HAMILTON (2020)
Director: Thomas Kail
For years, when it comes to theatrical adaptations to film, there's always this constant debate about whether or not to open up the play or not. To open up a play, means to expand the work beyond the limitations of theater. The obvious is the idea of breaking the fourth wall, cause theater, at least most traditional theaters no matter the construction of the stage, even theater-in-the-round, there's the imaginary wall that's a boundary between the performers and the audience. There's no technical right-or-wrong answer here but most films tend to expand beyond the production in some manner, even in situations where literally the entire play takes place in one location and there's no reasonable, logistical or practical reason for the characters to exit the location, and even adaptations where they do stay in their limits, they'll still try to find ways to make the movie adaptation more cinematic. They'll find shots and ideas that move the camera from the audience's perspective to something more akin to the camera seeming to be within the chaos of the scene, like it's a character itself almost. And I think some film critics and even some film scholars, tend to think this the more logical and appropriate approach and are sometimes surprised or even bash some movies outright when a film adaptation of a play doesn't do stuff like this as often as it could. Like, one of the complaints I've often heard about the film adaptation of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple", is that, the movie goes too far in trying to recreate the feeling of the play, to the point where it leaves logic gaps, the most notable is how during the poker scenes, instead of all the actors playing around the poker table, there's still a large empty area on one side of the table, which, is how it's traditionally performed live, 'cause you can't have an actor on stage with their back to the audience, (although you could argue that based on the situation, it gives us the impression that we, the audience are apart of the game, and we're being interrupted as Felix enters the movie and turns everything upside down, [Shrugs]) and sure, it seems weird nobody would sit there if you think about it for half-a-second, but it does convey more accurately the feeling of watching the performance live, even if it makes no sense in film.
I've personally never thought opening up a play was necessarily the best idea, some of my favorite films, like "The Odd Couple", are basically just filmed productions of a theatrical performance, and I think a lot of the times that's what make those films good. Like, I'm in the minority on this, but I claim that "Arsenic and Old Lace" is Frank Capra's best film, which most people, including probably everybody involved with that film would say is a bad position, but no, keeping that movie to the three walls the play has as much as possible makes it even better, especially when all the insanity and chaos of that story erupts.
However, I think there's another reason that people think the opposite is true, that you have to open up a play and make it more naturally cinematic for it to be good, and that's because there's a sneaky third option that nobody wants to admit is actually much harder than either opening up the play, or recreating the play as much as possible for the cinema, and that's actually recording the theatrical performance of the play. Honestly, why isn't it done more often? I mean, it is done, but it's not nearly as publicized or sold to the masses as it should be. You'd think it'd be easy, wouldn't you think; I mean, you don't have to do any extra rehearsals, everybody knows their lines and their places, and you just have to put the cameras in the right spots, right? Well, that's the thing, it's not really that easy; theater is an immersive experience and film is a 2-D experience, a lot of people don't even try this idea, or at least give it a real attempt? Which is a shame, 'cause I think when it's done well, it's easily the best choice for preserving theatrical productions for all of time. One of Spike Lee's very best films is "Passing Strange", which is just a recording of the theatrical production of the play. As much as I love and am apologist for Chris Columbus's adaptation of "Rent", (Which did a good job of opening up that play I might add) the best way to see that work on film is "Rent: Live on Broadway" which documented the final performance of the show's original run of the show on Broadway.
That said, it isn't always done well. (and when it isn't, oh it can really be brutal sometimes; there's a reason there's still a huge bootleg market for theater performances). Sometimes the dramaturgy will let you down as much as the production admittedly, but more-than-that, the static image of the screen, just isn't gonna be the best approach to capture the essence of seeing a show live, or at the very least, it takes a lot of hard work to make it as great as it could be and sometimes putting in that effort is just a little more difficult than people think, and sometimes finding the right ways of shooting things like a multi-level set with set pieces and ensembles moving around all the time, just isn't easy to full capture in a way that will transport a film audience into the environment and mindset of the theater.
I'll say two things though, it does help when you're recording a production of the greatest musical ever put on stage, and also helping, is putting the film, on the big screen.
A few months ago when I finally got around to my Best Films of 2020 list, I not only put "Hamilton" number one, I declared that it was one of the best films this century so far. I was wrong; it's the best film this century so far. And seeing it on the big screen finally, in a movie theater like it was originally supposed to be, with an actual intermission between Acts I and II, absolutely confirmed that suspicion for me. I know TV's are bigger than ever, but really, seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom, Jr. and company on the giant screen, in the darkened theater, on a screen that's 3 or 4 times your height, it's a truly different experience. The movie's being shown in theaters now, after it was intended to be screened in theaters in 2021, but with COVID cancelling everyone's moviegoing and all other plans for 2020, Disney decided to rush the film out and spring it on their streaming service early to give everybody stuck at home something to watch. And I haven't stopped watching since; I must've seen 'Hamilton" hundreds of times on Disney+ by now; I mean, when you release the greatest thing ever, everything else, no matter how good it is, it's just not gonna compare to it.
