![]() Helinszki is a Hungarian prisoner, she can’t speak any English and as a result, isn’t able to turn her life into the kind of spectacle and entertainment the other prisoners can. We receive the same song and dance that the public in the universe receives, but we also get a peek behind the curtain, letting us in on the fact that we are knowingly consuming and enjoying the lies of crooks.Ĭonsider the death scene of Katalin Helinszki. Every piece of music is performed for us, the audience. Like Billy Flynn’s number “All I Care About Is Love” – a bald-faced lie in which a charismatic Billy Flynn tries to convince us that he does what he does for love when we really know all, he really cares for is money. They each begin with an announcer telling us who’s about to perform before they come out on a stage and lie to us. They aren’t embedded into the world, they’re a performance the characters put on for us, they’re fourth wall breaking. First off, the musical numbers are separated from the actual film. The 2002 musical film would continue this tradition expanding on it further. The 1975 stage musical would make significant changes to the story, including the addition of musical numbers, in order to lean into the satirization of what it sees as an almost farcical criminal justice system. Though subsequent versions of it would downplay or emphasize this depending on what the writers were looking for. The original play was intended to be a cynical satire on the corrupt criminal justice system and concept of a celebrity criminal at the time. Set in 1920s Chicago, every version of the story follows a Roxie Hart that murders a man and has her husband pay exorbitant amounts of money for legal defense that turns her into a criminal celebrity and results in her attaining a not-guilty verdict. The Musical film was based on stage musical from 1975, which was based on a film from 1927, which was based on a play from 1926… confusing I know. Next up, he's helmed Disney's live-action update of The Little Mermaidfor the big screen, which hits theaters May 26.Īnd while he may not have got to shoot "Razzle Dazzle" the way he originally conceived of it, the change didn't have much of a negative effect, considering that Chicago became the first musical to win Best Picture since Oliver! in 1968.Ĭhicago is now available in a brand new 20th anniversary Limited-Edition Blu-ray™ SteelBook™, arriving Februfrom Paramount Home Entertainment.20 years ago Chicago won six Academy Awards including best picture. ![]() ![]() (They later released the scene in DVD extras when the film went to home video.)Īs a Broadway performer, director, and choreographer, Marshall made his feature film directorial debut with Chicago. But that was done in post-production because Marshall felt it was "dishonest" as the only number Roxie didn't witness and therefore broke the film's conceit of every song occurring in her head. Marshall also cut one other number from the film, "Class," where Velma Kelly ( Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Mama ( Queen Latifah) bemoan the loss of class in 1920s society. What happens is Richard opens the doors, and now we're in this circus environment." Thank God we went back and shot that in a more conventional way, that's still very exciting. We didn't have the time to actually prep it in a way that could have worked. "Because we were on such a tight schedule because musicals at that point were not in favor. "Ultimately, we just didn't have the time to tech it," he explains. But it was too ambitious for what they had to work with. Marshall believes that if they'd had more time in the shooting schedule and a bigger budget, they probably could've pulled off his original concept. But how you imagine it and the flow of it versus the reality of the camera movement, it seemed clunky, and it just didn't work. So, by the time we came back, all the walls would be gone, and we'd be in this circus environment that was the courtroom. "As we were coming around with the camera and as we passed the wall, the wall would lift, and we would go all the way around. "I thought what we could do is," the director continues.
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