{"id":24996,"date":"2024-11-21T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=24996"},"modified":"2024-11-20T14:40:39","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T22:40:39","slug":"the-2020s-musical-film-revival-that-still-could-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/the-2020s-musical-film-revival-that-still-could-be\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2020s Musical Film Revival That Still Could Be"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After two decades in intermittent development hell, Wicked <\/em>(formerly Wicked Part One<\/em>) arrives in cinemas this weekend. Based on one of the 21st century\u2019s biggest musical theater phenomena, the musical is based on a revisionist retelling of L. Frank Baum\u2019s The Wizard of Oz<\/em> that gives the backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West \u2013 the one who terrorizes Dorothy before the plunky Kansas transplant melts her with a bucket of water. Wicked <\/em>became a runaway success on Broadway and on London\u2019s West End, where it has been playing continuously since its openings in 2003 and 2006 respectively. All false starts in film production aside, it is surprising that this musical in particular has taken so long to get the big-screen, big-budget Hollywood treatment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The musical film \u2013 especially those aimed at adult or general audiences, that use its songs and soundtrack in the narration rather than interludes, and adapted from the stage \u2013 has been caught in a cycle of resurgence and extinction since the first days of cinema. Perhaps only in the heyday of the 1930s to 1950s has it been fashionable, and ever since the late 1960s new film musicals have often been hailed as the genre\u2019s saving grace (Chicago<\/em><\/a>, 2002) or condemned as its death knell (One From The Heart<\/em><\/a>, 1981). While smaller indie musical films proliferated over the 2010s (notably in British cinema, with the exemplary Been So Long<\/em> and Anna and the Apocalypse<\/em> in 2018, and the small screen with the likes of Crazy Ex Girlfriend <\/em>throughout the mid-2010s) the big-budget movie musical\u2019s mercurial fortunes have fluctuated at pace over the past five years alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018 Steven Spielberg announced his take on Leonard Bernstein\u2019s West Side Story<\/em>, though the film was not released until 2021 in the midst of the pandemic and a year full of cinematic musical adaptations: tick, tick… BOOM!, <\/em>In the Heights<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Cyrano<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>and Dear Evan Hansen<\/em><\/a>. Despite dampened box office returns coming out of lockdowns and the irredeemable flop of Dear Evan Hansen<\/em>, a true resurgence seemed almost poised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the boom has not gone bust so much as attempted to hide. Last year\u2019s Wonka<\/em><\/a> <\/em>and this year’s Mean Girls<\/em><\/a> (based on the 2018 musical based on the 2004 film) advertised themselves with songless trailers, leading to reports of groans and walk-outs when their characters burst into song. Burst, however, may be an overstatement. Like Dear Evan Hansen <\/em>and the more-recent Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux<\/em> and Emilia P\u00e9rez<\/em><\/a>, the characters in these films do not launch into song as much as semi-apologetically speak more and more in rhythm. The song becomes an accident, not a choice born out of uncontrollable passion or storytelling necessity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While the issues with Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux<\/em> and Emilia P\u00e9rez <\/em>are thematic, going beyond this mumbling approach, this adherence to naturalism is the heart of the issue. Musicals are inherently anti-realistic, and they should be. They use expression through song, and sometimes dance, to heighten the characters\u2019 emotional journeys and propel the action forward. Suspension of disbelief is necessary: while musicals have always encompassed all sorts of subgenres and tones, even its darkest, most cynical material has little room for ironic viewing. While film perhaps has a greater capacity for realism than does the stage, film musicals that try to be naturalistic by forcing songs to mimic dialogue in delivery and purpose, doing a disservice to both mediums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While many factors contribute to a musical film capturing critical acclaim and viewers\u2019 hearts, the key to a successful film musical entering the canon has almost always been absolute sincerity in embracing the medium and its stories, and in expanding these possibilities through film. This is slightly harder in musicals written for the stage, where suspension of disbelief is baked into the theater\u2019s limitations. Even in musicals made directly for the camera, with no adaptational process, struggle against this bias. The best film musical examples of the 21st century understand that the unreality is the appeal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicago <\/em>has an advantage in the sense that most songs sit tangentially to the plot, and the film uses this juxtaposition of dream-like sequences and unglamorous reality to explore the characters\u2019 own disconnect. Tim Burton\u2019s Sweeney Todd<\/em> controversially trims many songs and removes the chorus, but streamlines the remaining material into a cinematic thriller; these choices earned composer Stephen Sondheim\u2019s seal of approval<\/a>. In the Heights<\/em> (directed by Wicked<\/em>\u2019s John M. Chu) removes one of the stage show\u2019s best moments but makes up for this with its incandescent set pieces. tick, tick… BOOM! <\/em>transcends the temptation for self-indulgence through a transcendent performance by Andrew Garfield that rises to the grandest musical form of self-reflection and self-expression. Spielberg\u2019s West Side Story<\/em>, despite some casting missteps and Tony Kushner\u2019s overwrought new script, clearly delineates song and speech while maintaining dance-like choreography in the camera work. Cyrano <\/em>moved from off-Broadway to a lush location shoot in Sicily during the pandemic, where soldiers dancing and letters flying brought Rostand\u2019s adapted poetry to song. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be successful, Wicked <\/em>will need to adhere to these playbooks. With Chu at the helm, the two-part extended adaptation seems promising \u2013 even with its year-long intermission between the releases of Parts One and Two. As musical theater fans will know very well and film (and Ariana Grande) fans will soon discover, the plot of Wicked <\/em>is patently ridiculous. There are shocking love affairs, boarding school rivalries and romances, and government conspiracies, with every single background character of The Wizard of Oz <\/em>shoehorned into some improbable origin story. It also features some of modern Broadway\u2019s best tunes courtesy of Stephen Schwartz. Wicked <\/em>deserves to be treated with complete seriousness on screen, as it has for decades on stage. If it has not, all the trickery of the Wizard behind his screen will not be enough to save it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last five years have seen a mini-boom in musicals on film, but with \u201cWicked\u201d on the horizon, they don’t always make the most of either medium’s potential.\u2028<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":631,"featured_media":24998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381],"tags":[162],"class_list":["post-24996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24996"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25000,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24996\/revisions\/25000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}