So while filmmakers completely ignored the musical, the theatre evolved on its own. Just as the Gershwin/Porter/Rodgers & Hart musical died out thirty years earlier, the Loesser/Styne/Rodgers & Hammerstein book musical was being replaced by less-easily categorizable works of Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
To date, neither composer has been well-represented on film. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is very funny, but dispenses with half of Sondheim's score, while A Little Night Music, featuring the alleged singing of Elizabeth Taylor, is reputed to be a complete disaster. For Lloyd Webber, Jesus Christ Superstar was considered by many to be a successful film, but has gone on to obscurity. Certainly neither of these composers has received the reception in Hollywood normally afforded them in London and New York.
So, after years of negotiation, recasting, and script rewrites, when the film version of Lloyd Webber's Evita was becoming a reality, the producers found themselves on terra incognita. Not only are there few left with experience in filmed musicals, there were none with the experience of filming a through-sung work. This was no dialogue-song-dialogue musical, but one with the pretensions of being opera. How did the filmmakers cope with such obstacles? Thanks in part to the idiom of music videos, fairly well.
The role of Evita was one of the most prized in Hollywood, and had been bandied about for years with performers like Diane Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Barbra Streisand, and even Charo connected with it. Madonna is probably the best choice, considering everything. True, she is not much of an actress (I, for one, do not bemoan her being ignored by the academy, as she did not earn an Oscar nod), but the role requires little acting. Beyond being a good pop singer, all that is required is to stand around being adored. And what else has Madonna been doing for the last twelve years, hm?
Antonio Banderas as the smoldering eyes and intense presence as the ubiquitous Che, although I found it difficult to understand his accent: a pity, as his singing recounts most of the plot. Curiously, his singing voice sounds like a young Neil Diamond's. Jonathan Pryce as Juan Peron was a cipher. He is good at playing weakness, but little else. Also, his singing voice was less than pleasant. Perhaps Placido Domingo might have played a better Peron: at least it might better explain why Eva was attracted to him in the first place.
I can't go on from here without mentioning the score. Anyone who has ever heard me pontificate about music probably knows that I harbor unkind opinions about Andrew Lloyd Webber. To his defense, I will say that Evita is probably his finest score. On that other hand, that ain't saying much. There are about three or four good songs in the score, though even the best of these is ruined by overuse: "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" becomes a musical idee fixe. In his effort to make his work have as little spoken dialogue as possible, the work is "though-composed." As a result, there are many moments of musical watertreading between the occasional gorgeous melody, much like in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Still, not bad. It works, although it certainly isn't one of the all-time great musicals.
Alan Parker might not be the first choice for directing a musical. On the other hand, it's a musical set in a foreign political environment: shades of Parker's Midnight Express and Mississippi Burning. The co-screenwriter was Oliver Stone (insert JFK conspiracy joke here). More than anyone else, the director and screenwriters are at fault in this film. It has a glacial pace, starting off with a dead Evita and proceeding to present her life as if it were a pageant. Also, it peaks too soon. Evita's "Don't Cry For Me" scene is clearly the high-point of the musical: the film might have worked better had it ended with this scene. A reprise of it with a dying Evita just does not manage to recreate the excitement. I don't know how the musical was staged, but I suspect that the first "Don't Cry For Me" scene represented the first act finale. Unfortunately, we don't have such a thing in the movies. Too bad the play wasn't more fundamentally reworked for the medium of cinema.
Production credits are all superb, particularly the Oscar-nominated cinematography of Darius Khondji. Though the lip-synching was just about perfect (let's hear it for music videos), it certainly was odd how the singers always remained in the same acoustic: that of a reverb-heavy recording studio.
In conclusion: a very worthy effort to film a musical. It is only unfortunate that the translation to the screen was not totally successful.
Three stars
Copyright 1997 by Dale G. Abersold
