Fame
(1980/Warner Blu-ray + 2009/MGM-Fox Blu-ray)
Picture:
B- Sound: B-/B Extras: C+/D Film: C+/D
For a
film that was a very mixed affair, Alan Parker’s 1980 hit Fame has an interesting and important place in the history of the
Hollywood Musical. Not exactly a
groundbreaker, it is a transitional work, especially at a time when key films
were being made that deconstructed the genre (Scorsese’s New York, New York (1978) and Herbert Ross’ adaptation of Dennis
Potter’s Pennies From Heaven (1981))
and it was slowly returning infused with Rock and Pop music in new ways thanks
to Grease and soundtrack-driven non-musicals like Saturday Night Fever and Urban
Cowboy.
Of
course, MTV would arrive two years later, sideling a full comeback for Musicals
for a while, but not before that style melded with trends Fame and other hits of the time added. Prior to MTV and the cable explosion, the
idea of becoming a music star was based on real talent and there was a
then-powerful record industry that knew how to sign talent, was run by people
who usually loved music and all the genres were still fresh and original. Even the earliest signs of what became Hip
Hop had set when Parker’s film arrived.
The story
of students working very hard at New
York City’s High School For The Performing Arts was a
great true story to bring to life in a fictional way. Christopher Gore’s screenplay focuses on five
characters through four years of their lives and though not the raw music film
it could have been, has its moments and Parker had debuted with a Musical back
in 1976 with the underrated Bugsy Malone
(reviewed elsewhere on this site). Too
bad he was not up to speed when he made this film, coming off of the tough
shoot that was Midnight Express
(1978, unreviewed, but now out in a solid Blu-ray edition).
On the
plus side, some of the songs are very good and the cast included rising star
Irene Cara (Sparkle, The Electric Company, et al) as Coco, a
singer who believes she could succeed, helped by her meeting and befriending
songwriter Bruno (Lee Curreri) whose father is a cab driver and loves him
enough to want to see him succeed. Cara
and Curreri have some chemistry which was more challenging then as she is a
young lady of color and he a young white male, but that was part of the
progressive, positive side of the film.
The late, underappreciated Gene Anthony Ray was a dancer in the film and
his character’s possible gayness is a rare positive portrait of any gayness in
any cinema of the time.
However,
the overall film can barely handle all the talent, including fellow cast
members Laura Dean, Maureen Teefy, Paul McCrane, Barry Miller, Jim Moody, Anne
Meara, Richard Belzer, Issac Mizrahi, an uncredited Holland Taylor and Debbie
Allen, a great talent in her own right who became a major player in the first
hit TV series version, helping it last for six seasons. Why, because Musicals have an older narrative
from and the music and world here does not cohere with the music, newer styles
and new talent.
That does
not necessarily extend to the music being a problem. Michael Gore composed the instrumental score
and the great Leslie Gore (It’s My Party)
co-wrote Hot Lunch Jam and the other
big hit single form the film, Out Here On
My Own as sung by Cara. It is
interesting pop music in that it sounds like a Musical in lyric structure,
especially in the way the lyrics forward the narrative, but the style adds
Rock, Soul and yes, some Disco in the way the music is composed and
conducted. Parker and his longtime
Director of Photography Michael Seresin try to find a new style (down to the
editing with Gerry Hambling) and almost create what became the 1980s style.
The key
scene I would refer to is when the cab driver father plays his son’s song (with
Cara/Coco vocals) from his cab with installed loudspeakers connected to a tape
player and blasts it in front of the school.
The students hear it, recognize it, start to come out of the school and
drop whatever they are doing, run into the streets, stop traffic all over that
strip of New York City and break into a giant spontaneous burst of dancing all
over the place. Of course, it is
rehearsed, but in its original form as intended here, it is supposed to reflect
the collective school of art, the love of that art by all the hopeful students
and the possibilities the song (by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford) speak to.
This has
to do with hard work, living out a dream, finding happiness and success, living
the American Dream and via the racial diversity of the school, overcoming the
past and all of its hatreds thereof.
That places it as part of the liberal counterculture discourse the film
comes out of, which includes said Disco flavor to this and some of the other
songs. That does not make the Disco, but
Disco enough. The scene has not always
aged well because of its age, the editing, the fact that it become one of the
most imitated scenes in 1980s cinema and was the last hurrah for such things
before the Reagan Era and Rollback mentality set in.
As
repeated in Flashdance (the “what a
feeling” film), Footloose and
others, the combination of MTV style and regressive politics took that scene
and recycled it into an insincere, condescending, backwards idea that the
dancing does not get you anywhere, if you dance you only should to make a fool
out of yourself, there is nothing to be happy about and the arts and education
are a dead end. Pitchford’s music
writing for films after Fame has
been awful and he never recovered artistically.
Just waste your energy and let other people use you was the message with
the MTV editing, politics and even anger that contradicts the intended spirit
of the original Fame and the Hollywood Musical tradition.
