Resculpting song, dance on silver screen

Friday, May 1, 1998

Friday, May 1, 1998

Resculpting song, dance on silver screen

FILM: Director Nicholas Hytner explains why recent movie musical attempts haven't worked - and why he hopes his film version of 'Chicago,' starring Madonna and Goldie Hawn, will be the exception

By Cheryl Klein

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The American movie musical is something of a cinematic dinosaur. Not since "West Side Story" swept the Oscars nearly four decades ago has an integrated musical (where the characters talk by way of music as opposed to just singing in a song-friendly setting a la "Saturday Night Fever") been undeniably successful.

But maybe it would be more appropriate to liken the genre to the Loch Ness Monster - some believe in its existence, other deny it. Still others say it's some sort of hybrid mutation of the original. For the latter, there's "Aladdin" and "Anastasia." But for the Fox Mulders of the musical world, there is "Chicago."

Director Nicholas Hytner is currently combining his film ("The Object of my Affection") and theater ("Miss Saigon") backgrounds in an attempt to revive the form that once gave us "The Wizard of Oz" and "Singin' in the Rain," but as of late has produced "Newsies" and "Evita." The verdict is still out on the latter film. While ignored at the Oscars, Madonna did garner a Golden Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy. And the now vocally trained diva will give it one more try in Hytner's "Chicago." Goldie Hawn will play

the fluffy Roxie Hart to Madonna's Velma Kelly.

Star power aside, Hytner knows it's a risk.

"Two years ago when they asked me, I said no," Hytner recalls. "I totally believe in the stage musical as a form, but I didn't believe in the movie musical, and I thought, 'I'm not in command enough of the form to do it.'"

With two more films under his belt ("Object" and last year's "The Crucible"), the soft-spoken British director is easing into his Hollywood role. His definition of what makes a musical is strict, which will undoubtedly lend clarity to the production. "Cabaret," for example, doesn't count because Sally Bowles is usually crooning to a night club audience rather than her comrades.

The key, he stresses, is to believe it when the character breaks into song. And did he believe "Evita"?

"To me it didn't work. I didn't know why they were singing."

Though rehearsals for "Chicago" weren't underway at interview time, Hytner feels both leads will capture some of the elements that made '30s and '40s movie musicals box office successes.

"Goldie started her career as a show girl," Hytner says. Hawn eased into the realm of musical comedy last year in Woody Allen's warm, quirky "Everyone Says I Love You."

As for Madonna, "She's a great dancer, a good singer ... The great thing about 'Chicago' is nobody sings because they love somebody else. Nobody sings out of principle. They sing out of greed, lust, obsession with celebrity. All the bad reasons, which is why it's such fun and why it seems so apropos now.

"Madonna's totally in that world. She totally understands that," Hytner continues. "And without going into a dissertation about how Madonna's been misunderstood all these years ... 'Material Girl' was one of those classic instances of the intention being the opposite of what people took from it. That was supposed to be spoof of the concept of the material girl. But such was the spirit of the Regan and Thatcher age that everybody took it for the opposite of what it was."

Rather than merely filming a stage production, which is essentially what some of the earliest movie musicals did, Hytner wants to make use of the music video sensibilities that have worked their way into film in the last few years. MTV homages include "William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet," with its choppy shots and magic-tinged backdrop and, to a lesser extent, the epic montage that was the sung-through "Evita."

"The stage show (of "Chicago") is useless to me as a prototype. It's vaudeville. It's quintessentially theatrical. To me, when I realized there weren't boundaries, I could start again, and Kander and Ebb will start again with me," Hytner says.

The composer and lyricist will rework the score for "Chicago" to make the transition between song and dialogue more fluid. But enthusiasm and big names do not a box office profit make. In fact, Hytner makes no pretense of understanding what makes audiences embrace some movies while panning others, including "The Crucible."

"There is genuinely no connection at all between quality and commercial success," Hytner argues. "I'm not saying I can make ("Chicago") work. It might fall flat on its face. It will just be fun to have a go."

Even Dana Scully couldn't argue with that.