Academic

Film Blogging: Every Little Step, a Documentary About A Chorus Line

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

So Saturday night was hopping in downtown Champaign.  Streetfest had brought music and food outdoors, and we made a night of it, beginning with watching Every Little Step at the downtown art theater.  The greatest thing about the documentary is how every thing is full circle.  A Chorus Line, of course, is about the auditioning of a lot of hopefuls to be in the chorus line of a Broadway play.  The documentary tracks the auditions of a lot of real-life hopefuls to be in the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line.  To have mostly out-of-work dancer/singers audition using the text of songs and monologues about being out-of-work dancer/singers is really interesting.  And of course, both the winners and the also-rans are really, really good.  This is not American Idol where some people are just comic relief.  These are all really good people, some of whom are more "right" for the part than others, which is what makes it more heartbreaking.

The other interesting plot line of the documentary is the backstory of A Chorus Line, which I never knew -- choreographer/director Michael assembled his show biz friends one evening and taped them telling the stories of their lives.  These stories were the foundations of the monologues and musical numbers that appear in the show.  The documentary played some of the tapes as well as recent interviews of the participants, many of whom were original cast members.  I would widely recommend the documentary to everyone, musical buffs or not.  (I won't tell you who gets the role of Cassie, but I will tell you she was on Law & Order once!)

Since watching the documentary, I've been thinking about the influence of "ACL."  Perhaps we love the "tryout" montage because of ACL.  Fame, a movie that I've seen a million times, has to have been influenced by ACL.  The monologues (That's when I knew I was gay/That's when I knew I hated being Jewish, etc.) can almost be paired up with ACL monologues.  And of course American Idol is a multi-week homage to ACL, with some humiliation and mockery thrown in.

Full post as published by Conglomerate on June 15, 2009 (boomark / email).