No Response for "Keira Sings"

1. Haroldsmaude June 7th, 2008 at 8:54 pm 1

   Uh huh. The point being…?

2. andre June 7th, 2008 at 9:01 pm 2

   great cinematography, but the scene looks more like a perfume ad than part of a narrative… still, here´s hoping it´s good!

3. Ryan Adams June 7th, 2008 at 10:23 pm 3

   The point being that her voice is as beautiful as the rest of her.

   Full trailer here. Looks spectacular.

   “This year’s ‘Atonement’ only better.” ~ SHE magazine [wtf is SHE magazine?]

   Screenplay by Sharman Macdonald — Keira Knightley’s mother.

   Keira Knightley clashed with her screenwriter mother Sharman MacDonald over their forthcoming movie The Edge Of Love – because the actress refused to play the part her mum had specifically written for her.

   Macdonald told her daughter she had penned the role of Caitlin Thomas just for her in the upcoming film about Welsh poet Dylan Thomas – but the 23-year-old had other ideas.

   Macdonald recalls, “I said, ‘You’re playing Caitlin,’ and she said, ‘No, I like Vera.’”

   As a result, the part of Vera Phillips, one of the Welsh poet’s love interests, was transformed – to Knightley’s liking.

   Macdonald adds: “She wasn’t even a singer until Keira decided to play her.”

   The movie is set for its world premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival in Scotland on 18 June.

4. Haroldsmaude June 7th, 2008 at 10:35 pm 4

   So, Sasha is this evidence for your vote for Ms Knightly for Eliza Doolittle. Doesn’t convince me.

5. Ryan Adams June 7th, 2008 at 11:00 pm 5

   Haroldsmaude, don’t make me snap off one of Keira’s brittle little limbs and beat you with it.

6. Tufas June 8th, 2008 at 3:05 am 6

   omg

   Loved it!

   T.

7. k June 8th, 2008 at 5:57 am 7

   I think she’s got an interesting voice, and if she takes lessons she could really get a handle on it, but I just don’t think she’s got the vocal strength to pull off showtunes.

   I’m glad to see her taking a bit of a risk here, singing in her new film.

8. Bob June 8th, 2008 at 8:03 am 8

   It’s hard to get a really good idea of how good a singer she is from this small clip…but at the very least she’s serviceable. Better than Renee Z, who was nominated for the Oscar. However her voice is, she sings with emotion, and that’s worth more than being a vocal powerhouse sometimes.

9. limeymcfrog June 8th, 2008 at 8:07 am 9

   Pretty voice, but weak. She has a nice voice, but is obviously not a singer. That voice could handle “Wouldn’t it be Loverly” but no way could it do “Show Me” or “Without You”. (much like Audrey Hepburn’s)

   I renew my objection.

10. k June 8th, 2008 at 8:21 am 10

    I am with you there limeymcfrog. I mean, it is really hard to gauge from a one minute clip, but while I can see her being totally charming during “Wouldn’t it’s be Loverly”, “The Rain in Spain”, and even “I Could Have Danced All Night”, I don’t think she’s got the strength to pull off “Without You”, “Show Me”, or “Just You Wait”.

    I think if they do a better adaptation of the musical (the original is really stagy and too theatrical), it could turn out well. Remember, that you don’t necessarily have to have a Broadway voice to star in a film musical and do a good job. Her voice has character, and so long as she hits the notes and acts the hell out of the songs, I think she could pull it off.

11. Sasha Stone June 8th, 2008 at 9:44 am 11

    Well lately the trend in musicals is picking “non-professional” but sort of capable singers (Johnny Depp, Helena Bonhan-Carter in Sweeney as a recent example) who are charismatic. The standards for film are different now than they used to be AND the farther away the movie is from Broadway expertise, the better it does. Call it yet more dumbing down of America but there it is. I’m not dissing Keira at all; but Julie Andrew is Julie Andrews. Voices like that don’t come around often.

12. The Jack June 8th, 2008 at 10:24 am 12

    As far as Oscars go, don’t get too excited. The film is coming out here in England pretty soon, and nobody is talking about it. The only thing about it I have seen is a review in this month’s Empire, which isn’t exactly flattering.

13. Haroldsmaude June 8th, 2008 at 11:41 am 13

    oh no, Ryan, keep that femur away from me….

    So we can debate the merits of Keira’s singing ability and comparisons to Julie Andrews (which has to be a separate, short discussion because few are comparable), and we can debate the value of her casting in MFL and then there’s Sasha’s foray into the casting of movie musicals today, which is (I think) a more interesting discussion.

