To evaluate this movie, let’s go back to its original work: What is so charming about the musical “Chicago”?
It has a unique stage effect. When other musicals made the stage effect dazzling, hiding the playing band under the stage and blocking the audience's sight with a fence, it displayed a big band directly on the stepped stage to integrate with the dancers. The actors in other dramas go up and down like a drama, most of the actors do not change the stage, and the chairs that sit on the stage after their part are like puppets. There are no dazzling props on the stage. It is all about dancers, bands, two ladders, and a few chairs to bring the story to life.
This seemingly rudimentary stage design conforms to an abstract artistic aesthetic, just like a Peking Opera stage, which is entirely supported by the audience's imagination. With no complicated props, the focus falls on the cast's shaping and captivating music.
It has a story similar to The Great Gatsby's structure, with sharp characters and a masterful and refined text, combined with a masterful choreography, which all add up to a classic.
If the above elements are put into the film version, it can be clearly seen that this film has mixed reputation.
The dozen or so songs of the entire musical are all refined and literary. If a poem-like story has to be extended into a feature film, it will become as bloated as a TV series. For example, eating and drinking in prison life is not the focus of this story. What happened in one sentence on the stage should be given 4-5 empty shots in the movie.
The film version has enriched the choreography effects a lot, and with the cut shots, the overall rhythm has been accelerated, but the dance movements in the original work have become broken frames. Just ask if a record card, no matter how beautiful the song will become disturbing. Here the director loses the continuity of the dance moves for the shot. The most outrageous thing is that he also switched a scene between the stage and reality. Since the two pictures are not from the same light source, the audience will inevitably experience emotional incoherence. As a movie, even if it achieves dazzling skills, as an audience, do you really like the mix and match of classical national bel canto in a song? For this so-called fantastic conception, the inner strength of the work is compromised, and the rhythm can only be created by fast editing.
The reason for this is that the film cannot be divided into half on reality and half on stage. But the connection method he uses has become a real fill-in-the-blank problem: fill in a few empty shots between songs, or insert a realistic double reed in the song and dance.
In a few moments he seems to have found the best form of substitution, such as the stage actor can also perform against the fourth wall, or through a montage to deal with the transition between two songs. It is a pity that these are all flashes of inspiration and did not form a system.
Great improvements in choreography do nothing to shape the characters. For example, the one that touched me the most in the musical was Amos "Mister Cellophane", who was portrayed as a kindly stupid tragic character who was the only one who was really hurt. In the movie version, the image and dance of Amos are designed according to the clown, even with some IQ discrimination. Even if the dance is garish, it can't touch the audience's thinking.
What's interesting is that in the superfluous ending (this part is not in the musical, it was added by force) when Roxie lost media attention, several shots inadvertently brought out her inner activities. Since this short segment is not blessed by the original work, the director shot it according to the rules of the movie, and the characters are three-dimensional at once. It's a pity that Roxie jumped and jumped in the first 100 minutes, and he couldn't feel the authenticity of this person. Using the cinematic technique, a few shots were full. Even if this is a success, it is also a failure, right?
When the picture is perfect, the status of the music and the band in this play is greatly weakened. This is not a pity. The director would rather leave more time for a pointless dazzling tap dance than give the band some points. attention. Musical musical, first and foremost music!
What the film version does is precisely to kill the uniqueness of this musical. Even if some people emphasize that the film version is not a musical, the works that have lost their essence are only entertaining.
The singing in the film version is flawless, studio-grade, free of live mistakes and instabilities. On the contrary, it is too perfect but lacks the realism of the scene.
The best actors are used in this play, and they support this work with their acting skills.
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