Sunday, November 15, 2009

From Screen to Stage to Screen Again

Some Quotes from HERE

The storyline of Nine is a free-fall affair, following the mental meanderings of a moviemaker, one Guido Contini (but read: Fellini), among the women in his life. They come in all shapes, sizes and roles, and the cast was mined from Oscar gold, save for Kate Hudson, a mere nominee allowed to pass because of her dancing skills.Which is where one wants to be with Nine. "It's a series of dreams inside Guido's mind — reveries, fantasies, nightmares. All that had been translated onto the stage — and going back to film gave us a chance to rethink these things as cinema."

About the New song "Take it All" sung by Marion Cotillard
"'Be On Your Own' is a song that made me very proud when I wrote it the first time," Yeston admitted. "It always had a wonderful and scathing effect on stage, but, as I have said, you need action in a film. Film is far more literal and far more specific than a stage show. No matter how detailed the set of a stage show is, it could never be as detailed as actually being in an actual place in a movie. You see the details of every room, you see the props, you see the lights. You are meant to accept this as literally the real world, whereas in theatre we give you a white tile set or a unit set in the abstract and we ask you to use your imagination. Because film is more literal, you really do have to go farther out on a limb to become theatrical."
Yet another Oscar winner, Anthony Minghella weighed in on a newnumber: Take it All. He did the final polish on Michael Tolkin's screenplay, finishing it just days before his death, and it was his suggestion that the number be shared with Kidman and Cruz.
"Three women are leaving Guido at the same time, but only one of them devoted her life to him. Only one of them has been married to him for 20 years. Only one of them is giving up everything in her body and soul. Once we explored it, it did not make any sens
e for three women to share and participate in the depth of despair and anger that only one of them had really earned. So we restored it to a solo".
"I saw Marion Cotillard's movie three times, and 'Take It All' is as much inspired by Marion Cotillard as 'Folies Bergeres' was inspired by Liliane Montevecchi. I think that's, sometimes, when you do your best work because you realize 'Nothing that I write makes any sense if I don't have a brilliant actor to put it across the footlights to the audience.' Here, I knew I was writing for the specific gifts of a brilliant actress."

About the New song "Cinema Italiano" sung by Kate Hudson
"Kate Hudson also rates a new number — because, as a Vogue writer in Rome, she was uniquely suited to fill in some important background blanks for a modern audience.Kate as a Vogue reporter — American to the core, seduced and enchanted by Guido's work, by his style, by his world — can educate contemporary audiences about this era while celebrating the 1960s. She can tell us everything about what Italian movies meant to the world at that time by singing 'Cinema Italiano,' a production number in which I could pull out all the stops, characterize her, entertain and, at the same time, depict this whole world that we're talking about."

About the New song "Guarda la Luna" sung by Sophia Loren
Nine is blessed to have in its cast an authentic fixture from that vintage of Italian cinema — Sophia Loren, who won her Oscar in the '60s — a fact that sent Yeston scurrying back to the drawing board to come up with another new song.
In truth, the melody of it is in the stage show — a little waltz in the second act. "I've always been told that a lot of people who know the show consider it their favorite music. It wasn't sung. so I added a lyric. The number replaces a song called 'Nine' which Taina Elg sang as Guido's mother. It was a song for a high soprano. Sophia Loren is not a high soprano, so, in the same way that I was inspired to write certain things for Raul Julia, I was inspired to write 'Guarda la Luna' [Look at the Moon] for Sophia. It accomplishes exactly the same lyric function and dramatic function that the equivalent song did in the stage show, except that it does it in a way that capitalizes on the brilliance of Sophia Loren. That's the thrill of doing this — of being allowed to do something fresh, do something that could evolve into a form that would work not only in the film but work for the actor in the film."

0 commentaires:

Post a Comment