A Tale of Sound and Fury that Some Idiot Went and Told

Oh Nine. Nine, Nine, Nine. What happened?

Long time readers of this blog will know that I am a huge fan of musicals and if you know The Sickness as a film student you know I love me my Fellini. So what happened? How did Rob Marshall who just a few years ago looked like he was ready to re-introduce the movie musical to the mainstream assemble such a total mess?

I have some theories. For one, it's difficult to convince people to go see musicals without stars. Nine has stars in spades. Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson and Dame Judi Dench to name a few. All excellent actors but none of them really belong in a musical (yes, I haven't forgotten Moulin Rouge! but Kidman gets a lot of help). So you've got stars.

But does it have performers? Good singers? Not really. Technically the most proficient singer in the film is pop-star Fergie is supposed to play the overweight prostitute Saraghina who awakens young Guido Contini's sexuality. Except her number "Be Italian" and her wardrobe is fairly chaste and Fergie hardly packed it in on for the role so it kind of misses the point. This emblematic of the film's larger problems. In attempting to be accessible the film feels like a muddle. The conceit of having characters dream their musical numbers in Chicago worked, but why establish this artifice in an already extremely heightened reality of a film set? When Fellini made 8 1/2 his style was frenetic, with scores of people bombarding Guido (and furthermore, the audience) as the camera gently panned across the magnificent Italian vistas. Here Marshall cuts when he should hold, a cardinal no-no for musicals where one wants to showcase performances. Marshall's film has another problem and that is the man has forgotten how to stage a dynamic musical number. He falls back on the blocking he used in Chicago only now it has a distinct air of "been there done that." How many times can we see woman step purposefully through darkened doorways and march into the foreground? We all liked "Cell-Block Tango" but what else you got? Even when he does shoot in wide he never holds it for more than a few seconds.

On the stage, especially in its most recent stage incarnation, Nine is a dazzling performance showcase. In the film, Guido's mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz) shimmies sexily among sheets as she calls and sings to her lover in "A Call from the Vatican." It's hot but it doesn't really dazzle or illuminate the character. Compare this to Jane Krakowski on stage who dances along a vertical sheet that dangles a good twenty feet above the theater stage defying gravity and still enticing while singing in full voice. There is no reason for stage to be outdoing the limitless, boundary-less world of film. With a massive budget and imagination this scene could have been amazing, instead it's entirely pedestrian. Sure it's sexy, but it's also forgettable. The same goes for Judi Dench's rendition of "Folies Bergere" which on stage featured Chita Rivera blowing away audiences with the dance moves of a woman two decades her junior. The film version, by contrast has Dench walking across the stage. Ooooo.

Then there is the Daniel Day-Lewis problem. Now on paper Day-Lewis is one of, if not THE greatest actor of his generation. I've been a fan of his work under countless directors but man is he not right to play Guido. He doesn't so much sing as huff and puff his way through "Guido's Song." Compare this to Raul Julia or Antonio Banderas who start the show a real kick in their bold renditions. We want to empathize with a lead but while he claims to be blocked, Day-Lewis come off as passive and whiny. You want to scream at him to just sit down and do his work damn it! We're constantly told how tortured and conflicted Guido is but it's just a lot of telling, not showing.

Does anything work in this film? Surprisingly, Marion Cotillard, whom I have not been a fan of in the past, sings quite ably and her character arc is refreshing and sympathetic (if a bit tidy). Otherwise this film is a slog. I have to fight tooth and nail to get many of my friends to watch or try musicals. Nine is the sort of film that makes me have to work THAT much harder to make my case.

Oh and one last thing that drove me nuts. In Kate Hudson's song "Cinema Italiano" (which was created for the film) she sings about how she loves Guido's neorealism. This would be fine if the character were not based on Fellini. Unfortunately, he is and you'd think for one moment they would stop and realize that Fellini was not a neorealist. Many of his contemporaries were and one could make the argument that La Strada and I Vitelloni have ELEMENTS of neorealism in them but Fellini was too intrigued by the fantastic, the sublime joys found in dreams, sex, the circus and women to ever be completely mired in the neorealist doldrums of Rosselini and De Sica.

Character, Chracter, Place Name

I am happy to say Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a welcome addition to the Woody Allen canon and his best film since Match Point. Allen's film is about the complicated nature of relationships and the difficulty of romance. It also works as a sharp character study wrought with instances of contradiction and self-delusion.

The titular Vicky and Cristina, a pair of friends vacationing in Barcelona have an immediate and telling moment early on when they disembark the plane and get into a cab. Allen frames the two women in a split screen. Even though they are sharing the back of a cab and could easily fit the frame the two are distinct in character and personality, a study in contradictions even though they inhabit the same space. Vicky (Rebecca Hall, initially a bit frigid and then warms charmingly) is pursuing her post-graduate studies about Catalan culture (though she doesn't really speak Spanish or want to do any sight-seeing) while Cristina (Scarlett Johanson) is fresh of a year's work on a twelve-minute short film and is determined to explore the country with reckless abandon while trying to find her niche in life. Vicky alleged to be happy in her stable relationship with a perfectly pleasant, yuppie fiancé back in New York while Cristina is seeking an unconventional relationship. Both their expectations are turned on their head when they encounter artists Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) who propositions them in a restaurant to come with him to a remote island village for a day of sight-seeing and love-making. Cristina is intrigued and Vicky is aghast at the idea and the whole sequence along with the ensuing conversation is a lively and smoldering bit of business that features some nimble dialogue and a masterful performance by Bardem. Another actor could not possible pull off such a seemingly garish action with such appealing results. Bardem, however smolders with his candor and makes Johnason appear deliciously squirmy and excited at the prospect of this dalliance.
Upon arriving in the island the film launches into a brusque montage of the three characters walking through gorgeous Spanish exteriors while a hypnotic Spanish guitar strums in the background. While it seems most likely that Bardem and Johanson are going to consummate the relationship first but the movie zags as it is the happily engaged Hall who falls to Bardem's ample charm. Her reluctance, combined with her more serious demeanor draw in Bardem's artist. But as is re-stated time and again, unfulfilled love is the only true form of romance. The pair's affair is all too brief and Bardem moves on to Johanson but the lingering attraction hangs over the proceedings. Also gumming up the works is Penelope Cruz as Bardem's overly-emotional, perhaps even psychotic, ex-wife. Cruz does some marvelous English language work as her character demonstrates a primal bond with Bardem's. They're bound in a complex relationship wherein the two require a third to balance out the passion that can, at a moments notice, turn to destructive fury or suicidal melancholy. Despite Bardem's constant to protestations to the contrary, it is clear that the two are meant for each other. When Johnaosn becomes the willing third in their bizarre love machinations she too realizes that she's deluded herself into realizing she's less than the Bohemian she thought.
A movie filled with regret and missed opportunities (Patricia Clarkson appears as the dissatisfied woman whose marriage is pleasant but is desperate for the romance her niece Hall is so close to attaining) the film nicely vacillates between moments of unbridled beauty and wistful romance to its more dour feelings. Allen, working with Alejandro Amenabar's DP Javier Aguirresarobe, creates a Barcelona as haunting and majestic as his Manhattan. The film is filled with fine performances, snappy lines, sensual love scenes and a throbbing guitar score. Allen devotees enjoy this fun late-period creative burst.