My Fair Lady: Beloved Misfire

            One of the greatest fundamental stories in literature is that of Pygmalion and Galatea. The story originates in ancient Rome from the writer Ovid; it chronicles the story of a sculptor named Pygmalion who makes a model of his perfect woman using stone. He names the statue Galatea and falls in love with its beauty. He prays to the gods that Galatea comes to life, as no real woman matches her in beauty. In the end this wish is granted and they live happily ever after. According to one interpretation, this story is about relationships with friends and potential lovers. The main theme is that the image of a person or expectations for hypothetical person are too perfect when compared to reality. People should accept others as they are and comprehend flaws. George Bernard Shaw retold this in 1912 and had Pygmalion sculpt Galatea into a high society woman not from stone, but from a lower class girl.

            Pygmalion's name is now Henry Higgins, Galatea is Eliza Doolittle and the hammer and chisel are replaced with the English language and dresses. Also named Pygmalion, this story set in 1910s London was a successful play and contributed to Shaw winning a Nobel Prize in 1925. It tells of Higgins, a phonetics professor, in his attempts to pass lowly flower girl Eliza Doolittle off as a duchess in high society London. The ultimate test is a grand ball, where she is to be accepted by attendees as an equal without incident. Getting there is done through Higgins teaching Eliza phonetics, elocution and etiquette. The fact that a person's public image and treatment can be improved by better grammar and clothes shows how all people deserve respect. To paraphrase Shaw, the difference between a duchess and a flower girl is how they are treated. A very beloved remake of Shaw's take in the 1964 film My Fair Lady. A direct remake of the Broadway play of the same name released a decade earlier, this film tells the story of Higgins and Doolittle with music. While many enjoy My Fair Lady and it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1964, there are issues to be had with it.

            Upon first glance, the audience sees a majestic assortment of extras wearing elegant clothing leaving a theater performance. This is a lovely sight and captivates the viewers into being invested in the story. However, once the physical backdrop is established the spark is extinguished. What should be the exterior of a theater appears to be a set, hastily made and obviously indoors. The rain and street are both inauthentic, something that sets the tone for the rest of the film and the acting.

            We are then introduced to Henry Higgins, played in an over the top manner by Rex Harrison. Harrison played Higgins on Broadway, but he feels like a novice alternating between extreme emotion and dull recitation of the script. His singing is not actually singing, but rather talking to the music that plays off screen. This was how the songs were meant to be performed but it comes across as weak. Higgins outside of the songs is meant to be a complex and troubled person; what is witnessed is a bipolar person who relies on quips to be appealing. This weak performance also translates to Audrey Hepburn portraying Eliza. Her performance is dreadful, feeling like she read the script in a terrible accent in as few takes a possible. The singing for Eliza was not done by Hepburn, except for one song that is obviously worse than the rest. If the audience is to gain sympathy for Eliza, feeling she was a duchess all along, it would help if she is portrayed as a human being. Showing emotion and being authentic are very important to get audiences to care. What is found in My Fair Lady is a dull man hammering phonetics and elocution into a uninteresting character.

            As mentioned previously, the physical design of My Fair Lady is a mixture of great costumes and terrible sets. Both were overseen by Cecil Beaton, a photographer and costume designer with a distinguished career. This would explain how every extra in the theater and ballroom scenes look amazing. The attire worn by the two protagonists are also breathtaking and help to establish the class difference between Eliza and Higgins. My Fair Lady excels grandly as far as costumes are concerned, but this is a feature length film and not a fashion show. That brings up the topic of sets, which were lacking in originality. The film is set in London, like the play, but was shot in California. This would not be a problem if there were exterior scenes shot outside with a realistic sky in the background and vegetation, but this did not happen. From the start of the film, nothing feels real about the story. If the sky is painted monochromatically grey outside the theater and is unnaturally blue above Higgins' house, an audience cannot be invested the plot. The story is amazing, but the artificial environment distracts from that and destroy the experience. Interior shots feel the most real, but are an bland monotone of either brown or white. This may have been done to help the audience pay attention to characters but does nothing else terrific.

            The largest saving grace of the film is the songs. These will not be discussed with as much depth as the acting and design, as bringing the story to life outweighs peripheral features like songs. It should be stated that a musical needs to be great even without music. While Harrison's songs are essentially monologues with music in the background, they are quite catchy. As distracting as the lack of synchronization is between Hepburn's lips and her songs, they are some of the best songs in musical history. Wouldn't It Be Loverly? provides more character exposition for Eliza than the acting performance. I Could Have Danced All Night shows the passion Eliza has for her linguistic accomplishment and is the highlight of the film. The story itself is astonishing, but has been told several times before and since My Fair Lady. It is a humorous take on expectations for people and societies attitudes towards each other, but the execution is subpar in this example. I would recommend the far superior 1938 non-musical Pygmalion over this picture for those who want to see the story of Henry Higgins creating his perfect woman. My Fair Lady is only slightly recommended for general audiences due to historic significance and is highly recommended lovers of musicals solely for the music.

