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Having seen Nine, Rob Marshall’s retelling of the 1982 Broadway musical, last night I can really only say one thing: What a disappointment. There is no doubt that the film is spectacular, this is a tale of 1950s movie making against a beautiful Italian backdrop, but as far as its big budget Hollywood blockbuster title status goes I am still asking myself, “why?” Why this musical? Why now? Just why?
Nine sucks us into the tumultuous world of Guido Contini, Italian film director just 10 days away from creating his next masterpiece. It is widely acknowledged, by everyone from Contini himself to a Cardinal that he meets on retreat, that his last two films have been flops. His next piece, however will be a masterpiece called “Italia” and will be the epic tale of the country of Italy. Contini however, it is quickly established, is about as flawed a character as has ever been written. The women appearing in his imagination and his reality appear to do a terrific job of ruling both his life and his sub-conscience.
It should probably be stated early on, as it is everywhere else, that this film is bursting at the seams with A-list talent. Daniel Day-Lewis, leading, does a fantastic job of portraying Contini, and I was not surprised to read in my research for this blog entry that he is an immersive actor, living the character for the entirety of the schedule. Every move he makes as Contini reflects the character and is probably the one thing holding the musical together. Contini’s long suffering wife is played by the gorgeous French actress Marion Cotillard, his mistress by Penelope Cruz, his muse by Nicole Kidman, his mother by Sophia Loren and his costume designer by Judi Dench. Kate Hudson – you know, the one that’s done every romcom since You, Me and Dupress – also makes an appearance as an American Vogue reporter whilst Fergie of Black Eyed Peas fame is given an interesting role as the village whore.
What the all star cast can’t cover up however is how shockingly bad this piece is as a musical. This film, based on the musical 1982 musical with book by Arthur Kopit and Mario Fratti and music and lyrics by Maury Yeston is in turn based on the 1963 film 8½. I know what you’re thinking – “what’s with all of the numerical titles?” Well that’s only the start of the questions really. The most pertinent would probably be, “where is the plot?” The entire film lurches between portraits of Contini’s women, eventually building towards, well, nothing. The story is initially driven by the time constraints of his new film and its schedule but really the entire film drives towards an inevitable ending which I will not spoil for you now because I might die of boredom writing it down.
Another huge issue I have with the film is the way that Rob Marshall appears to approach musicals on film. If you have seen Chicago you will know exactly what I mean without much need for further explanation: the basic premise is that although you are watching a musical, none of the characters will actually sing in the reality which is has been created in the main narrative. Instead all the musical numbers are either dream sequences or take place in surreal alternate universes where people do nothing but perform to camera, their emotions then cunningly inter-spliced once they have crossed the dimension gap back into the main timeline of the film.
This does mean that Marhall manages to set some of his musical numbers in spectacularly theatrical locations, the one that springs to mind is Penelope Cruz’s burlesque routine (I’ve got no idea how they managed to sneak that into a 12A rated film but I’m not complaining), establishing her character as Contini’s mistress and allowing her to dance in her stockings and bustier for a bit, but it in no way develops the narrative of the film. Much like Chicago what you end up with is a relatively all right film, inter-spliced with music videos every time a new character is introduced. The way musical theatre was best described to me, and I can’t remember who’s description it is now, was as theatre where the emotional states of the characters portrayed is so heightened that they can express themselves in no other way than through song. I personally think this captures what musical theatre is, or should be and can be, but is an idea completely thrown out the window by Marshall.
Finally, you might be glad to see the end of this one, I know I will be, I go back to the fact that this is a musical based on a musical of 1982 which managed 729 Broadway performances. I personally have absolutely no idea how! My background research for this blog suggests that a number of the songs from that original Broadway show, including the title song, Nine, were cut for the film. Maybe Marshall managed to cunningly cut every song worth listening to from this musical before he turned it into a film, because I was really, really struggling. Each of the pieces seem to do an excellent job of not only being too bland for me to leave the cinema humming them but also so lyrically thin that I was wondering why they didn’t just sing one word over and over again, they were damn near close enough. The lack of sophisticated rhyming and the apparent obsession with lyrical repetition meant I could probably have written every word of the rest of the song having heard the opening verse. It really was a musical disappointment. On the music side the entire film seemed to be held together by the orchestration. I have made a point of going to the IMDB entry for the piece and giving him his full credit: Doug Besterman you did a very good job with what really was a shoddy musical. (You also oversaw the music on just about every Disney film of my childhood.)
So that’s the end of that. I really did find Nine a disappointment. Its star cast put together some impressive song and dance routines, those set against the backdrop of the Cinecittà Studios sound stages with huge choruses really were great production numbers, but as a musical it really didn’t cut the mustard.
Film: Nine
Tagline: This Holiday Season, Be Italian
Dir: Rob Marshall
Release: 18 December 2009 (UK)
Rating: 12A
IMDB Entry can be found here
Photo credit: Giampaolo Macorig on Flickr