    I think it comes down to match of performer to role. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman worked for Sweeney Todd because the roles didn’t call for great singers but for great characters. The lesser roles – the sailor and the girl have the operatic voices in ST, but they are not the focus. All three of the actors have charisma and the ability to act. It worked.

    Then there are the contemporary original film musicals like “Moulin Rouge” that cast nonsingers but we don’t care as much because we don’t know the roles or have expectations for singing strength to begin with.

    With a traditional musicals like Chicago, the film worked (in addition to it being an overall, good film) because of partial perfect casting – that of Catherine Zeta-Jones. She had the talent as a musical performer before being cast in the film so there was no need to stretch our belief. Plus she was great in the role (when she was on the screen did your eyes go anywhere else?). We admired Richard Gere’s attempt, and put up with Renee Z, but Catherine was a perfect casting choice. She met our expectations for the role, no matter what lens we bring to it.

    A similar discussion might occur on Dreamgirls. And in some ways the casting of these films was ’safer’ because they are musicals that, while popular, weren’t associated with certain performers, and hadn’t been filmed, as MFL has.

    And then there’s the stage to screen attempts like Rent and Phantom that try to stay true to the integrity of the stage production and either keep the similar cast, or cast for talent over commercial appeal.

    Its exciting that we can even have a discussion of movie musical casting because for so long there were no movie musicals. And compared to the products of the 50s and 60s, the variety we have now is very interesting.

    In part casting musicals may be dumbing down and commercial choices, but its also a matter of fit. And when it fits, it’s ‘loverly’. Thanks, Sasha for opening this up.

14. RRA sang to the Cops for a Plea Deal June 8th, 2008 at 11:41 am 14

    The Keira MY FAIR LADY will either work or it won’t.

    Quite Frankly, I don’t give a damn.

    Thing is, of my Generation Y….and I’m asking all you this……..who among them gives a shit about the original MFL broadway or movie?

    Of course, what do I know? I’m the same guy who paid to see HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME.

15. Ryan Adams June 8th, 2008 at 12:12 pm 15

    I’m with k on this one: stagey often comes off as dated — especially to kids who have never seen a Broadway play (and that’s most of them; with $100-300 ticket prices, it will forever be most of them).

    The 1964 My Fair Lady is a treasure and I’m wild about it, but there’s nothing the least bit cinematic about the adaption. It’s essentially a filmed document of ’60’s era Broadway. You can say, “sit the kids down in front of the original,” all you want, but it takes a certain kind of kid who’s willing or even able to adjust his eyes and mind to see how great it is without some sort of prism of prior references to help them get past the blocky theatricality.

    I wish there were more filmed records of Broadway plays — musicals and legitimate theater alike — but setting a camera up in front of a stage play is not a film. I think PBS used to do things like that, and it’s a shame that they stopped. It’s huge loss to the cultural record that nobody ever set up a tripod in front of the great plays of the 20th century (damn, how I’d love to see a video of Alan Cummings in Cabaret, vamping among the tables at Studio 54.)

    I’m ready to blame all kinds of things on the “dumbing down of America,” Sasha, but personally I might hold off in this instance. For one thing, I think it’s hard to argue that American audiences in the 1960’s were somehow a bunch of theater sophisticates with a deeper intellectual appreciation of fine art. I think it’s more a matter of changing tastes and loss of innocence that prevents kids from watching The Sound of Music without snickering. Those irony-free days of purity and sweetness are gone and they’re not coming back.

    Audience today might be dumb in many ways, but in other ways culturally they’ve wised up.

    There may be far fewer people who appreciate musical theater now, but there are far more who fully grasp the mechanics, techniques and art of filmmaking. Being dumber about an antiquated art form is not good, I agree, but there are worse things to be dumb about. (Don’t get me started.)

    It’s absolutely inarguable that a voice like Julie Andrews’ doesn’t come along very often (that’s why I was kinda thrilled to find the youtube clip above that tries to simulate how marvelous an Andrews’ Dolittle might have been on film). But a voice like Julie Andrews’ might be too “big” for the movies. Her theatrical style would certainly be too big today, and I’d say her movies of the ’60’s were barely able to contain her bigness even back then.

    It’s pretty hard for me to sit through the Sound of Music, and there’s a reason why The Hills Are Alive opening is so often parodied. As gorgeous aurally as it might be, visually it’s just silly.

