Bet ween the Frames

All about real film criticism
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Friday , October 9 , 2009

Fame: Lacking Fluidity

Posted by betweentheframes , Reader : 384 , 16:25:55

Almost 30 years have passed since Alan Parker's Fame, nominated for six Oscars, winning two, Original Song, "Fame," music by Michael Gore and lyrics by Dean Pitchford, and Original Score by Gore. Though the 1980 Fame is not a particularly spectacular film, its concept was arguably new, if not absolutely fresh. However, since then, we have been subjected to Disney's musical series High School Musical, and well as variety shows like American Idol and others, which bear thematic and structural resemblance to Fame. The modernization of the 1980 version of the high school musical Fame, without much characterization or observant direction, leaps right off the stage as another simple-minded and meager addition to the sub-genre. Blandly conceived and executed by first-time director Kevin Tancharoen, this 2009 Fame feels like a showy and depthlessly flick, put together quickly and mechanically rather than methodically or organically. Fame which spawned a TV show and off-Broadway musical after the success of the original film, follows the talented students of a performing arts academy in New York City where – each year – 200 out of 10,000 applicants to the school are accepted to acuminate their skills in dance, music, and drama. The basic format of the story is an episodic chronicle of fresh, naïve but ambitious kids spending four years from audition to graduation where they have to work hard at music, acting, singing or dancing. While veteran actors, best known for their TV accomplishments, each get their moments, it’s really the students whose stories should matter. In the new version, screenwriter Allison Burnett loses grasp of her sketchy characters from the start. Tancharoen adds to the miscues by allowing Burnett’s one-dimensional script to place too many characters on a pedestal and not tapping into any of their promising personalities. Everything about Fame comes in waves of clichés. Denise (Naturi Naughton), the classical pianist really wants to be an R&B singer but whose parents disapprove, while Celia, the little-singer-that-could must find her passion for her craft if she wants to succeed. Malik (Collins Pennie), the inner-city drama student lets his emotions get the best of him, and Victor (Walter Perez), is a Hispanic kid with raw talent who must learn that discipline will make him a better musician. Along with a few more students following their own impossible dreams, it’s the instructors – Kelsey Grammer, Charles S. Dutton, Bebe Neuwirth, and Megan Mullally – that make up the rest of the roster and end up being the best parts of Fame. While the students are off having an uninspired impromptu dance-off in the cafeteria, it’s the teachers making the most sense and delivering the least obvious dialogue of the two groups, but they have very little to do here beyond uttering some one-line clichés. A scene where Mullally's Fran Rowan takes some of the students to a karaoke bar and then proceeds to explain why dreams don’t always come true for everyone is significant, but there simply aren’t enough of those moments. When Burnett's new shallow and facile screenplay attempts to reveal more of the younger characters, they come off histrionically unsophisticated and sentimentally exaggerated. This empty exercise sanitizes material that is dumbed down for a hypothetical market of the immature viewers. Although it has a harder edge, this is Fame for the High School Musical crowd. These students learn about corrupt producers and those who want to direct young talent to the casting couch rather than the spotlight, as well as the temptations of legitimate jobs which inevitably interfere with relationships and their education. This is all stuff that adults will have seen before, while teen viewers may find this speaks directly to their own hopes and fears. Recycling material defines the rules of the game of the New Hollywood and Fame is the latest example, but material recycling alone is simply inadequate. As a remake Fame is tiresome, lacking fluidity as an integrated musical, in which the songs promote the story, and as a dramatic narrative, in which the characters distinguish themselves from one another before forming more meaningful couples or trios. Besides their artistic abilities, you’ll be anxious to remember what made this travesty special in the first place.

Almost 30 years have passed since Alan Parker's Fame, nominated for six Oscars, winning two, Original Song, "Fame," music by Michael Gore and lyrics by Dean Pitchford, and Original Score by Gore. Though the 1980 Fame is not a particularly spectacular film, its concept was arguably new, if not absolutely fresh. However, since then, we have been subjected to Disney's musical series High School Musical, and well as variety shows like American Idol and others, which bear thematic and structural resemblance to Fame. The modernization of the 1980 version of the high school musical Fame, without much characterization or observant direction, leaps right off the stage as another simple-minded and meager addition to the sub-genre. Blandly conceived and executed by first-time director Kevin Tancharoen, this 2009 Fame feels like a showy and depthlessly flick, put together quickly and mechanically rather than methodically or organically.

Fame which spawned a TV show and off-Broadway musical after the success of the original film, follows the talented students of a performing arts academy in New York City where – each year – 200 out of 10,000 applicants to the school are accepted to acuminate their skills in dance, music, and drama. The basic format of the story is an episodic chronicle of fresh, naïve but ambitious kids spending four years from audition to graduation where they have to work hard at music, acting, singing or dancing.

While veteran actors, best known for their TV accomplishments, each get their moments, it’s really the students whose stories should matter. In the new version, screenwriter Allison Burnett loses grasp of her sketchy characters from the start. Tancharoen adds to the miscues by allowing Burnett’s one-dimensional script to place too many characters on a pedestal and not tapping into any of their promising personalities. Everything about Fame comes in waves of clichés. Denise (Naturi Naughton), the classical pianist really wants to be an R&B singer but whose parents disapprove, while Celia, the little-singer-that-could must find her passion for her craft if she wants to succeed. Malik (Collins Pennie), the inner-city drama student lets his emotions get the best of him, and Victor (Walter Perez), is a Hispanic kid with raw talent who must learn that discipline will make him a better musician.

Along with a few more students following their own impossible dreams, it’s the instructors – Kelsey Grammer, Charles S. Dutton, Bebe Neuwirth, and Megan Mullally – that make up the rest of the roster and end up being the best parts of Fame. While the students are off having an uninspired impromptu dance-off in the cafeteria, it’s the teachers making the most sense and delivering the least obvious dialogue of the two groups, but they have very little to do here beyond uttering some one-line clichés. A scene where Mullally's Fran Rowan takes some of the students to a karaoke bar and then proceeds to explain why dreams don’t always come true for everyone is significant, but there simply aren’t enough of those moments. When Burnett's new shallow and facile screenplay attempts to reveal more of the younger characters, they come off histrionically unsophisticated and sentimentally exaggerated.

This empty exercise sanitizes material that is dumbed down for a hypothetical market of the immature viewers. Although it has a harder edge, this is Fame for the High School Musical crowd. These students learn about corrupt producers and those who want to direct young talent to the casting couch rather than the spotlight, as well as the temptations of legitimate jobs which inevitably interfere with relationships and their education. This is all stuff that adults will have seen before, while teen viewers may find this speaks directly to their own hopes and fears.

Recycling material defines the rules of the game of the New Hollywood and Fame is the latest example, but material recycling alone is simply inadequate. As a remake Fame is tiresome, lacking fluidity as an integrated musical, in which the songs promote the story, and as a dramatic narrative, in which the characters distinguish themselves from one another before forming more meaningful couples or trios. Besides their artistic abilities, you’ll be anxious to remember what made this travesty special in the first place.

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