Dreamgirls – 2-Disc Showstopper Edition (HD-DVD/Blu-ray/DVD-Video)
Picture:
A-/A-/B- Sound: B+/B/B Extras: B Film: B+
Because
no one has been able to take on the many stories of Motown records directly,
several attempts have been made to address the stories that mix the good and
bad to examine the important work of one of the most groundbreaking record
companies of all time. The story that
has been the most amazing and even polarizing has been that of The Supremes,
the gold standard of “girl groups” and the most Pop chart successful of all
Motown acts extending to the solo career of Diana Ross who (unlike Michael
Jackson, who found his later success at Epic Records from the mid-1970s onward)
has the majority of her success at the label.
Besides the drama Sparkle,
the boldest examination of the story comes from the stage musical Dreamgirls.
When it
first hit the stage in the early 1980s, it was a groundbreaker and was so
popular, And I’m Telling You I’m Not
Going was a #1 Soul chart hit that even crossed-over to the Pop Top 30
thanks to the originator of the role of Effie White, a variation of rejected
original founder/original lead vocalist for the Primettes, who became The
Supremes as she was still with them. If
any song was the return of the repressed and said something that needed to be
said, it is this one.
At the
time the original version became a smash hit, Ross was still at the end of her
original Motown years with Berry Gordy, but was about to leave for a record
contract at RCA Records. This musical
and Michael Jackson’s career sabotaged the RCA success along with mixed music
output that her career never recovered from.
Where the original “actually” ends in the mid to late 1970s and within
its time (before Ross leaves Motown) when it hits the stage, the new film
actually expands the timeline to the end of the Ross/Gordy relationship and
adds new songs as a result.
At a time
when African Americans had big R&B hits that would not cross over to the
Pop charts unless they were rerecorded and ruined by white artists, Berry Gordy
had been a writer of some great R&B hits, some of which did crossover. In all this, he saw an opportunity to crate
music and a company that could take advantage of The Civil Rights Movement and
what he felt a majority of listeners unseen, noticed or ignored by the major
record labels would buy. Motown was
born.
Jamie
Foxx plays the Gordy part in the guise of Curtis Taylor, Jr., who sells cars
(that is where this Musical version starts taking artistic license and becomes
its own entity) and wants to make records.
He is working with the Soul talents of the time, as signified by James
“Thunder” Early (Eddie Murphy in an ace performance) who is as innovative as
James Brown, Little Richard, Joe Tex and all the other greats of the time. Jimmy is a groundbreaker and touring as he
and Taylor hit a talent show. That is
where the Dreamettes meet Taylor and the results will shake the music work.
There is
Deena Jones (Beyoncé Knowles doing Diana Ross), Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni
Rose as Mary Wilson, minus any of the controversy between her and Ross in real
life) and Effie (Jennifer Hudson’s Academy Award-winning performance, much
deserved) making up their vocal group, one that has been performing since they
were children. Taylor gives them a break
to sing behind Jimmy and the tour is on.
Eventually, as the film takes off with its own hybrid characters, its
own subplots and dramas beyond Motown Records (Rainbow Records in the film)
that do an interesting job of encapsulating many Soul labels and artists of the
time, it never loses sight of its main points.
Effie
rightly wanted to be lead singer again, even if it was on a few records, but
Taylor has to stick with what was working to keep the label going and they get
romantically involved in the film (whether that happened to their real life
versions is unlikely) and then he throws her out of the group and dream she
created, even if it is he who made it a commercial success. She and her real life equivalent were denied
it all big time; a story that echoes, especially for African American women who
give so much and never get their due.
That is why her character and fate hit such a profound nerve and it goes
beyond race and gender. The theme of
selling out, especially ones roots and the truth is almost (and thankfully) an
obsession with Dreamgirls. The Musical and this writer/director Bill Condon’s film (based on Tom
Eyen’s book) never lose sight of these things.
Though
darker thematically than it is given credit for, it is also about the various
struggles for success and has a great sense of humor about them. References to The Civil Rights Movement are
not as trivial as some have tried to paint the film. Instead, they are markers about where the
characters are as they rise to success and Taylor in particular rises to
power. It was remarkable upon its first
theatrical release that many white male critics in particular in their negative
reviews (see www.RottenTomatoes.com
for details) suddenly not only bashed the film, but remarkably became instant experts
on Soul Music and African American culture (some even more or less indicating
they knew who it was to be Black!!!) when telling their readers about how the
film made them wish Soul Music never happened (!?!) or how Hudson’s performance
was nothing more than screaming!
