garland), who dances him into the wings after he walks on stage.  Norman is stunned by this show of kindness and follows her orchestra to their after-work hang out, where he insists that Esther should become a star.

During the lengthy “Born in a Trunk” sequence, we follow Esther’s career as much as her character’s career (and even Garland’s).  Esther becomes a star over night with the new name “Vicki Lester.”  She and Norman run off to get married, but around the same time his studio has to drop him, leaving him adrift, with only an alcoholic past anchoring him to Hollywood’s collective memory.

A Star is Born stands as a testament to Hollywood’s Technicolor Melodramas, but it experiments with a lengthy photo-montage of what Norman and Esther are doing between their first meeting and getting her to the studio. ( If you’ve seen La Jetee, it’s a bit like that.)  It’s referential towards the industry, commenting that the dance sequence for one of Esther’s new movies will go beyond An American in Paris.  Norman’s career is a testament to the ins and outs of the studio system, right down to how the studios handled the personal lives of their stars.

It is a giant time-suck of a movie, but it’s a consistently great movie, so it’s worth your three plus hours of attention.

Singin’ in the Rain

Directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly (1952) Starring: Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen

Since seeing this film, I have had the music stuck in my head.  I mean that in the best possible way.  It’s absolutely infectious.  It easily tops the list of “I Have Gone Too Long With This Movie Not in My Life.”

Don Lockwood (Kelly) is a silent film actor who earned fame and fortune acting opposite Lina Lamont (Hagen) in romantic dramas.  However, talkies have just been introduced and Lina’s voice matches her personality.  They get the idea to dub over Lina’s lines with Kathy’s voice (Reynolds), who had met Don through a very unconventional way.

I love Cosmo Brown (O’Connor).  God, the most adorable character in the history of film, am I right? (I am totally right).  I love “Make Them Laugh” and the witty one-liners.

The dance numbers are a sight to see.  What I love about the Golden Age of Movie Musicals that we don’t get too much anymore are the fantastic to watch dances.  They about as realistic as a world where people randomly sing, but also just as infectious.  I know that some musicals are better suited to a minor about of choreography, while others seem to exist just to show it off.  Singin’ in the Rain has the right mix: It’s got great music as well as the dances to match them in energy and talent.

The Saddest Music in the World

Directed by Guy Maddin (2003) Starring: Mark McKinney, Isabella Rossellini, Maria de Medeiros, David Fox, Ross McMillan

In Winnipeg during the Great Depression, Beer Baroness Lady Helen Port-Huntley (Rossellini) has come up with an idea to raise sales: Hold a contest to find the saddest music in the world so that it can be used to further depress the nations so that they will turn to drink.

Chester Kent (McKinney), a cheerful American conman has decided to enter this contest, even though he’s never been sad in his life.  He is joined by Narcissa (de Medeiros) a self-proclaimed nymphomaniac with memory problems.  Kent’s family turns up, his father a former lover of Port-Huntley and his brother, a musical genius representing his adopted country of Serbia.

The conceit is a competition between nations, with contests happening like a mournful edition of Battle of the Bands.  Chester Kent uses a concept of schmaltz in order to breeze through the rounds, while his father uses Canadian patriotism and his brother, Rodrick (alias Gavrillo the Great) uses the personal sorrow of losing his wife and child.

At times absurd– winning contestants get to slide into a pool full of beer, Lady Port-Huntley gets beer-filled glass legs–  The Saddest Music in the World borrows its aesthetic from 1930s musicals, with most of the film in blurry black and white.  Certain shots were made from Super 8 footage that Maddin had given to the cast and crew, creating frenzy hand-held camera scenes that add to the energy.  The best part of the soundtrack relies on different variations of “The Song is You,” probably best seen here:

Over all, a really fun, slightly surreal film that oozes melodrama and musical shenanigans.

So I Saw Nine Today…

… and I have some points of inquiry that I would like to post here.

1) I have never heard of this musical. Apparently it was done in 1982. I am thinking no one liked this musical for a reason, hm? Why was this made!

2) Rob Marshall, your tableaux of people are quite pretty, but they are not that effective on a screen as they would be on a stage. And if you keep making movies like this which are filled with these arrangements of the sets, then switch to directing stage musicals, stage plays.

3) The music, but this needs some picking and prodding here. Okay. I actually do like “Cinema Italiano”, sung by Kate Hudson, maybe just because it’s fun and peppy and 1960s-y. I liked both songs that Marion Cotillard sang, but I also really enjoyed her character. Other than here or there moments, the songs seemed really superfluous. They didn’t carry the story that much rather than drag it out.

4) Why bring all of these wonderful actors together if you’re not really going to use them?  You’ve got Nicole Kidman, playing one of the strongest women in Guido’s life, if only because she knows that giving in to his love– or more likely, lust– neither one of them is gaining anything.

Now this was a very artful movie. Not all that arty nor all that cerebral, but it was fun to look at. Maybe it could have been better, but if it doesn’t have a story, then it doesn’t have a story. Similarly, Guido (Daniel Day-Lewis) doesn’t have a script, so he doesn’t have a movie. Meanwhile everything around him is falling apart, mostly because I don’t think he even knows what he wants anymore. In so many ways it feels like his character wants to love and to be loved without understanding sacrifice or understanding that people aren’t replaceable. It just never ends up ringing true from him what he wants or what he wants to be. So it falls flat and you wind up just watching him make a fool of himself over and over again.