The new Razzle-Dazzle Edition does up the movie proud, improving upon the older DVD edition in almost every way.
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Buena Vista's first DVD release of "Chicago" was pretty much a bare-bones affair with less than sterling video characteristics, so to make amends the studio has spruced up the transfer and added a ton of new extra materials on this two-disc, "Razzle-Dazzle Edition." If you like the movie, want to know more about it, and want a copy of it with better picture quality, a double dip may be in order.
It's good to see the Hollywood musical finally rising from the dead, where the genre lay moribund for close to thirty years until the advent of "Moulin Rouge" in 2001. It's ironic, though, that one of the musicals to bring the genre back to its former glory should be the direct successor to the film that many critics consider the last great movie musical to precede it. "Cabaret" won a slew of Oscars in 1972, and now "Chicago," created largely by the same two men, John Kander and Bob Fosse, won a slew more awards including Best Picture of 2002. Of course, that the stage version of "Chicago" followed "Cabaret" by only a few years yet it took Hollywood over two decades to get it to the screen says volumes about how studio executives perceive the moviegoing public's reaction to singing and dancing.
Still and all, "Chicago" rather cheats when it comes to singing and dancing in the same way "Cabaret" did. If you remember, the musical numbers in "Cabaret" were done mostly on a night club stage, where movie audiences of all stripes could feel they were entirely appropriate. Viewers uncomfortable about actors getting up and starting to sing and dance at a moment's notice didn't have to worry or feel embarrassed. In "Chicago," the same sort of thing happens as in "Cabaret." The singing and dancing this time occur mostly in the mind, the daydreams, of the main character. The filmmakers call them "vaudeville" numbers as opposed to "book" numbers. It's a neat way of sidestepping the awkwardness many younger viewers, especially, feel about musicals in general.
Does "Chicago" deserve its Oscars for Art Direction, Costume Design, Sound, Editing, Supporting Actress, and Picture? Well, if "Oliver!" could win in 1968, certainly "Chicago" deserves its accolades. Is it among the best musicals ever produced? That's another question, and one that can only be answered by individual taste. Personally, I don't think it equals "My Fair Lady," "Oklahoma," "Singin' in the Rain," "The Music Man," "The Sound of Music," or "Cabaret," but it's right up there with the best of them. It's a darn sight more fun to watch than most of what passes for entertainment out of Hollywood, and while I more greatly enjoyed "The Two Towers" from the same year, "Chicago" still placed in my top five.
You have to understand, however, that while "Chicago" is loud and brassy, it is not a traditional musical any more than its older sibling "Cabaret" was traditional. Not only do both movies fudge on the singing and dancing, both movies eschew the genre's usual lighthearted romance for much gloomier themes. "Chicago" doesn't quite match Cabaret" for the weightiness of its subject matter, "Cabaret" dealing as it does in racial and social persecution in Nazi Germany, various forms of sexuality, and prostitution. But "Chicago" is a remarkably ominous story, in any case, a dark and sometimes biting satire focusing on sex, infidelity, murder, and retribution. Combine the black-comedy subject matter of "Chicago" with its bizarre but colorful characters, its flashy, jazzy (sometimes too flashy and too jazzy) production values, and its often notable songs and dances, and you get a movie that maybe isn't an outright screen classic but has enough in it to appeal at least in part to almost everyone.
The movie musical "Chicago" has a long history, starting with a real-life incident and court case in the 1920s that lead to a play and to a silent movie in 1927 involving a woman who killed her boyfriend and wormed her way out of it, followed by a 1942 movie, "Roxie Hart," then the stage musical "Chicago" in 1975, and finally by the film we have today. If I've left anything out, forgive me.
The new film's plot revolves around a quest for fame at any cost and involves a young married woman, Roxie Hart, of limited musical talent who dreams of becoming a singing star. In pursuing her unrealistic dream, she has an affair with a man who promises to help her career. When she discovers he's lying to her, she shoots him in a moment of unpremeditated outrage. Now, here's where the story gets really good. After being arrested, she manages to hire the most flamboyant attorney possible, Billy Flynn, to take her case. He does it reluctantly and on a lark, for the money alone. Then, while in prison awaiting trial, Roxie meets her idol, singer Velma Kelly, also booked for murder, and together they both depend on Billy to spring them. But it's the conniving Roxy who plays her cards best, throwing herself on the mercy of the public and plotting the most outlandish scheme not only to get free but to make herself famous in the process.
Where does the music come in? All the while this is going on, Roxie daydreams about what might happen to her and what ought to be. Almost all the song-and-dance sequences occur as elements of Roxie's imagination. The gimmick works and should make no one feel uncomfortable. Unless, that is, you're troubled by the flashy show of MTV videos, because that's the way much of the music in "Chicago" comes across. At any rate, among the movie's key numbers are "Funny Honey," "When You're Good to Mamma," "Cell Block Tango," "All I Care About," "I Can't Do It Alone," "Mr. Cellophane," "Razzle Dazzle," "Nowadays," "Hot Money Rag," and, of course, the showstopper that comes inexplicably at the beginning of the story, "And All That Jazz," a tune so famous it became the title of Bob Fosse's own biographical movie in 1979.
Most of the film is confined to highly stylized, indoor sets, the action cut and shred into tiny pieces strung together with plenty of pizzazz. For those viewers expecting the film to open up to bigger, broader vistas or ever lighten up its interiors, let me tell you in advance it won't happen. The film proceeds at an almost dizzying pace under the guidance of first-time big-screen director Rob Marshall. You take it or leave it for what it is. Judging by the film's box office and awards, a lot of people took it. I found it occasionally over-the-top but terrific fun.
The thing is, the filmmakers of "Chicago" decided not only upon a splashy, ostentatious tone, they also decided against using seasoned singers and dancers for the major roles, opting instead to use accomplished actors. What's more, for the most part they decided to let the actors use their own singing voices; there are no Marni Nixon dubs here. Whether you agree that the roles are well cast is another story. Renee Zellweger plays the lead, Roxie Hart. She's a skilled performer and carries off the innocent-like-a-fox personality of Hart nicely. Her voice is not the strongest, though, and her dancing, like that of the other major characters, is almost nonexistent, made up on screen of bits and pieces of a multitude of quick cuts (the two-second rule applies). The film didn't win an Oscar for editing for nothing.
Richard Gere plays her fast-talking lawyer, Billy Flynn, the most successful and the most unscrupulous lawyer in the state of Illinois. John Travolta was first considered for the part, but he turned it down, apparently unwilling to take a chance on doing another musical at a time when the genre was thought to be down and out. In any case, Gere is fine, slick and handsome, although he has nowhere near the musical talent of Travolta. I was disappointed that Gere's voice did not project very well in the music and that the audio engineers did nothing to augment his vocal numbers.
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