CHICAGO
MIRAMAX, 2002 | BLACK AND WHITE (NEWSREEL) AND COLOR (DELUXE), 113 MINUTES
DIRECTOR AND CHOREOGRAPHER: ROB MARSHALL PRODUCER: MARTIN RICHARDS SCREENPLAY: BILL CONDON, BASED ON THE MUSICAL PLAY BY BOB FOSSE AND FRED EBB, FROM THE PLAY BY MAURINE DALLAS WATKINS SONGS: JOHN KANDER (MUSIC) AND FRED EBB (LYRICS) STARRING: RENÉE ZELLWEGER (ROXIE HART), CATHERINE ZETA-JONES (VELMA KELLY), RICHARD GERE (BILLY FLYNN), QUEEN LATIFAH (MATRON MAMA MORTON), JOHN C. REILLY (AMOS HART), CHRISTINE BARANSKI (MARY SUNSHINE), TAYE DIGGS (BANDLEADER), DOMINIC WEST (FRED CASELY), LUCY LIU (KITTY BAXTER), CHITA RIVERA (NICKIE)
Two murderesses vie for the attention of the press as they await trial in 1920s Chicago.
It was anticipated as few movie musicals had ever been and, wondrously, was worth that endless wait. The icing on the cake came in the first Best Picture Academy Award to go to a musical in thirty-four years.
Chicago’s long journey to the screen began with Bob Fosse’s original 1975 Broadway production. Its tale of corrupt glamour, even its sensational Kander/Ebb songs, had been overshadowed by the concurrent smash of A Chorus Line, and while a movie version might have redressed the matter, few stage musicals were being filmed at the time. Worse still, the ones being filmed often turned out as badly as The Wiz or A Chorus Line. There was also Chicago’s vaudeville-like format, which seemed to discourage a film transfer. For years, there would be talk of a possible production with Goldie Hawn or Liza Minnelli, then nothing. Not even Fosse himself, who once contemplated casting Madonna as Roxie, could get it off the ground. Then, in 1996, an enormously successful Broadway revival proved that, just perhaps, the show had been a little ahead of its time. It was left to director/choreographer Rob Marshall (in his feature film debut) and screenwriter Bill Condon to figure out a way for Chicago to work on film. What they laid out was not unlike Cabaret: having the songs performed in an overtly theatrical setting, mostly as imagined by the stage-struck Roxie Hart. While the show’s final touch of acid was slightly softened, the overall harsh tone remained fairly intact.
“Hot Honey Rag”: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellweger
Marshall approached Chicago in a mega-edited, no-room-for-doubt style that some found overdone; far more felt that the method was a good match for the material. The emphatic music-video style was, in fact, an extremely astute way to draw in younger audiences who had grown up watching quick cuts and fragmented presentation. It was the complete opposite of a Fred Astaire, who attempted to make dance on film a seamless experience, and quite well suited to a world filled with dancing murderesses, gullible reporters, and crooked attorneys.
There was also, in the cast as in the material, the substance to back up the style. Renée Zellweger fit perfectly into Marshall’s concept of Roxie as a desperately game amateur, and Richard Gere’s air of self-containment was ideally suited to the truth-optional attorney Billy Flynn. Perhaps most striking was Catherine Zeta-Jones, who up to that time had won superlatives mainly for looking dazzling. As it turned out, she could sing, dance, act, and snarl—all necessities for the role of Velma Kelly.
With Zeta-Jones and the chorus offering an atomic-powered “All That Jazz” at the very outset, Chicago could have been in danger of tapering off and fizzling out. Instead, it moved from strength to strength, most notably in Marshall’s staging of “We Both Reached for the Gun” and “Cell Block Tango” with, every now and again, references to earlier musical legends. The allusions included Astaire, Kelly, Berkeley, Monroe, Charisse, and, of course, Fosse—a glorious musical past saluted exuberantly by an ambitious and gifted present.
With energy, expertise, and intelligence, Chicago proved that musicals weren’t dead, and, in fact, need never be when the talent and enterprise are there. As long there are people of this caliber around, audiences will be blessed with more good musicals, and all that jazz.
“When You’re Good to Mama”: Queen Latifah
“Razzle Dazzle”: Richard Gere
“Cell Block Tango”: Catherine Zeta-Jones
“Roxie”: Renée Zellweger
WHAT’S MORE
Long before it was a musical, Chicago had been a hit play (1926), a silent film (1927), and a Ginger Rogers movie titled Roxie Hart (1942). Prior to these it was, give or take, pretty much a true story. Reporter-turned playwright Maurine Dallas Watkins based Roxie on a winsome Chicago murderess named Beulah Annan, while the real-life Velma was one Belva Gaertner. Both women won their acquittal in 1924, and Watkins added to the mix by basing Mary Sunshine on herself.
Because of its lengthy road from stage to film, Chicago had an even greater “also-ran” contingent than most musical projects. All were considered, some turned it down, others were given the thumbs-down, and one (Fosse) died. To direct: Bob Fosse, Milos Forman, Herbert Ross, Baz Luhrmann. To star: Goldie Hawn, Toni Collette, Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Liza Minnelli, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz, Kristin Chenoweth, John Travolta, Hugh Grant, Kevin Spacey, John Cusack, Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Kathy Bates, Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg, and Rosie O’Donnell. Some good possibilities there, plus a few exclamations of “Really?”
MUSICALLY SPEAKING
Several of the Kander/Ebb songs are quite pointed in striking to the heart of the show’s stone-hearted theme, and none more so than “Razzle Dazzle,” staged by Marshall as a literal, glitter-and-paint three-ring circus. With its emphasis on criminal justice as show-biz, plus the possibility of high-profile criminals getting away with murder, the number makes an excellent case for the fact that Chicago was clairvoyant as well as cynical. It took more than twenty years for a large public to completely grasp the show’s premise, and by then the point was clear enough to help make the show a huge hit on film and, on Broadway, the most successful revival in history.
Director Rob Marshall and Renée Zellweger on the set