Thank you for Adit who recommended this film in the first place.
Chicago is a musical starred by Renee Zellweger as Roxanne 'Roxie' Hart, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma Kelly, and Richard Gere as Billy Flynn. It is adapted from the Broadway musical Chicago by John Kander (music) and Fred Ebb (music), with storyline adapted from a play by Maurine Dallas Watkin, a female reporter. The story is inspired by real-life cases of Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner. Chicago is an amazing satire. Rarely satire is delivered in such an enjoyable form as this vaudeville movie.
This review will contain spoiler. Proceed at your own risk.
The film opens with shot of an eye. The eye, I think, alludes to Beulah Annan's 'man-taming' eyes. In the next scene, chanteuse Velma Kelly stepped out from a taxi after a rainy night at Chicago. She was late, and hastily prepared herself to perform. Here, we are treated with Zeta-Jones' surprisingly superb voice and dance in her performance of All That Jazz.
I love the way Zeta-Jones confidently stated, "Don't sweat it, I can do it alone", signaled the light-boy, and smirked defiantly and continued her performance after she saw the cops came. And there's one thing that is my favourite - the seemingly irrelevant trivia. All That Jazz is filled with them. Here is the list:
- ...I hear that Father Dip is gonna blow the blues...I Googled and it says that it is a nickname for Louis Armstrong, a legendary jazz and blues musician.
- ...I bet that Lucky Lindy never flew so high...Lucky Lindy is a nickname for aviator Charles Lindbergh, who also happened to be a big hypocrite.
- ...oooh, you're gonna see your sheba shimmy-shake...Sheba is a 1920's slang, means a woman.
The Velma scenes are intermittently showed with the scenes which show us a sweet-looking blonde woman (later, we knew her name is Roxie Hart) who looked ordinary and had a dream to become a performer, and who seemed to enjoyed a little affair with a man (who is, we learned later, named Fred Casely) outside her marriage. The scenes are not suitable for underages and definitely not for office or school consumption.
Fred promised that he'll use his connection to realise Roxie's dream to become famous, a somebody. Later, Roxie learned that he lied solely to gained access to Roxie's favours (ahem, ahem). Roxie, in a heat of anger (after being knocked around), shot Fred thrice. He died instantly. All while a song played on the Harts' gramophone. This scene alludes to the fact where Annan shot her lover and let him bled to death while playing a really silly song on her gramophone.
Then Roxie's husband, Amos, came home. Roxie then told a story to her husband and begged him to help her. Amos agreed. This scene is brilliantly told via a 'song of love and devotion by Ms. Roxie Hart to her dear husband, Amos'. I AM pleasantly SURPRISED that Zellweger can sing.
Hohoho. I love Funny Honey's lyrics. It's funny how easy a song of love and devotion changed into a song of anger and fight. All of Roxie's praises to her husband evaporated when Amos denounced her (completely justifiable in my view), called Roxie 'act like some goddamn floozy!' (oh, how I love those 1920's vocab!). The change from that 'funny, sunny, honey, hubby of mine' to 'scummy, dummy, crummy! hubby of miiineee' happened very fast. The lyrics is a fine mix of insult and praises. Roxie said she loves her husband (praise!) despite 'he ain't got the smarts'(insult) - of course, that what made him so easily tricked and obeyed Roxie's request. And when Amos smartened up and realized what actually had happened, both got real angry. Roxie for feeling betrayed, Amos too. And it is funny to see Roxie shouted, "You are... an unfaithful... husband!".
Lady, you need a huge and clean mirror for self-reflection.
And it's funnier to see how Amos just got silent and did not even raise his head to meet anyone's gaze.
Next scene, Roxie admitted that she shot Casely and the reason she did it. Of course it was done when she was high in adrenaline. Now the adrenaline started to wear off, she started to feel fear. And then, enter the matron, Matron 'Mama' Morton.
Queen Latifah's performance in When You're Good to Mama rocks! The lyrics are amazing. Mama is awesomely referred as, 'The Keeper of the Keys, the Countess of the Clink! The Mistress of the Murderess Row, Matron... Mama... Morton!!!" The song sketched about Mama's personality and policy, and the subsequent scenes support that sketch.
When you're good to Mama, Mama's good to you :)
Mama, true to her words, practiced reciprocity. And because of that, Roxie's night in Cook County Jail was a freezing cold one. While she lay down and tried to sleep, she recounted the stories of the fellow inmates of Murderess Row in a very delicious performance of Cell Block Tango, in which she was an audience watched the other inmates' confessions. The reasons behind their dirty deeds are cliche, yet understandable. They defended themselves, said that...
- ...he had it coming...
- ...if you had been there, if you had heard (for the case of Bernie)/ seen (Wilbur) it, I betcha you would have done the same!
- ...he took a flower at its prime...
- ...the dirty bum, bum, bum... (for Al Lipschitz, a promiscuous and apparently bisexual lover)
- ...I didn't do it, but if I'd done it, how could you tell me that I was wrong?
Overall, very catchy. Velma's story: '... I completely blacked out, I didn't remember a thing' clearly alludes to Belva Gaertner's defense that she completely blacked out and woke up with bloody hands that held a gun while beside her, her paramour lay dead.
Next. Roxie, saw that Velma got all the publicity and got more famous, decided that she wanted the same thing. She tried to befriend Velma. Velma rudely refused her advances. Roxie then decided to seek Mama's advice. Mama's solution? Call Billy Flynn. Billy is a famous criminal lawyer with shining track record and huge, huge fee. Four thou at the least. Even there's a fee for calling him. To show how capable and duplicitous he is, Richard Gere as Billy Flynn with the County Cook Jail girls perform All I Care About is Love. Billy is introduced as 'The silver-tongued, the Prince of the Courtroom, the one, the only, Billy Flynn!' It's not exaggeration, apparently. Billy is shown as cliche, an immoral lawyer who loved money and cared only for his track record and fame, both influenced by the number of successfully freed clients. Whether they are guilty or innocent is not too important. Flynn is an amalgam of Gaertner and Annan's defense lawyer.
So there's a way out... But how will Roxie finance her way out? There seems to be no light in the end of the tunnel. But, surprise, surprise...
Does he look familiar?
Zoom in, with better lights...
Right.
Can a man be this pathetic? God. But believe it or not, it is based on true story. Beulah Annan too, screwed around and had a side dish. And yes, her husband paid for her lawyer too. And supported her during her trial until she was acquitted. So yes, a man can be this pathetic.
End of part one, because I felt sleepy. Night.
NB:
For some of you, all of Chicago's scenes might feel downright immoral to you, but for me, they are incorporated for the sake of storytelling, and thus should be enjoyed and viewed as artistic performances. Sure, the performances are full of women and men in minimal and revealing clothes and provocative gestures and gyrates, but they are very fine works of art.