Then
there were those who tried to say the film had no soul at all, which seemed
more ignorant when placed in context to the rest of their reviews. Fans have said that the music was not as good
as the stage version, but as compared to what Ken Russell did with the music
for The Who’s Rock Opera Tommy in
his visually great but often musically problematic 1975 film, Dreamgirls score has survived nicely in
tact. Then there are Motown and Supremes
fans who never liked it to begin with, but the music tells so much of the real politick and emotional truth of the
story even down to this film’s newer and decent new songs. They are like the other songs in that they
are Showtunes, R&B and Pop records.
As for
those film critics who are “hidden” Soul Music scholars, another sign of the
ignorance is that Motown’s hits combined R&B and Pop in a way that were not
purely R&B, but never betrayed their R&B roots. They were also Rock songs in the ways their
energy and attitude made so many of them classics people still sing and play to
this day. Compare to the direct Soul of
Aretha Franklin (from Detroit, but not Motown Records as Big Chill fans keep getting wrong, but Atlantic Records) or even
the more complex time signatures and deeper Blues/Pop of al the Bacharach/David
hit performed at the time by Dionne Warwick.
Dreamgirls still honors their
sounds as well without missing a beat in letting the music enhance and forward
its narrative.
Ultimately
though, the question is how good a film is this? Better than most realize. In a few years as more and more people
discover it in these optical format editions and elsewhere, many will be sorry
they did not see it on the biggest screen possible with the largest sound
system around because this is truly one of the few films of 2006 that was made
for big screen presentation and like the great films and Musicals of the past,
will overwhelm most living rooms, play rooms and home theaters with its
richness in detail, relentlessly good acting performances all around, energy,
music and well-roundedness that shows the everyone in the making truly loved
this (Danny Glover, Keith Robinson, Jaleel White, John Lithgow and Loretta
Devine are among the better know actors who also shine) and knew how special it
was. Especially now when most films are
so unambitious and disposable, Dreamgirls
is a real gem.
The 2.35
X 1 image looks good in the anamorphically enhanced DVD-Video, but it is simply
no match for the amazing 1080p digital High Definition versions in Blu-ray and
HD-DVD formats, where the film proves once again that it is one of the
best-looking films of 2006. With hardly
any digital work, the John Myhre Production Design and rich work of Director of
Photography Tobias A. Schliessler is just amazingly solid, palpable and highly
cinematic in a way digital HD shooting and/or MTV-style sloppy editing cannot
begin to touch.
Even more
than Chicago, which I also liked and
really looked & sounded great in Blu-ray, there is a sense of the screen
being filled up here in a way most recent musicals (especially a bomb like Rent) have missed. Though you can have a rich-looking musical
like Joel Schumacher’s take on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom Of The Opera, but it takes even more to consistently make
the film seem as much alive as a stage presentation as possible. Dreamgirls
has a flow like nothing since the first Grease
(1978, reviewed elsewhere on this site) in its best moments and that is not
easy and not just from sets, costumes and camerawork, but an exceptionally
dense combination there of that moves and moves the narrative along the best. The better this all works with the best
combination of technical achievement and energy, the more amazing it is to
watch.
Though
the sound mix is impressive as it was in the theater’s that could play it,
Dolby Digital 5.1 (labeled Plus on the HD-DVD) is the only soundtrack here and
are about the same in all three versions for sound. The Dolby is a little richer in the HD-DVD
version, and not just because of the Plus label, but it is only nominally
better. Too bad, because Paramount
usually includes DTS and DreamWorks has supported the format in the past, but
its absence here is unfortunate. Still, the
original sound master is impressive enough to make the Dolby adequate for now
until Paramount starts supporting a higher audio format like Dolby TrueHD or
DTS HD Lossless.
Extras
include a Jennifer Hudson performance exclusive to these sets, twelve
extended/alternate scenes including full-length musical numbers for fans &
those who will want to study the work beyond the final theatrical cut of the
film, the Music Video clip for Beyoncé’s hit Listen, a new song in the mode of Ross’ Motown farewell hit It’s My Turn that also happened to be a
movie theme song, Building The Dream
feature-length documentary, over 1,100 still images, Dream Logic: Film Editing, Dressing
The Dreams: Costume Design showing the amazing work of Sharen Davis, Center Stage: Theatrical Lighting, Beyoncé
Knowles screen test, Ain’t No Party –
Anika Noni Rose audition, Steppin’ To The
Bad Side – Fatima Robinson choreography audition and storyboarded previsualization
sequences.
These are
a very rich set of extras that makes it worth getting the whole set over the
DVD-Video-only single editions. But then
the film is exceptional in ways it will take time for the audience to catch up
with. Especially in the HD formats, Dreamgirls is bound to remain one of
the top home video releases in 2007.
- Nicholas Sheffo
