Michael:

My wife and daughter dragged me to see “Chicago” over the weekend. Having seen the play in London several years ago, and thus not being in a whole lot of suspense about the plot, I found myself thinking about the movie’s premise—never a good sign in a Hollywood production. If I had been able to write it down on a piece of paper I would have gotten up and gone into another theatre.

According to the film, Chicago in the Roaring Twenties was so pruriently interested in sex and violence that “crimes of the heart”—at least those committed by attractive young women—instantly converted the justice system into an annex of show business. Of course, as soon as you start to sit in judgment on these hypocritical Midwestern rubes of the jazz era you get stung, because after all you plunked down your hard-earned bucks to watch good looking young women sing and dance in states of undress—you’re part of the freak show, too.

Unfortunately, the London stage production and the Hollywood movie both spend the better part of two hours showing you such fit, athletic young women in such artful states of undress that I ended up feeling like I’d had my complicit moral state not only just “bumped” into my face but also “ground” around a good bit. "Chicago" offers such a reductive version of both the musical theater and the justice system that the whole gag eventually implodes like a black hole, leaving…very little other than Kander and Ebb’s music, which is pretty darn catchy.

Too Much Flesh, Not Enough Fun

When I saw the play I thought that it was a pity that the director’s attempt to do the play in a Brechtian hard-edged style had only managed to take all the fun out of it—I ended up staring at terrific looking, nearly nude young women dancing their hearts out for two hours and didn’t even get a charge out of it. (And given London theater ticket prices, even if I had, the experience could hardly have been described as a cheap thrill.) Of course, when Hollywood got its hands on it, a tremendous amount of razzle-dazzle (shifts between “reality” and “inner states,” deliberately accentuated theatrical lighting in “everyday” settings, and truly frenetic cross cutting) was added in to distract you from the heavy-handedness of the film’s concept.

I wish I had seen a version of Chicago that Bob Fosse had been involved with. At least for him the emotional core of the musical—that of an intrigued/repulsed little boy who notices that adults are a bunch of hypocrites on the subject of sex, violence and especially sexual violence—seemed to carry a kick from the deeper recesses of his personality, which he managed to convey to the audience.

Cheers,

Friedrich

Thanks for the review. I've gotten conflicting reports on the movie -- wild enthusiasm from people who really know musicals, shrugged shoulders from some others. I loved the Broadway version of the musical, which I saw early on in its run. It was plenty dead-eyed and lubricious and Brechtian, but it also had all the juiciness you say the movie and the London production lacked. I wonder if we react to the basic material differently, though. I really love the material in all the incarnations I've seen it in -- the original play, the Ginger Rogers nonmusical movie that was made of it, the Bway version. The Ginger Rogers version is pretty great -- "Roxie Hart," directed brilliantly by William Wellman, fast, noisy, wisecracking and good-humored. But I enjoy the satirical, confrontational, rub-your-nose-in-it Brechtian musical version too, more so in fact than I ever enjoyed Brecht, come to think of it, though I guess I can imagine finding it unpleasant. Hmm, maybe something like this: satirical, unpleasant but juicy, rank but tasty, dead-eyed but perfervid (I think I remember that that's a word), and gloatingly making you like it ... And I did. Do you think you disliked only the versions you've seen? Or do you suspect you disliked the material, period? And how'd your wife and daughter react to the movie?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on February 4, 2003 12:53 AM

Maybe I just don't like the material; inherently, I'm not too crazy about being told that by going to see an piece of entertainment I'm part of some morally questionable enterprise. Frankly, the "knowing" tone of the London musical and the movie is really a rather sentimental defense of the musical theater: "Yeah, we're whores for audience love but at least we know the score, buddy--unlike the audience, who plays the game and denies their prurient feelings." Of course, the only reason musical theater raises this argument is as a defence of its indefensible (but loveable) self-absorbtion and hunger for attention. I didn't find this sentimental thesis any more profound when dealing with the movies of Bob Fosse himself, but at least there the urgency with which he invested this point became itself a sort of new subject. That is, rather than having to agree with or argue the point, I could watch a movie about a character who kept pointing out the hypocrisy obsessively--while, of course, being emmeshed in all of it himself. That's a rather more interesting artistic experience.

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on February 4, 2003 11:16 AM

Oops, forgot to answer your question. My wife fell asleep in both the musical and the movie, and vows that's it for her with Chicago. My daughter gave a teenage shrug when asked how she liked it. I'd explain what that means except that I'm never quite sure (it's sort of like interpreting pronouncements of the Delphic Oracle.)

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on February 4, 2003 11:32 AM

"...being told that by going to see an piece of entertainment I'm part of some morally questionable enterprise. Frankly, the "knowing" tone of the London musical and the movie is really a rather sentimental defense of the musical theater: "Yeah, we're whores for audience love but at least we know the score, buddy--unlike the audience, who plays the game and denies their prurient feelings." Of course, the only reason musical theater raises this argument is as a defence of its indefensible (but loveable) self-absorbtion and hunger for attention."

That's a great description of exactly what I loved about the production of "Chicago" I saw! Morally questionable... prurient ... Yeah, baby!

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on February 4, 2003 5:46 PM

Oh, you wascally wabbit!

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on February 5, 2003 9:20 AM






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