This was
the last Musical from the original MGM before the company merged with United
Artists, ending an era of the studio that made the more expensive and
successful Musicals than any other studio.
Fortunately, they ended on a high note including the film making money,
getting two Oscars out of six nominations (two of the nominations were for Best
Song, the first time this ever happened in Academy Awards history) and gave
Hollywood a model to make more music films on.
MGM/UA made more musicals, of course, but this was one to be proud of
just the same.
That
brings us to the 2009 remake, or the fourth time for the franchise after the
1980 film and two TV series. What should
have been a great opportunity to update or continue the ideas set by the first
film are squandered in the most embarrassing ways. For starters, Debbie Allen may appear in the
new film, but she should have been hired to direct, co-write and
co-choreograph. If that had happened and
a better script was better, maybe Cara would have been interested in returning,
but she wisely stayed away from a film as condescending (and more so) than any
1980s imitator of the original Fame.
Instead,
Reality TV dance director Kevin Tancharoen was hired and through total
inexperience, made the worst possible, mechanical, tired, unspontaneous, weak,
formulaic, shallow, pathetic retread possible down to the robotic remake of the
title song at the end of the film that is quickly forgotten. Maybe he could have been an assistant
director and/or co-choreographer, but has zero idea on how to do a full length
narrative work. Add the paper thin
screenplay adaptation by Allison Burnett, whose many screenplays (like the
disappointing Resurrecting The Champ
and awful Untraceable) have been a
string of disasters and you get one of the biggest disasters of her career. Together, the concept of a Backstage Musical
seems like a foreign concept they cannot begin to grasp.
The new
cast was found mostly from a talent search and though they have talent, you
never believe for a second they are these characters. Allen, Megan Mullally, Bebe Neuwirth, Charles
S. Dutton and Kelsey Grammer also show up, but they cannot save this sinking
ship either. You never believe they are
struggling to better themselves and see zero growth here in their
characters. New songs might have helped,
but that would be much too ambitious for this hack recycling, despite the
opportunities the material lens itself to a remake. The original theatrical cut is 25 (yes,
twenty-five minutes!) shorter that the 1980 film with a PG rating, while the
uncut version (which would rate PG-13 at best) is still ten minutes shorter
than the 1980 film that was rated R.
This is because MGM and Lakeshore Entertainment (who also lost money on
the Musical film of Nine with The
Weinstein Company, proving they do not understand musical either) hoped the
film could capitalize on TV talent contests and other angry reality TV, plus
any fans of Disney’s High School Musical
franchise. No one was fooled and this
rightly bombed.
Maybe the
new talent will find better work and become a success later, but all they can
to here is look good at best in a static work that drowns them and anyone who
watches. You can’t remember anyone’s
name when the film is so forgettable.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital high definition image for the original film was shot in 35mm
film and despite looking a little soft, actually looks a little more realistic
and palpable than the annoying 1080p 2.35 X 1 AVC @ 28 MBPS digital high
definition image the remake offers with its weaker Super 35mm film shoot, color
gutted in the digital internegative process.
It has motion blur, weak color and the camera just cannot stand still
like the camera operators are drunk. It
makes New York
and all involved look bad too. Director
of Photography Scott Kevan should not have shot this like he did Death Race, but he did.
The Dolby
TrueHD 5.1 mix on the original film is a mixed bag like most Musicals of the
time, with the music sounding much better than the recorded dialogue, which can
be too much in the center channel for its own good. In 70mm blow-ups the film was released in, it
had a 4.1 Dolby magnetic stereo multi-track mix and you can hear how
interesting some of those sound choices are.
There is some compressed sound even in the music, but this is not bad
for its age. The DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on the new film should be articulate and spectacular,
but is instead not very articulate and does not have the soundstage of the best
Musicals we have seen lately (Hairspray,
Chicago, Dreamgirls), which is a huge handicap for a new release. It is also harsh and shrill on the edges and
is barely better than the 1980 film’s sound when all is said and done.
Extras on
the original film include the bonus CD with four tracks form the original RSO
Records soundtrack, as now issued by Warner/Rhino Records including the hit title
theme by Cara, Hot Lunch Jam
(supposed an alternate title for the film) by Cara, Red Light with lead singer Linda Clifford and an instrumental
version of the title song. Its Blu-ray
adds the Original Theatrical Trailer, Fame
Field Trip visiting the actual school of the film, On Location with Fame vintage featurette and Class Reunion
Commentary with Branching Video Highlights (something only Blu-ray can do) with
Parker, Curreri, Dean, Ray and Teely.
The new
film has a DVD-ROM Digital Copy disc for PC and PC portable devices, a Music
Video for the lame remake of the title song, Deleted Scenes, Remember My Name Character Profiles, Fame National Talent Search Finalists
featurette and The Dances of Fame
featurette. It is underwhelming much
like the rest of the remake and only solidifies what a mistake it was to make
it this way. See the original or nothing
at all.
- Nicholas Sheffo
