De-Lovely (2004)

Disappointing, But For Different Reasons Than I Expected

I am one of those gay men to whom straight friends always say, "How come you think everybody in the world is gay?" I am also one of those gay activists who refused to even CONSIDER seeing "Shakespeare In Love" because I've been told that that film is devoid of the even the slightest hint that The Bard also liked men. So, when I read some of the reviews of De-Lovely that flat-out declared it a revisionist version of Cole Porter's sex life, with little focus on his gay affairs and most of the plot concentrated on his heterosexual marriage, I was prepared to hate this film before I even saw the trailer. I collect films with gay content. Because I was told that this film is at least marginally gay, and since I love the work of Cole Porter, I brought the film and mentally prepared myself for a disappointing experience, or maybe even an evening of aggravation. When the end credits were rolling, I found I wasn't half as disappointed as I thought I would be, and that in itself was a pleasant surprise. In fact, this portrait of Cole paints him exactly the way I have always understood him to be - that is, a gay man who happened to marry a woman whom he truly loved. It also maintains that his love for his wife had little or no effect on his relations with men, which is also exactly the way I have always understood that he lived his dual life. Given the times he lived in, he was extraordinarily upfront about his sex life, and I found no inconsistency with how he managed both of his sex lives (with men and women) and juggled a high-profile career at the same time.

The flashbacks are easily the best part of the picture, and they should have left well enough alone. Instead, we get the ridiculous premise that an unnamed director escorts the dying Cole Porter to view a live stage piece / film biography of himself. This scenario is so tired that every time the flashbacks lapse, you cringe with embarrassment for the people who created this film, and the leaden pace that permeates those scenes is almost too much to bear. Not only do they interrupt the narrative, while the flashbacks are halted, Porter offers comments and does his best to "correct" the facts, all the while turning melancholic and teary-eyed when images of his dead wife appear.

Even worse news - for the most part, the musical numbers are absolutely pathetic. First of all, if you're going to make a musical (and this film is advertised as a musical), it would be a good idea to let the music be heard. Instead, we get renditions of Porter's best songs in which all his snappy verses are completely obscured by dialogue. This is not only supposed to be a musical, it's supposed to celebrate the genius of Cole Porter, arguably the greatest Tin Pan Alley composer of the twentieth century. So why are his brilliant lyrics hidden behind snatches of bad screenwriting? Then there are the performances of the songs themselves. Most of the songs are assigned arrangements that are much too modern for a period piece. In particular, the songs Love For Sale (Vivian Green), Just One of Those Things (Diana Krall) and Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye (Natalie Cole, in the worst renditions of this song I've ever heard - and I used to like her a lot) are all utterly savaged by up-to-the-minute arrangements that brought Cindy Lauper to mind. The worst reading by far was by Sheryl Crow, who destroys the delicate melody of Begin The Beguine, and had me yearning for Ella Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire or just about anybody else from the actual period. If it wasn't for Elvis Costello, who was one of the few performance artists in this picture who seemed to understand that it's set in the 1920's-1940's, and the delightful Caroline O'Conner, whose vocal imitation of Ethel Merman is so spot-on it's scary, the soundtrack would be a total waste. Costello and O'Conner alone save the day and make the music come to life. Of course, Kevin Kline doesn't sing very well, but neither did Cole Porter, so that was acceptable. The scene where Porter coaxes an actor into believing he can sing the difficult Night and Day was brilliant, and may be the best scene in the film. On the whole, I wasn't as disappointed with De-Lovely as I expected to be, at least not for the reasons that I thought I would. The biographical information was fairly accurate, Kline's performance was quite believable, and in particular, Ashley Judd's portrayal of Linda Porter was quite well realized.

Flawed, yes, but not as hard a slap in my gay face as I was afraid it might turn out to be.
October 25, 2008

Cole Porter, Warts and All

Musical: From Broadway to Hollywood
Shadow Watcher
Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake

As the story of Cole Porter, DE-LOVELY is perhaps the best, most imaginative movie musical biography ever made. Unlike NIGHT AND DAY, the 1946 whitewashed Porter biography that starred Cary Grant and Alexis Smith, this film presents the composer with all his warts exposed.

