Nine

what can rob marshall's nine add to the movie-musical genre after michael jackson's this is it, the international box-office hit that redefined the form? director kenny ortega's experience at directing musicals helped craft footage of jackson rehearsing his upcoming tour before his death into a multi-leveled examination of showbiz activity, artistic creation and the personal emotional investment revealed in performance. this is it brilliantly shows the formal deconstruction and simultaneous visceral and emotional elation of the post-broadway pop music revolution.

but it's showbiz as usual in marshall's approach. nine's story of italian filmmaker guido contini (daniel day-lewis) juggling his relationships with various women while trying to conceive his next movie continues marshall's rip-off of the prismatic technique bob fosse crafted in the 1972 film cabaret. fosse used on-stage performances to refract the characters' inner lives, which reflected their weimar-period social circumstances. the complexity of fosse's cinematic style is poorly imitated by marshall's tv-trained technique. he dumbs-down fosse's montage for no good reason than that it's the only style he can ape.

filmmaker contini's life is depicted as a second-rate stage show-that is, like marshall's messy 2002 film chicago. there's none of the visual layering or rhythm that suggests film is at the center of contini's consciousness or marshall's. by favoring six-second edits (the tv-hack's credo), marshall never establishes a physical reality for the musical numbers like the moments in this is it where one is held in rapturous thrall at the beauty and marvel of jackson's dance and singing performance, such as the split-screen effects that juxtapose different rehearsals to show the process of creation and to stimulate our awareness of creativity. nine fails to be about creativity because its banality is entirely uncreative.

marshall tries to repeat the fluke of chicago's success by once again casting actors who cannot sing or dance. the result suggests a musical version of woody allen's celebrity guest spots. guido and his harem are not characters, they're not even box-office stars-just celebs: day-lewis, judi dench, penélope cruz, marion cotillard, nicole kidman, kate hudson, fergie and a waxwork legend, sophia loren. this casting is worse than chicago because the fragile structure of nine isn't sustained by storytelling but by the quality and personal investment of performance. the original 1982 broadway production was a showcase for individually talented actresses who exhibited their training, skill and inspiration. instead, marshall uses judi at her denchiest, dragging a feather boa across a stage.

constantly referring back to the stage proves marshall's ineptitude, not his commitment to theatrical tradition. but he might have revived the musical genre with more artistic casting: imagine michael jackson as guido with a retinue that included beyoncé, j-lo, alicia keys, missy, shakira, eva mendes and megan fox! but by displaying his unmusical and unexciting stable on the boards, marshall denies the psychological cultural, religious and erotic obsessions in guido's head. using women to scrutinize the male ego was an idea that bob fosse also flummoxed in his 1979 all that jazz. oh yes, that movie was also inspired by (ripped-off) federico fellini's 8 1/2. the title nine purportedly proceeds from fellini's movie (during '60s high-modernism a film maker could legitimately title a film like an art project). what marshall's unmovie-musical adds to fellini's 1963 masterpiece is less than a half a film.

-- nine directed by rob marshall runtime: 118 min.