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JimBell Blog

Dreamgirls

Under discussion:

Dreamgirls  (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)is a pretty well-made movie, but I didn’t like it much. The movie is both a drama and a musical, and neither worked well for me. In the first half of the movie, the drama worked well because, even though simple, there was suspense: Will those girls make it big in the music biz? But when they become international superstars, the plot has not discernable direction. It jumps from scene to scene: oh, suddenly this guy is having an affair; oh, suddenly another guy is unhappy with the music; oh suddenly she is getting rebellious; oh, suddenly . . . As far as the film is a drama, it develops a theme. The theme is that winning at all costs, as the girls’ manager does, means that you ultimately lose. We see him deserted by one friend and associate after another. So it is not about winning, but about being true to yourself and your loved ones. But wait a minute. A climactic scene has the feisty singer who was kicked out of the group shouting in the manager’s face that she wins and he loses. Yeah! And she wins by blackmailing him. Yeah! Everyone is cheering. So it is about winning no matter how. Or is it? I object to Dreamgirls’ contradictory themes because life it too short to be wasted on insultingly brainless entertainment. Themes can be simple and direct—witness the themes in excellent films such as The Princess Bride, Shrek I, and Spy Game. Themes do not have to be simple. Actually, they are great when complex—witness The Painted Veil, The Human Stain, and Say Anything. But films should say something, and some modern films seem to but don’t. For example, when the United States of America is involved in a war overseas and someone makes a major movie with recurring violence, you might expect The Departed to say something about violence, but it says nothing. How irresponsible. Audiences should object. Viewers with an iota of critical intelligence should feel manipulated. Now with a musical, the odds are much higher that the movie makers will play fast and loose with the theme; after all, the focus is on the music, or, at least, the focus is split between the music and the drama. Unfortunately, that is the case with Dreamgirls. Oh, yes, the fast cuts from one musical number to another are exciting, the integration of music and script is superb, the choreography is sharp, and the acting by Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Houston and others is really good, but is all of this to some worthwhile end or is all of this to buffalo you, to pull the wool over your eyes, to keep you from even thinking that the movie doesn’t have a clue what it is saying?  While the movie does not know what it is saying, it certainly knows what it is playing. It’s just that I don’t like the direction the music takes. In one sense, neither does the movie. The early tunes were amazingly tight and very soulful. Let’s look at both of those features. In the movie itself, the good guys complain that the black Detroit music is losing its soul as it becomes more commercially successful. So by the movie’s own declaration we are forced to listen to some bland and pretentious stuff. At the same time, the music becomes less tight. Some people will not mind this, will even enjoy it. But I liked the tight horn lines and the joyous funk of the early music. I found the later music to be awash in strings and high production values, with the singers singing or shouting amazingly complex but uninteresting melodies which often bore only a vague relationship to any beat or rhythm. The movie itself condones or accepts this change. The penultimate number sung by the Dreams is a classic example of what makes me switch radio stations: a vague beat, huge complex orchestral doodlings, barely perceptible chord changes, and a semi-melodic vocal that floats over the messy complexity. I’m sure it is difficult to sing and quite sophisticated, but it is also boring. I dislike the direction the movie’s music takes because I grew up on the tight big band arrangements that Neil Hefti did for the Count Basie Band, I thrived on the tight combo arrangements of the Nat King Cole Trio and of Charles Brown’s groups, and I loved the soul music, whether blue-eyed or brown-eyed, that featured Stax horn section or the Tower of Power or even Blood, Sweat, and Tears—anything that had great horn arrangements. Although I also like Beethoven’s Pastoral (6th) Symphony and the introspective lyrics of Leonard Cohen, although I love the hard-driving Texas blues guitar of Freddy King and the eccentric New Orleans boogie piano of Professor Longhair, I find the remote, highly produced and orchestrated stuff that ends Dreamgirls to be as objectionable as the oldies station replete with Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot, and Anne Murray. Dreamgirls created quite a stir in 2006, but, if my reaction has much validity, it will fade fast.  

posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 4:09 AM by JimBell


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