In other words, the Irwin Winkler-directed movie deals frankly with Porter's bi-sexual lifestyle, which often was quite indiscreet.

Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd are deeply moving as Porter and his his patient, loving wife, Linda.

From Paris to Venice to Broadway to Hollywood, the Porters lived a glamorous and wildly unconventional existence that the composer boasted about in such chic songs as "Let's Misbehave" and "Anything Goes".

The film begins with Porter as a bitter old man, visited by a mysterious figure (Jonathan Pryce) who we soon surmise is the Angel of Death. Suddenly, the two men are in an empty ragtag theater where Porter's life is presented to him as a musical revue that features his friends, both living and dead. The songs lead us into flashbacks of Porter's life, with the emphasis on his great love for Linda, who died many years earlier.

Many of the songs in the film are performed by some of today's most popular recording artists, including Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Natalie Cole, Robbie Williams, Diana Krall and Alanis Morissette. However, the two most memorable numbers are "Be a Clown," sung by Kline in a scene set on the MGM Studio lot and the very emotional "Blow, Gabriel, Blow, sung by Pryce and the entire cast.

© Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (available December 2008) October 1, 2008

Good musical

Let me state my bias up front. I loathe musicals. There are very few I like- especially from the so-called Golden Era of Hollywood. That's because the whole convention of people breaking into song at a difficult moment always strikes me as forced and phony. There are exceptions, though. The Sound Of Music because of....well, I loved Julie Andrews as a child, Evita because there's only one spoken line in the film- it totally divorces itself from the conventional musical format, and Moulin Rouge because while there is some speaking, it's even more lush and lavish than Evita. The 2004 Irwin Winkler film De-Lovely, a biopic of Tinpan Alley composer Cole Porter, is one of those rare musicals that work because it is a unique approach to both a musical and to a portrait of the artist, the man who wrote, among many other indelible hit songs, It's De-Lovely, Let's Misbehave, Anything Goes, Be A Clown, I Love You, and Ev'ry Time You Say Goodbye. This film works because it is not a pretentious film, and in that regard most reminded me of Amadeus, the portrait of another musical genius, Mozart, told with another innovative framing device for the tale- the life of the main character told through the eyes of his envious rival.... De-Lovely is worth a couple of hours of your life. September 10, 2008

Almost Elegant

"De-Lovely" is the perfect film for someone who loves the music of Cole Porter but knows little about his life. Ashley Judd steals the movie as Linda, the socialite who marries the young composer, aware of his homosexual ways but loyal to him regardless. Kevin Kline, inevitably, is too manly in his portrayal of someone whose gayness was as pronounced as was Porter's. I expected more of the Monty Woolley character, Cole's friend since their days together at Yale...and the omission of Elsa Maxwell from the script left an odd gap: she'd been such a colorful part of his life, even in the bad days after his horseback fall that cost him the use of his legs. But all things considered, it is probably the best film bio of an American songwriter ever made: I only wish the list of those had been more competition for "De-Lovely," and that more of its singers could have done more than a passable job with his songs, which when all is said and done were the reason this film was made.
June 5, 2008

Great acting, good intentions, wasted opportunities

At one point Jay Cocks' script borders on the self-congratulatory when Cole and Linda are shown viewing the earlier biopic starring Cary Grant with obvious displeasure. This remake, of course, is going to tell it like it is, and indeed the script of "De-Lovely" strains to account for the (frequently) flawed face of artistic genius. Linda tells Cole that his music stems from his talent, not his behavior, whereas Cole tries to explain that it's all part of the same inseparable package: without the excesses, the disloyalties, the self-indulgences he wouldn't be who he is--arguably America's greatest songwriter. In the end, "De-Lovely" is self-descriptive: not a pretty picture--more Asbury Park than Granada, to paraphrase a Porter lyric.

Perhaps today's audiences need more proof that he really was a great songwriter. Or given the moral correctness of our times, perhaps audiences are incapable of empathizing with those given to self-indulgences. Or they may think they know all too well "the wages of sin." Or perhaps the acting of Kline and Judd overwhelms the script's good intentions. Indeed, they come across as two people who, as each is fully aware, ask too much of one another. He gives her gifts, love, sporadic devotion; she gives him gifts, his vanity (i.e., useless legs), and undying devotion. In the end, and in the still of the night, Linda's devotion cuts through the darkness--a flickering memory but all that Cole has left before the screen goes black.

