By Antony Teofilo
December 22, 2005
It’s been awhile since gang members fought with switchblades as they performed jazz-ballet. Or a fleet-footed guy danced around a light post in the pouring rain. As a matter of fact, it’s been almost as long since we last saw Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom hunting for the perfect flop on Broadway in the original film version of THE PRODUCERS. Hollywood, until recently, had the blahs when it came to classic musical structure…y’know, the kind where people just bust out into song as if that happens every day.
CHICAGO, with its heaps of Oscar gold, brought musicals back. It seemed for a long time, though, that you had to have a twist to get your musical flick to appeal to the masses, something that made the singing, dancing, and preening plausible. Rob Marshall directed CHICAGO as if all the musical stuff took place inside Roxie Hart’s over-imaginative noggin. MOULIN ROUGE was easy for audiences to take because the whole flick was spent in a sort of artsy fantasy world whose reality was over-the-top enough to make the music flow with the story. DANCER IN THE DARK was a full-on musical waking dream.
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This new version of THE PRODUCERS is just like a classic Hollywood movie musical. Except it’s nothing like one. There are homages to Gene Kelley, Busby Berkely, burlesque, and vaudeville…but the show is campy (and naughty) enough to grab modern audiences. I had a brief chat with first time director Susan Stroman a few weeks ago in New York City. We talked about her new film, and what it’s going to take to get modern audiences back into theaters for musical movies.
Is the American public ready for a return to classic movie musicals? THE PRODUCERS, with all its bright colors and big song and dance numbers, is a lot like the old MGM musicals.
I did want to pay homage to those films. I wanted it to be like what I knew as a child. What’s different about THE PRODUCERS is that it it’s a musical comedy…but in this case, it’s more like a comedy musical. Those who are suspect of musicals will enjoy this because the comedy reigns supreme. Everybody loves to laugh, especially at this time in the world when there’s nothing to be enjoyed in the newspaper. It’s a form of escapism, not unlike it was in the days when Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers were around. People want to have a breath for two hours before they go back to the front page of the New York Times.
This isn’t your average sugar-sweet musical romp, though, either. Is the irreverence of THE PRODUCERS what helps update the concept of a musical movie for today’s more sophisticated audiences? I’m a pretty jaded LA cat, and I squirmed a few times through SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER.
We always have to go back to the plot point that Bialystock and Bloom were looking for the worst show ever written, not that we are doing the worst show ever written. We have to make sure that part of the story where they have to find a musical that is guaranteed to flop, is there.
Have you had any negative perceptions of the film based on the fact that you make fun of Adolf Hitler?
Surprisingly not. I thought I might. When I did the Broadway musical, I was emotionally prepared for that but it never happened. I think it’s because the script is written in a way that always reminds us that Max is looking for a show that offends all races, creeds, and religions. In the story, it’s the critics that get it wrong when they call it a satiric masterpiece.
Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane are about as diametrically opposed as two actors can be. They rehearse differently. They perform differently. How does a director take two extremely disparate actors and get them to work so well together?
As a director, the first thing you do when you get in front of your cast is that you have to immediately recognize their process. You have to recognize if they’re fast, if they’re slow, if they need more or less guidance, and then act accordingly so that you’ll get the best out of them. You can only do that if you know how to help them right away.
Matthew does love to find things out in rehearsal, over time. Nathan loves to do rehearsals full-out…full-out singing, full-out dancing. Nathan loves to find out where he’s going by almost falling…he’ll leap onto a table, and if he falls, he knows he won’t do that step again. Matthew would take his time to put one foot on the table, then the other foot, and find out how best to get up there. It’s a different way to rehearse.
The thing is that they were both quite respectful to each other in their rehearsal process. Matthew and Nathan are both very bright and both very witty, so what happens off camera or off stage is a wonderful sort of respect for comedy, and comic timing. When they’re on stage together, there’s an incredible focus, and the electricity that comes along with that.
I think THE PRODUCERS has the funniest sibilant ‘s’ I’ve ever seen. Did you plan that gag?
Mel Brooks had written that joke. On paper, I think he had written the s four times. I don’t think anyone knew how long Roger Bart could hold it though. Roger does it, and doesn’t comment on it at all. He just looks at Max and Leo as if to say, ‘What are you waiting for? Why aren’t you speaking?’ That’s the genius of these actors. The actor who really has ‘it’ is an actor who knows when to move, but also knows when to be dead still. It’s wonderful when Matthew gets hit in the face with the water, or when he gets slapped in the face, and he doesn’t move. There’s a stillness in that comedy. That can’t really be taught.
How does it feel to have brought a movie musical to life in today’s world?
The opportunity to do a movie musical is, for me, beyond dreams realized. I have a great passion for the theater, and for music, and when I was a kid, I’d watch the movie musicals on TV. I’d watch Fred and Ginger, I’d watch SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, and I got into theater because of those movies. I wanted to be like those people. I never thought I’d get a chance to do a movie musical. I thought that genre was gone.
How did you remove yourself from the stage version of the show? How did you convert a stage musical to a film?
It’s about taking this proscenium piece and giving it four walls and a sky, and opening it up so I could have a hundred little old ladies in Central Park. Instead of six beautiful girls on Broadway wearing nothing, I have twenty beautiful girls on Broadway wearing nothing. I just wanted to make it more grand and fantastical in a way. I also wanted the audience to still be in movie heaven. Those usherettes come out at the beginning, and they look right into the camera, and they invite the audience to come along. They’re inviting you to come into this world of the theater. The story is a love letter to the theater, and to New York, and I wanted to capture that on film.
The movie musical is dead. Long live the movie musical. If you like a good laugh, love horny old ladies, and have a hankering to see Hitler in a kickline, I highly recommend you give your hard earned money to THE PRODUCERS, which dances into wide release on Christmas Day, 2005
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you from me, Tony T. I hope you all have a marvelous celebration in whatever way it is you see fit.
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