And yes, "Hamilton" is that good. I think we're used to this now, so we've just kinda accepted, but like, not even a decade before the musical, I distinctly remember jokes on like some "SNL" or "MADTV"-type show sketches about how ridiculous stuff like, a hip hop musical based on "Gone with the Wind" would be. Of course, those jokes never involved somebody as intelligent about music and history and theater in general as somebody like Lin-Manuel Miranda, but yeah, I remember his original White House performance of "Alexander Hamilton" and thinking it was the most ridiculous and hilarious thing, and didn't fully believe he was actually doing it or that it would actually come out well. Much less, this well. And to be fair, it's not just that he's telling the story of Hamilton, it's how he's telling it. I watch "Hamilton" reactions all the time, and half the time somebody will make a comment along the lines of, "If history was taught like this to us in school...." Now, personally, I love history in general, and the American Revolution is one of my favorite parts of history, so nothing surprised me in this film, even though I never read Ron Chernow's biography, but I certainly knew enough about Hamilton. But I wouldn't have both connected his experiences and personality to those of modern characters like people in hip hop culture. He's taking every influence he can think of to put into this story, some as recent as DMX and Eminem, some as ancient as Gilbert & Sullivan. You can pick your own game on that one, my favorite are catching his subtle "The West Wing" references, like Eliza (Phillippa Soo) singing that he wants Alexander to "Come home at the end of the day", or Angelica (Renee Elise Goldsberry) mentioning during "The Schuyler Sisters" that's she's looking for "A mind at work", or even the movie's best showstopping song, "The Room Where it Happened"; that's a quote from a "West Wing" episode.
But even more impressive though is how Miranda takes these modern motifs and musical cues in telling this history story, and placing it in a modern context of why we tell these stories from our past. History does matter, and seeing how we later compartmentalize the story from the past effects how we view them as the future. How the act of telling the story of our nation, is just as important as the actual story itself, and that's probably what makes people lose interest in learning history the most, not just the boring ways it's taught or how the textbooks try to tell us, the context of why it's important to tell these stories about what happened and how we got here and why, it's something that gets lost sometimes.
Even telling a story of America's past through modern music, wasn't even new on Broadway. On top of the several other historical musical, like "1776" for instance, a couple years before "Hamilton", there was a big Broadway musical called "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" that took Andrew Jackson's story and imagined him as an emo-punk rocker who enjoyed cutting himself. And that musical wasn't bad, by the way, but it's only telling a story through a modern lens, and it borders more on the satirical than the authentic. (Although Andrew Jackson's life, is probably best portrayed as though it was a satirical joke.) At the end it's still a story of a bunch of old obnoxious slave-owning white people and it is hard to appreciate in modern day, but just because that's who they were at the time, doesn't mean that's who they have to be when you tell their story.
But what really puts "Hamilton". as a film, above everything else, is how well it's made to recreate the experience of seeing the play, and this is obvious when you're watching it on streaming, but it's so much more clear on the very big screen, in a theater. Having seen this movie so often, I don't just look at the main actors anymore, I'm always trying to, well, "look around, look around,"... and see what everyone else is doing and where they're at, and this movie's done that better than any other theatrical production I've ever watched on film. The lighting helps for the stage, but the lighting for the film show even in those more dimly-lit scenes, you can more clear see the ensemble people and all the action they're doing. Did you see the movie and see where all the Schuyler sisters were, before they introduction of them in "The Schuyler Sisters"? They're all there, and not just in the opening song. Or how they go in and out, brings in and out props. Like, I knew they were picking up the pamphlets that were being tossed around on stage, but I wasn't able to focus before on how they're able to do it, and stick to the steps they're doing. The girl who's the bartender during "Aaron Burr, Sir" and "My Shot", and how she's doing her job. You get a glimpse of that, and you don't get 100% of it, but my god, on the big screen, you get every little subtle hint. Like how Alexander (Lin-Manuel Miranda) pours himself and drinks a second drink as Washington (Christopher Jackson) is telling him that he's not running for another term. That's something you might catch when you're watching it live, but seeing every detail like that. The letter that Eliza burns actually has writing on it!? I know it's Broadway, so you can afford to do stuff like that, but you don't have to do stuff like that. Andy Blankenbuehler's choreography is what really gets showcased the most on the big screen, and again, not just the dancing, but Kail's mise-en-scene directions for everybody, combined with the choreography,- like, this as close to a real theatrical experience that you're gonna truly get on film, and basically any film that tries to do this in the future, is gonna get compared to how "Hamilton" did it here. (Which kinda sucks, because now you gotta compare everything literally to "Hamilton"; I do not envy any other show on Broadway right now, in the past, or in the future.) I do wish we had one shot of when exactly Mariah Reyonlds (Jasmine Cyphus Jones) shows up during "We Know", just to see when she's popping up in the shadows behind Alexander, but if you're watching her, she's hovering around the whole time too beforehand, and we see that more clearly on the big screen.
No, I'm glad it was released early during those COVID years, but to fully replicate the theater experience, the big screen is where this needs to be. The movie was shot over a few days of recording the performances in front of the audience and some without an audience to get some of those more intimate close-ups for those moments where the audience will inherently be focused exclusively on a specific character or moment; my favorite is Leslie Odom Jr.'s close-up in "Wait for It", although I do like noticing how the Ensemble moves in to listen, throughout the song and aren't just sitting there in the beginning. There's also that one shot from the above camera of the pamphlets flying and two shots from the back of the stage when King George (Jonathan Groff) and George Washington get introduced. Seeing the film will never replace the theater entirely, but I think the film medium should be good enough to want you to see it on the stage, even after seeing it in your home. "Hamilton" succeeds at this way more than any filmed stage production I've ever seen, plus it forever immortalizes it's original cast performing the greatest and most important musical to ever hit the stage, and one of the greatest pieces of art,- it's the greatest telling of the story of America, ever, and just how important that story is, not just to us, but it really did turn the world upside down, and why it's important to retell it as much as we can.
And yeah, since I've looked at the ticket prices for the touring show, and the price for the movie tickets at the local CineMark theater, um,- most of us will gladly (finger quotes) "settle" for the movie version. (Although both prices are a bit out-of-line I might add. Still totally worth it though.)
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