    I think I’ve read that big splashy Broadway musical adaptions began to fail at the end of the ’60’s and some of those bombs came close to bringing down entire studios (Thoroughly Modern Millie, anyone? Try ‘Thoroughly Archaic Julie’ … “Star!”? Not in this universe.)

    Look at a creaky relic like “Camelot” compared to the reinvention of the musical just 5 years later with “Cabaret.” (Liza is also too big for most movies, but the Cabaret’s stage-within-a-film was the perfect vehicle to showcase her talent — and Joel Gray’s too.)

    I saw the cast of ‘Washington Heights’ ‘In the Heights’ perform a scene on Letterman last week, and it was fun as hell — the electricity was amped up because it was on a stage in front of a live audience. It was all jazz hands, ultra-exaggerated body language, and facial expressions big enough to be seen on the back row. A hipper more youthful musical you won’t find anywhere, but it would look ridiculous to transfer that sort of stylization to the screen.

    (For that matter, ultra-realistic stage sets throw me off too. I like my theater stagey, thank you very much. Nothing more thrilling than to see a play performed with minimalistic sets and scant handful of props — letting the text speak for itself and allowing the actors to transport us without the aid of any intervening artifice or clever simulation of “reality”).

    So anyway, I didn’t mean to get so faux professorial on a Sunday morning, but I’m just saying: Flashdance, Footloose, Saturday Night Fever — those are the movies that began a trend away from stagey musicals and paved the way for the looser hybrids like Hairspray. (Nobody would accuse Michelle Pfeiffer or Christopher Walken of having a Broadway-friendly singing voice, but they were fabulous on film. (Now see, you’ve made me go and use up my one alloted “fabulous” per month.)

    So I think it’s very valid point k makes, and Bob too — Sweeney Todd worked in spite of everybody’s hang-wringing fears that Helena Bonham Carter is not Angela Lansbury. It worked because the emotional impact was intensely realized in those performances, and audience got all the musical stimulation they needed without feeling like they were being serenaded. Musical theater is one thing on stage and it needs to be another thing on film.

    Cukor’s My Fair Lady is a dazzling gem, but it’s also a museum piece. I’m excited to see what they might do with the material next, when it’s handled cinematically, and not just observed in medium long shot peering into a window in the fourth wall.

16. Ryan Adams June 8th, 2008 at 12:26 pm 16

    Brilliantly expressed, Haroldsmaude. This is the kind of topic on AD I enjoy the most. Contentious but well-argued in a friendly community spirit. yay Sasha! [and yay Keira! ]

    (RRA, please refrain from the MFL abbreviations. My dyslexia keeps making me see MILF.)

17. Sasha Stone June 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pm 17

    Ryan, I agree with you and your comments are always a great read. I guess I shouldn’t have said “dumbing down” so much as standards for musicals going in a different direction, let’s say. I was a drama geek when I was a teen and thus I developed a kind of reverence for those like Andrews who were the real deal versus “movie stars” who then got the film roles, a la Audrey Hepburn, etc. Knightley has some big shoes to fill but maybe they will tweak it enough, as you say, to make it something in its own right.

18. RRA pimps SEAGOLOGY, coming out this tuesday! June 8th, 2008 at 1:00 pm 18

    MILF Ryan? Hehe…

    You know what’s money? You should spend some cash, get some desperate guys needing money, and start up the FILF porn genre. It’s a license to print money, you dirty pervert!

    Anyway Ryan, great piece of writing you did there…and you’re MOTHER FUCKIN right.

    You the man!

19. limeymcfrog June 8th, 2008 at 1:58 pm 19

    I will say that I was anit-Pride and Prejudice because I loved the A&E version and I was unequivocally wrong… BUT it succeeded because Joe Wright took a marvelously cinematic approach to what was always done as a stuffy chamber drama.

    IF the filmmaking is up to snuff AND Keira’s voice is trained well enough to pull off the score AND it somehow prove to be moderately relevant… then maybe it’ll be good. I’ll just lay much better odds that it’s a bloated, second rate mess. And as a fan of the original, I welcome either effort. It will either be a) a marvelous re-telling of a story I love or b) proof of the indomitable genius of the original.

