Task 6
Choose one of your favorite film then write your review briefly!
|
The Greatest Showman (2017)
|
|
Starring: Austyn Johnson, Cameron Seely, Diahann Carroll, Fredric Lehne, Gayle Rankin, Hugh Jackman, Jacqueline Honulik, Keala Settle, Michelle Williams,Natasha Liu
Bordizzo, Paul Sparks, Rebecca Ferguson, Sam Humphrey, Yahya Abdul-Mateen
II, Zac Efron, Zendaya
|
|
Director: Michael Gracey
|
|
Inspired by the
ambition and imagination of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman tells the story
of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a mesmerizing spectacle that
became a worldwide sensation.
|
|
The Greatest Showman is an unabashed piece of pure
entertainment, punctuated by 11 memorable songs composed by Oscar. The
film is made for the whole family to enjoy, and so it leaves out many of the
darker elements (explored in the 1980 Broadway musical Barnum, music by Cy Coleman). This is a
difficult tightrope to walk, but credit is due to Gracey, a perfectly
cast Hugh Jackman, and the entire
cast, who play this story in the spirit in which it was written (by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon).
"The Greatest Showman" positions itself as a story
celebrating diversity, and the importance of embracing all kinds.
The film
starts with the title song "The Greatest Show,"
a show-stopper with repetitive thumping percussion (reminiscent of Queen's
ferocious "We Will Rock You"). Hugh Jackman—in red impresario's
coat and top hat—takes us on a dazzling tour, with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey keeping the movements fluid,
and all the actions connected, plunging you into the center ring.
During the next number, "A Million Dreams" the young and poor
Barnum (Ellis Rubin) befriends a well-bred little girl named Charity Hallett
(Skylar Dunn),
and they dream of creating their own destiny. This is the first time in
"The Greatest Showman" where a character stops
speaking and starts to sing instead; the segue is gracefully handled, setting
up the artificial device early on. If you don't set up that trope with
confidence, it makes it look like you're embarrassed to be doing a musical.
By the end of the song, the little boy has become Hugh Jackman and the little
girl has become Michelle Williams,
leaping and twirling across the rooftop of their tenement, bed sheets on the
line billowing to the beat.
After
struggling to establish himself, Barnum launches out on his own, creating a
theatre in the heart of New York City. He gathers together people with
special talents as well as those with physical abnormalities (a giant, a
bearded lady, Siamese twins, a dwarf—who would eventually be known as General
Tom Thumb, Barnum's first "breakout star"). The
"audition" sequence is extremely tricky, but the tone is set by
Jackman's inclusive delight at the parade of humanity before him. It's a
moment when ignored people are for the first time really seen.
Lettie Lutz, the "bearded lady," played by Tony-nominee Keala
Settle, with a powerhouse voice, is one of the first to come on board.
Settle's performance—her first major role onscreen—is one of the many keys to
why "The Greatest Showman" is so
effective. She understands the spirit of the project, and you watch her
transformation from cringing shame to fearless Diva. Her anthemic "This
Is Me" is one of the emotional centers of the film. Barnum's business
partner is playwright and society boy Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron),
with snobby parents who are not only horrified at his "slumming,” but also
at his romance with an African-American trapeze artist (Zendaya) who sports a
pompadour of cotton-candy pink hair. Their love story, as presented, is
tender, pained, and sweet.
Rebecca Ferguson plays
Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale," whom Barnum took on a
whirlwind concert tour through America It was his entryway into
"polite" society. Jenny Lind's power ballad "Never
Enough" makes you understand why Barnum, backstage, falls in love with
her instantly, throwing his marriage into crisis. Ferguson may be
lip-synching to Loren Allred's breathtaking vocals, but it is her performance
that carries.
Ashley Wallen choreographed the numbers and there are many innovative
moments, where she uses the outer environment to inform the movements of the
characters. In "The Other Side,"
Barnum convinces a reticent Carlyle to join the circus, and as he sings, the
bartender puts down shot glasses, swipes the bar with a cloth, all as accents
to the beat. The real standout, however, is "Rewrite the Stars,"
the love song between Efron and Zendaya,taking place in the empty circus
tent, when she flies on the trapeze far above him, and he tries to climb up
the ropes to meet her. Up, down, they both go, sometimes coming together,
dangling above the ground, or sweeping in a wide circle together around the
periphery of the tent. It is a moment when the film with every element
onscreen merges and transforms into pure emotion. This is what a musical
can do like no other artform.
|
Post a Comment
Post a Comment