Quite possibly one of the worst things to ever inch its way through a projector. When compared to the original stage production we get plot replaced by over staged pageantry and acting replaced by posing.
It is impossible to talk about Evita without considering the presence of Madonna. Not since the hunt for Scarlet O Hara was there as much chatter about the casting of a film role. The Julliard trained Patti LuPone, who created the role on the stage found it too taxing and could not do matinees. So if someone like LuPone finds the role a handful, how can Madonna do? Poorly is how.
In the nearly 20 years Madonna has been around there are a few things we know about her abilities. We know she can write a good pop tune, we know she can dance. Her greatest talent is of course her ability to market herself and her worse talent is her acting. But in Evita, she sings not one song written by her, and due to her state of pregnancy during the shoot does very little dancing. About the only interesting thing about this picture is the many imaginative ways she hides her swollen abdomen; Madonna standing behind a chair, Madonna holding a huge bouquet to her waist etc. As an actress Madonna is sub-par and she simply does not have the skills to play a character that first appears as a 16 year old girl and ends as a 33 year old cancer riddled dictator's wife. So limited is her acting range, so awkward is her body language her performance is almost embarrassing to watch. But it is her greatest talent, that of marketing herself, where the pay off appears to the tune of a Golden Globe.
Battling Madonna's omnipresence is the hint that this film has some sort of "epic" production values. We are constantly bombarded with huge crowd scenes which on even the most slightest of examination reveals the same crowd of actors, in the same location, pointing their attention to Madonna in yet another costume and hairstyle. Marketing is really the only thing Evita has going for itself. Countless people, who would never have the patience of sitting through a "real" opera can pat themselves on the back because they were wrongly convinced this was some great work of art.
When Evita first came on to the stage in the late 70s it was ahead of the curve in dealing with a story steeped in greed, corruption and sex. By the time it made it to the screen in the late 90s, these themes were abandoned for spin and marketing used to mask the shallow mediocrity that decade may best be known for.
It is impossible to talk about Evita without considering the presence of Madonna. Not since the hunt for Scarlet O Hara was there as much chatter about the casting of a film role. The Julliard trained Patti LuPone, who created the role on the stage found it too taxing and could not do matinees. So if someone like LuPone finds the role a handful, how can Madonna do? Poorly is how.
In the nearly 20 years Madonna has been around there are a few things we know about her abilities. We know she can write a good pop tune, we know she can dance. Her greatest talent is of course her ability to market herself and her worse talent is her acting. But in Evita, she sings not one song written by her, and due to her state of pregnancy during the shoot does very little dancing. About the only interesting thing about this picture is the many imaginative ways she hides her swollen abdomen; Madonna standing behind a chair, Madonna holding a huge bouquet to her waist etc. As an actress Madonna is sub-par and she simply does not have the skills to play a character that first appears as a 16 year old girl and ends as a 33 year old cancer riddled dictator's wife. So limited is her acting range, so awkward is her body language her performance is almost embarrassing to watch. But it is her greatest talent, that of marketing herself, where the pay off appears to the tune of a Golden Globe.
Battling Madonna's omnipresence is the hint that this film has some sort of "epic" production values. We are constantly bombarded with huge crowd scenes which on even the most slightest of examination reveals the same crowd of actors, in the same location, pointing their attention to Madonna in yet another costume and hairstyle. Marketing is really the only thing Evita has going for itself. Countless people, who would never have the patience of sitting through a "real" opera can pat themselves on the back because they were wrongly convinced this was some great work of art.
When Evita first came on to the stage in the late 70s it was ahead of the curve in dealing with a story steeped in greed, corruption and sex. By the time it made it to the screen in the late 90s, these themes were abandoned for spin and marketing used to mask the shallow mediocrity that decade may best be known for.