20. SeattleMoviegoer June 8th, 2008 at 2:25 pm 20

    the great thing about movies is that they can come in so many different forms and styles. i keep reading the phrase “stagey” as if something with roots in the theatre is inherently bad. if a movie looks like a tv show or a commercial or mtv music video–it gets a pass, but if it tries to approximate the immediacy of theatre then it must be really, really bad. or worse…old. Cukor was no fool and certainly no slouch as a filmmaker. take another look at LADY. the sets are PURPOSELY stylized and designed to give the movie it’s look and feel. Beaton was a genius and it shows. you want quick editing and odd camera angles, you get that with the “get me to the church on time” sequence. the elegant, studied, basic filmmaking used by Cukor was his intelligent way of focusing on the performances–that’s where the excitement lies, not in repositioning your camera every 2 seconds or cutting a scene to produce a hyperkinetic rush because the director didn’t trust the material nor the audience.

21. RichardA June 8th, 2008 at 3:16 pm 21

    I think the show is called “In The Heights”.

22. RichardA June 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm 22

    She looks amazing.
    As for musicals, I can’t wait for the movie version of Mama Mia. The opening of the second act should look stunning. The previews showed a hint of it.

23. Ryan Adams June 8th, 2008 at 3:45 pm 23

    Thanks for the correction, RichardA.

    You know this famous New Yorker POV of the country?

    I’m out there behind one of those rocks.

24. Ryan Adams June 8th, 2008 at 5:52 pm 24

    I didn’t mean to give the impression that I think artifice and stylization are bad, Seattlemoviegoer. In my reflections on King Fu Panda, I even point out how to me the backdrops seem to evoke the “stagey” sensation we get from a lot of Asian films, especially of the samurai and martial arts variety. Ozu’s naturalism involves such a carefully framed theatricality that it feels almost dreamily surreal at times. I appreciate all that. I get off on it.

    For the record, I love every frame of the 1964 My Fair Lady, and I swoon over the Cecil Beaton extravagances you mention. The Ascot sequence has that otherworldly surreal quality — simultaneously reducing the event down to its very essence, like a highly distilled perfume, and magnifying it all out of proportion in Eliza’s eyes. I’ve always felt that this isn’t just a designer’s whim to show off (though it’s certainly a showcase) but that it actually serves a dramatic purpose. How would a previously destitute flower girl absorb the overwhelming opulence of a day at the races, except to have it imprint on her senses with indelible closeups of vivid details?

    But for the very reason that this was a highly individual interpretation and conscious choice — means there would be other equally valid ways for a director to approach the same scenes. I’d like to see what those might be.

    Somebody once asked James M, Cain if he was worried what Hollywood might do to his books. He’s gestured toward his shelves and said, “What do you mean? My books are right over there.”

    Whichever fresh direction the filmmakers chose to take, nothing they do can possibly harm what already exists.

    The budget isn’t coming out of my pocket. Go nuts! No matter what they do, it’ll only cost me 8 bucks to find out. As far as I’m concerned, aside from the fun of comparing versions, the two movies are completely separate entities.

    If the reinterpretation is great, then we’re lucky somebody had the nerve to try it. If it’s not so great, we can shrug it off or have a whole lot of fun here ripping it to shreds.

    Win win.

    (RRA, Lead me not unto temptation.)

    Sasha, I knew we agreed, and the point I latched onto was mere semantics. Thanks for the props. What can I say? You challenge and inspire me. (aww, you’re my ‘Enry ‘Iggins!)

25. KarenA June 8th, 2008 at 6:06 pm 25

    I really wish they weren’t doing “My Fair Lady” again. That’s just so the “if you can’t do it better, why do it?” and it makes me grr just thinking that it might happen. This said, I wouldn’t mind if they did “Pygmalion”. I mean, why the singing? Why the obvious copy-cat or mimicry that will surely take place if they decide to redo “My Fair Lady.” The iconic moments that we all know will surely pale or if they’re well-done, only to the point of being passable. Hollywood is so without originality, it makes me want to take all the classics and hold onto them, hide them away so that those producers or “creative” people can’t get their hands on them, *sigh*. I still think “Pygmalion” is the way to go. The story will be familiar, but at least there will be enough left for original takes to not be bogged down by iconic looks, moments, and characterization. If I hear Keira (or whomever) say “loverly”, I’m going to throw something.

26. Alfredo June 8th, 2008 at 9:00 pm 26

    Dear God, please send Kiera a nice big sandwich. Thank you.

    Ryan did you get my email? I sent you a lil something something that I will now share with the rest of the cast.

    Since we’re on the topic of actresses that can sing or at least hold a note everyone go to the mamma mia! movie website and there you will be able to hear full tracks from the movie including Meryl singing “Winner Take It All” and “Mamma Mia!” for those of you who had any doubts or questions or just plain wondered what she sounds like singing I think you guys will be pleasantly surprised.