The Red Shoes

With the dawn of awards season upon us, we are finally seeing the films that cinephiles live for. Amazing stories presented in unique ways flood the theaters in this period of fall and early winter. Every year audiences expect the best and the filmmakers deliver. On one such fall years ago in 1948, a British picture was released in the United States. Directed by the duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, this film was called The Red Shoes. These two men had formed a partnership in the studio system days of the Rank Organization and turned out several dramas with elements of fantasy. The Red Shoes was no different in that whimsical tone, but stands out as one of the most beautiful films ever made. This beauty lies on so many levels, not just the aesthetics. A story is the most important part of any film; this is one of intensity and motivation that remains embedded in the minds of viewers. The crew behind the scenes were the best of their craft and made a universe that audiences adored. Lastly, the actors were not only thespians, but skilled artists who were adept at handling anything. All of these aspects collide to provide audiences with an amazing experience.

The plot of this film is very simple and is alluded to on a few occasions. The story chronicles two young artists, a ballerina and a composer, who are given the opportunity to join a world famous ballet company. Personally selected by the proprietor, Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), dancer Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) and musician Julian Craster (Marius Goring) are seen as the best of a new generation and can achieve the extraordinary. The first major collaboration of our two protagonists is the creation of a ballet based on a Hans Christian Andersen story called The Red Shoes. In the fairy tale, a girl puts on a pair of shoes to dance. However, when she becomes tired the shoes continue to dance against her will and she does so until her death. The ballet is a great success and Victoria and Julian begin to fall in love. This seems to be a happy ending, but Lermontov believes that in order to achieve greatness an artist must devote their whole of their desire to their art. He orders to couple to break up or leave the company and the real tension begins. Conflict that was merely superficial and pertaining to work is now within the characters and threatens to destroy them. Will Lermontov have a change of heart or will the young lovers fight to see their dreams come true?

The story is brilliant, but there is so much more to the film. The first thing people notice about the film is the colors, brought out by Technicolor. Using a three-strip method, where three different colored reels of film pass through the camera at the same time, various colors could be represented easily. This is similar to how CRT televisions could make every color imaginable from red, green and blue. Varying shades would enhance one of the strips of film more so than the other two and new colors besides the three on the film would be made. Technical specs aside, the film is presented amazingly. Set and costume designers worked tirelessly to ensure the picture was just as marvelous as the story. In charge of set design was Hein Heckroth, who was known as a surrealist painter in his time. Heckroth brings surrealism to life in the ballet sequence and uses bright colors and employs realistic settings outside of the ballet world. The contrast between a normal setting and the ballet stage is noticed as if they are two worlds; in many ways they are.

The actors in this film were a mix of Powell and Pressburger regulars and newcomers. Mainstays like Walbrook and Goring hit hard and memorably. The ire that Walbrook channels into his later scenes confirm the tone of Lermontov established by his reserved, Faustian nature earlier in the film. Goring was great as Julian, the long suffering student who has his chance to excel, taking every setback as a blow but working nonetheless. Watching their performances, few would realize that most of the ballet dancer characters in The Red Shoes were played by actual dancers. They do dance well, as would be expected, but their acting is authentic. Even Moira Shearer, the protagonist Victoria, was a novice actor. She delivered a powerful performance despite this being her first film, specifically excelling in conveying emotions. The fact that she only acted a handful of times afterwards makes this performance even more special. Also in the supporting cast was Robert Helpmann, who not only acted but did the choreography. This ability to act and work behind the scenes was not uncommon in that era, but stands out today since the choreography was something to behold. 

 

As far as obscure themes are concerned, some have been highlighted already. Dividing ballet from reality through set design, using Technicolor to heighten the experience of wonder and the story within a story are all great. However, it should be noted that there are a few marks that make viewers think. First is the ballet sequence, not only does it tell the story of The Red Shoes, it acts out the struggle that Victoria will face on an emotional level. The inability to stop voluntarily, various people yearning to her as a star and the captivation with something that may not be good are found in the ballet and as the film progresses. The use of red is very prevalent in the film and is expected by viewers. Besides referring to title, the color symbolizes passion. Words written in red, red lipstick, red posters and Victoria's red hair are found in almost every scene. This illustrates the desire that Victoria, Julian and even Lermontov have to surpass their expectations. This drive to perfection is the force behind The Red Shoes, and few will forget that.