Normally I don't blog about professional shows. I pretty much figure they don't need my attention, and I'd rather give it where it might not get the attention. But something has occurred to me that is somewhat troublesome. Despite the recent insurgence of movie musicals, Hollywood still seems to be afraid of them. Beginning with Baz Lurhman's flashy--if somewhat hollow--Moulin Rouge, a re-telling of Camille utilizing popular music from the 50s through the present day, it seemed there was an audience for super-charged musical numbers allowing the heroes and even the villains to pour their hearts out through song. Rob Marshall's Chicago found a way to comment on the action through song, the way the stage show does with its vaudevillian musical numbers, by employing dream sequences for the stage-struck Roxie Hart. Dreamgirls didn't have an all-out real-time musical number until almost halfway through the first act with the song "Family," though the music was handled very well after that. It wasn't until Hairspray, Sweeney Todd and Mamma Mia! that we saw no-holds-barred musical numbers in a film, and even those had their fair share of flaws.
This brings us to the latest project by Chicago director/choreographer Rob Marshall. He seems to be systemmatically going through the works of the great choreographers of the American Musical Theatre, starting with Fosse, now Tommy Tune, and rumor has it that Michael Bennett's Follies (which already has some elements of fantasy in it) may be next up. So, for a man who obviously has such reverence for these great men who told stories so beautifully through song and dance, why does he seem ashamed of the musical sequences in his latest project, Nine? Why has he hidden them, once again, in dreamland? And why are they so painfully under-choreographed and--even worse--filmed as though the dancing were unimportant? The musical sequences in Nine, which at one point were of great importance to the plot and to the central character Guido Contini, have been bannished to the inside of Guido's head where words that were sung to him in previous incarnations are now imaginary.
I will say that musical numbers like "Be Italian" and even parts of the unimpressive new "Cinema Italiano" served their purposes beautifully on screen. But even the devestating "My Husband Makes Movies," performed by the infinitely talented Marion Cotillard, lacked the power that the number should have, and does have on stage when it is sung in earnest by woman trying to express to vulturous journalists her simultaneous admiration and disappointment in her husband's craft.
And yet, the unashamed, unabashed musical production number does not seem to be quite as dead as the creators of Nine would have us believe. I've noticed them popping up more and more in non-musical entertainment. What sparked me to write this post was something I saw this week on my favorite current sitcom, How I Met Your Mother. When Barney Stinson, the infamous playboy of the series portrayed by musical theatre star Neil Patrick Harriss, must decide between the opportunity to have sex with a hot bartender (his first) or his closet-full of suits (his first love), his thoughts go something like this:
Now, this musical sequence, while much more satisfying than almost all of the production numbers in Nine, is still a fantasy sequence, the likes of which Rob Marshall is so fond of. In general, dance and musical sequences are supposed to bring out the essence of what a character is feeling, beyond the capacity of mere words. This was brilliantly utilized in the only musical sequence in the non-musical film 500 Days of Summer in the scene after Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) spends his first night with Summer (Zooey Deschanel):
So, if artists still find the use of musical numbers effective, and if audiences still seem to react positively to them, why do films like Nine feel the need to hide their musical numbers? It seems to me that audiences will react positively to anything, if it's given to them honestly and without any excuses. The second a musical begins to make excuses for its musical numbers, it begins to lose its audience, as Nine has also proven so far. Perhaps Rob Marshall should take advice from one of his own characters in Nine (ironically from one of the more lacklustre numbers in the film) and just allow himself to provide good, harmless entertainment without gussying it up.
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