27. RRA is HAPPENING this weekend with the HULK June 8th, 2008 at 9:04 pm 27

    Speaking of which Alfredo….Ryan you get my email mate?

28. Haroldsmaude June 8th, 2008 at 9:17 pm 28

    “If the reinterpretation is great, then we’re lucky somebody had the nerve to try it. If it’s not so great, we can shrug it off or have a whole lot of fun here ripping it to shreds.”

    Ryan, why am I thinking that there would be more of a consequence if the reinterpretation of a classic film fails?

29. Ryan Adams June 8th, 2008 at 9:31 pm 29

    Thanks Alfredo. I knew Meryl could sing from the closing credits of Postcards From the Edge, where she belts out a country-western tune that almost made me like country-western tunes.

    I think I read someplace that Mike Nichols wanted to give her the chance to prove she had the chops, because Meryl was still feeling bruised from losing the role of Evita to Madonna (trollop).

    I can’t find reference to the Mike Nichols story now, but found this:

    Back in 1995 when Madonna was vying for the title roll in Evita, Meryl expressed her concern by saying, “I can sing better than she can. If Madonna gets it, I’ll rip her throat out!”

    I’ll be back in a bit to catch up with the other comments, Haroldsmaude. Really glad to hear you and your daughter enjoyed the movie. That makes all my proselytizing worthwhile. I know what you mean about the lack of attention to the female characters. Did Viper (Lucy Liu) have more than 2 lines?

    [hey you guys, I'll write to you to get the messages you tried to send. My email in the side bar is wrong. Damn! This explains why I never hear from Keira.]

30. RRA = Rick Rolled Again June 8th, 2008 at 9:38 pm 30

    Wow, Meryl wanted to kick Madonna’s ass?

    She should have done it. Come on, if she had, Madonna wouldn’t have ruined Guy Ritchie’s directing career.

31. Alfredo June 8th, 2008 at 9:54 pm 31

    Ryan I was aware that Meryl could sing. She sang just beautifully in A Prarie Home Companion but I know I was curious to see what she sounded like in Mamma Mia! cuz you know…well…its ABBA.

32. Ryan Adams June 9th, 2008 at 2:08 am 32

    oh, oops, sorry Alfredo, in my rush to reply I migh’ve come off as dismissive. I’m looking forward to listening to the links you brought to our attention.

    srsly, if you had come around with a link to a youtube clip of Meryl spiinning rat’s ass hair into gold lamé, my first reaction would’ve been, Yeah, I figured she could do that.

33. Silencio June 9th, 2008 at 9:30 am 33

    What would you all think of Jelly’s Last Jam being adapted to film?

34. Demetrius L Johnson June 9th, 2008 at 1:15 pm 34

    I would love a Jelly’s Last Jam film (and I automatically start counting them off my fingers: Jesse L. Martin, Jamie Foxx, Don Cheadle…thinking about the other roles, because Jelly Roll’s gotta be bright, eh?), but some of the music bores me…all of the latest musicals are that way.

    I’m more of the type that waits with baited breath about the casting. Will Glenn or Barbara get Sunset? I just knew Gabrielle Union was gonna get Deena in Dreamgirls, haha… If they ever do Into the Woods I’ll explode in anticipation.

    However…Keira is far to skinny for me to find her attractive, which is probably the biggest detraction from all this news…who cares about Daniel Day or Hugh…what the heck am I gonna do since I cannot find Keira beautiful? I second the feed her a sandwich movement. Make her eat with Rosario Dawson and Kate Winslet…oo, Kate Winslet – my mind explodes with possibilities.

35. Haroldsmaude June 9th, 2008 at 2:42 pm 35

    ah Kate – imagine what she’d do with Eliza Doolittle!

36. SeattleMoviegoer June 10th, 2008 at 2:51 am 36

    i’d go with Kate Winslet in a new version of PYGMALION. that would be a treat. the original film with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller was wonderful..a b/w charmer. yet, Shaw’s material can be done over and over again. but LADY seems to have been a product of a time and era…Harrison and Cukor and Hepburn and Beaton and Holloway were iconic elements. it’s like an attempt to remake THE KING AND I. Brynner was the king–i can’t accept substitutes.
    Macintosh should busy himself with other good yet neglected material.

37. 2 new posters for The Edge of Love October 23rd, 2008 at 5:44 pm 37

    [...] posted a clip in June of the exquisite moment described above. Directed by John Maybury (HBO’s Rome), Cinematography by Jonathan Freeman [...]