Movie Collection Review: A Chorus Line

Musicals are like anal sex: if you're forced into them as a child you'll never like them as an adult. Additionally--much like the occasional, mid coital finger in the back door--having one or two in your collection doesn't make you gay.

As those of you who are well versed in my Facebook mini-reviews are aware, I'm not ashamed to admit that I own a few, having already watched Chicago and 8 Mile (which is totally not a "musical", but I think it would be hilarious if I could somehow start a trend of referring to it as such and have word of it get back to Eminem, thereby causing him to rage right the hell out), and I can assure you there are one or two more on the way.

But on to the task at hand: Explaining why Andrew Lloyd Webber is a pox on musical theater.

First off, I know that there are many, many people out there who would disagree with me and who think that Andrew Lloyd Webber is the best thing going. There are also many people who think heroin is the best thing going, and I'm pretty sure they're full of shit, too. So now that we've established that Mr. Webber is just a horrible, horrible person, let us briefly cover why (and do so without pointing out that he "borrows" from other composers and musicians like he's Puff Daddy and is responsible for the Eurodance single "Tetris").

Andrew Lloyd Webber had one moment of revolutionary thought: Jesus Christ, Superstar. That musical took off like trousers with zippers and, before you can say "ctrl+v", the world was officially awash in Andrew Lloyd Webber sound-a-likes. "But that's good, right?" You might be saying. "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

First off, you're an absolute bicycle helmet wearing, low-wattage gurgler if you think that. Secondly--and more to the point--all the Andrew Lloyd Webber sound-a-likes were coming from Andrew Lloyd Webber*. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; "Evita"**; Cats; Phantom of the Motherfucking Opera (full title). All of them have two things in common: They were all wildly, blisteringly, soul crushingly successful and they all sound just about the same.

Now before the more pedantic of you out there start frothing at the screen, let me clarify. I'm obviously not saying that you could take, say, "Memories" and "Any Dream Will Do" and sync them up note for note. Of course they don't literally sound exactly the same. But all of his musicals DO have the same feel, the same (now tired) musical formula and the same slavish, unrelenting devotion to the sweeping, grandiose sound that made Superstar such a success.

The problem therein is that one of the reasons that Superstar was so successful was because it was new. The sound was big, bold and exciting. It was such a departure from previous hits like The Sound of Music and the Gilbert and Sullivan classics because it overwhelmed you and made you take notice. Fast forward a half dozen works later and the effect is distilled. Old hat. But what's far worse is that it kept being successful and that enormous success set back the growth of musical theater by 20 years. Webber dominated the '70's and most of the '80's with his artistic D.C. al fine and, as a result, not only did people spend a decade and change trying to mimic something that was a musical zombie to begin with, but when the trends finally DID start to switch direction, it took the mainstream another 10 years to really find some kind of different voice.

There were exceptions, of course: Les Miserables opened in Paris in 1980 and if you think the fact that Les Mis is now the longest running (and, as argued by some, finest) production in musical theater history isn't spurred at least a little bit by its sound being so un-Webber-ish, you're fooling yourself.

But in a way, that's always been the way of things. One of the reasons people were so eager to gobble up Webber's stuff in the beginning is because musical theater in the '50's and '60's had become something of a miasma. If there hadn't been that artistic stagnation, there would have been nothing for Webber to revolutionize. So, in a perverse kind of way, non-Webber successes like Les Miserables and the Marvin Hamlish penned A Chorus Line owe their fortunes to Webber's laziness. If Jesus Christ, Superstar, Joseph and Phantom hadn't created the the logjam they did, there would have been nothing to stand out against and rise above.

A Chorus Line. Why is that ringing a bell...Oh shit, yeah. I'm supposed to be reviewing the movie.

OK, so in 1975 Marvin Hamlish and Edward Kleban gave the theater going world A Chorus Line, and it was good. The show ran on Broadway for, like, ever and was the longest running production in the road's history when it ended its original run. Exactly 10 years after the debut of the live show, Richard Attenborough directed the film version and it was...kind of a bloop single.

People who loved the stage production hated the film. This isn't really news to anyone, because people who love a stage production always hate the film (Hedheads not withstanding). But the thing that most of the critics had a problem with was Attenborough's concerted effort to stay as true to the source material as possible. What comes off as legitimate and true on a stage sometimes seems cloying and edging up to camp on film. But Attenborough had some brilliant material to work with; the music is great, the songs all pop and includes one of the most iconic pieces of all time, and while the characters can be a little mawkish at times, they manage in the end to come through as human and sympathetic, if not completely relate-able. Micheal Douglas works wonders on a role that's only loosely fleshed out and there are moments of genuine emotion in the scenes between him and Alyson Reed, who plays Cassie. The rest of the cast, led most notably by Terrance Mann and Janet Jones (who's only other claim to fame is marrying Wayne Gretzky), is competent without managing to stand out (unless you count Audrey "Tits and Ass" Landers). A Chorus Line is a flawed piece of translation, but most translations inevitably are. In the end though, I think the film works, in no small part because of how closely Attenborough stays to the original piece.

Perhaps the most damning thing you can say about the film is that it's nothing more than the stage show put on film. But when your stage show is as good as A Chorus Line, it pretty much puts you in a pizza situation, and that ain't too shabby.








* directed by M. Night Shyamalan

** Coming before year's end: Movie Collection Review: Evita, or "Why owning this movie doesn't make me a hypocrite"