Yesterday's Movies

Before watching the movie:

When I think of classic musicals, this is one of the first ones that comes to mind. So I was a bit surprised to see the movie came out in 1985, when I always assumed it was one of the highlights of the musical trend of the 60s-70s. It turns out that it did open on stage in 1975, it just took a while to get made for the screen. My original criteria for “classic musical” was nothing from after 1980, which is why it wasn’t in my last series of classic musicals. But this feels more of a different age of musicals than what I consider to be modern musicals (though I guess shows from after sometime in the 2000s are by now yet another category from what I’m getting at).

I don’t really know much beyond “I Hope I Get It”, so I know that it’s about musical performers desperate for jobs, so I expect a lot of diegetic numbers. I don’t really have an idea of the shape of a plot, if there even is much of one.

After watching the movie:

A group of musical performers are auditioning to be in the chorus line for an upcoming production, starting from a large number of dancers, only a very small number will be selected. After they eliminate down to 16, the director Zach tells them that to select the final eight, he’s looking for something unconventional, and will be doing an unconventional audition as a result. His chorus line will have to completely avoid upstaging the main cast, and he wants people who can demonstrate how down to earth and not flashy they are while asking them to open up about themselves. As he repeatedly chastises them for making their responses to his questions into spectacles, Cassie, an old flame who left Zach for Hollywood a while ago arrives late to beg him for a chance to audition, as she hasn’t worked in over a year. Zach insists that the chorus is not the place for her, she’s too good a dancer, but she won’t be sent away or paid off until he gives her a chance to talk to him and maybe take her shot at getting her career back in motion.

I hadn’t really expected the whole thing to take place in one long night of auditions. Through the whole show I was kind of wondering if the subplot with Zach and Cassie was added to open up the movie and bring the camera in close, because I can see how attractive the conceit of the actors lined up on stage taking cues from an inscrutable and unseen Director whose voice booms from the rafters like the voice of God, but it looks like their part wasn’t tampered with much from what I can tell. The main notes I’m seeing on the adaptation are about cutting songs.

I mostly appreciate the balance between what was good about the show on the stage and what movies can do. Being set on a stage helps a lot with that in that it doesn’t have many other places it can go. I think even the flashbacks are in and around theaters. The cinematography and editing step in during the musical numbers to keep things visually interesting, and it usually either stays grounded in the same place with interesting camera work, or goes into an abstract void of darkness and light.

The ending was kind of hollow, and to a certain extent I think it’s supposed to be. Not everyone we just spent a couple hours getting to know can be in the show, and the celebration for those that are selected is undercut by the disappointment of those who went through all of that and were left out anyway. And that’s just the reality of show business. But the final number was just a confusing turn into the upbeat finale from the show within the show that doesn’t really have anything to say about what just happened so much as it’s just a triumphant curtain call for the whole cast that clashes with the mood we just got from the end of the story.

I think there’s a component of the popularity of this show that comes down to theater people liking stories about themselves in the way that stories about Hollywood play well in Hollywood. It works as a vehicle for vignettes about life in show business, and it’s got some catchy songs that took on a life of their own as symbols of show business, probably because they are more connected to the business than to the show. This didn’t fully connect with me but I can see how it would’ve connected with a lot of people.