We believe the characters, their relationship, and their deep if unconventional love--perhaps too much. The film becomes a frequently luminous and tuneful soap opera about a main character who is more pathetic than tragic, about a self-destructive songwriter who self-destructs for obvious reasons, but in a deliberate, slow, very sad and depressing manner. Orson Welles had in essence a similar character and plot framework in "Citizen Kane," but he also had the directing "style" (which above all should be foremost in anything related to Cole Porter's music and life) and a "motivator" to make Kane's willful and self-ignorant destruction a mutually shared obsession, inviting us at every moment to become adventurer-detectives searching for the clues that will lead us to "Rosebud."

By contrast, "De-Lovely" wallows in pain and misery for the last 30 minutes, insulting us with a momentary deus ex machina ("Blow, Gabriel, Blow"--the clumsy choreography and camera work are exceeded only by the execrable, cheesy musical arrangement), and then attempting to rescue everything with that flickering, potentially powerful, image that is the film's final moment. Too little, too late--and too soon, moreover, after we've endured the spectacle of our subject reduced to a pay-for-play "John," a victim of blackmail (triply so, because Linda is included, as is their relationship and mutual trust). The soundtrack plays "Love for Sale," but what we witness is a love that's far more than "slightly soiled."

The project needed to be rethought. Most of today's viewers are totally unsympathetic with the private lives of artists (one would think the writers would pay attention to politics) and, for that matter, unfamiliar with Porter's songs. The film would have done a great service had it opened viewers' hearts and minds to the "obsessions" (an apt term used in the film) of others, the personal mind-images and different objects of desire that motivate the passions of the artist in ways that move us all. (What's the gain in portraying Monty Wooley as a pimp?) Or it would have done an equal service had it launched a whole new wave of interest in the music of Cole Porter.

Sadly, it fails there, too, for reasons too numerous to mention. As a musician, I have no answers for the film's complete re-harmonization if not rewriting of "Begin the Beguine." (If such flagrant disregard of the man's music is acceptable, why should we accept the film's representation of Porter's life?) Perhaps it's just as well the film bypasses Porter "essentials" like "I've Got You Under My Skin," "I Get a Kick Out of You," and "At Long Last Love." And, of course, only Hollywood can be counted on to make a musical about American jazz musicians' favorite American composer with nary a measure of music that swings! In short, musically this production is clueless about the heart of great American popular music. The performances and arrangements in "De-Lovely" owe more to the late Victorian-era sounds of the British music hall than to the African-American musical forms that directly inspired Berlin, Gershwin, Arlen, even Kern and, indirectly at least, Cole Porter.

This is a movie/DVD that few people will care too watch more than once. If you count yourself in that number, and if you're wondering why someone would bother to make a movie about Cole Porter, pick up any recording by Sinatra and Nelson Riddle with "I've Got You Under My Skin" ("Songs for Swinging Lovers" is a good start) or "Night and Day." If you tire of either song (virtually impossible), try the inspired, absolutely scintillating version of "In the Still of the Night" on the first disc of the recent "Sinatra-Vegas" box. And if that's not enough, there's plenty more from the same source, or from Ella Fitzgerald on the "Cole Porter Songbook." Or listen to Mabel Mercer explaining how it (in Porter songs, love is frequently an "it" or "thing") was "Just One of Those Things," or to Dinah Washington actually selling it on "Love for Sale," or to Danny Kaye performing the pyrotechnical verbosity of "Let's Not Talk About Love," or to any singer who imparts to these timeless, immortal songs and lyrics the life that is theirs, allowing them to become the magnificent obsessions of yet another generation of listeners.

[I'm giving this review about the same favorable rating as the movie, even if I got it wrong. Composing--in verbal, cinematic, or musical language--is not a thumbs up, thumbs down proposition. I'm very unhappy with anyone who knocks Altman's "Nashville," my favorite movie, but that doesn't entitle me to take out my disappointment on a reviewer who took time to screen the film and give it some thought. At least no news yet from Amazon that I've gotten a cut in pay.] March 23, 2008

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