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PUTADONNA Probably no one other than Madonna could have played Evita at the time it was filmed. Both bitches are demigoddesses—trash peddlers, with less than sterling reputations, with pretensions to unearned respectability. There’s one dramatic difference: we know more about Madonna than the Argentines ever knew about Eva Peron before her death. As public hoes, Madonna’s honest about it, spreading her favors as a veritable egalitarian, unlike charlatan Eva, who plotted to destroy and plunder in the name of the poor. Madonna’s work in Evita grants a degree of regard for her unflagging determination to be the screen image of a symbol she’s openly admitted identification with. She sees her road to success as parallel to Eva Peron’s, when such connections are dubious p.r. at best; her naked polymorphism is a begging-for-audience acceptance as trash idol while Eva was cold cunning—resolute in ambition, malicious intent and revenge, demanding veneration as a Madonna. So singer Madonna can’t act. Neither could Eva: her highest level of theatre achievement, as opposed to speechifying, came in a third-rate production of The Children’s Hour. Going flaccid ocassionally, Madonna is saved by director Alan Parker and his editor who cut away just in the nick of time. What matter are Madonna bring a good strong voice to the pedestrian lyrics, have a sufficient surface resemblance to Eva, and carry the Penny Rose wardrobe without the wardrobe carrying her. (Eva became an obsessive clothes horse; Madonna’s frame barely cuts it as a fashion rack.) I’m not sure why, but I got flushed with some pride when she sang “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina.” Maybe because I never expected to receive emotions from her. And maybe because I didn’t expect much from the movie to begin with. Madonna isn’t going to work for those who think Evita deserves a real singer like originator Patti LuPone, or Streisand, or a class actress like Streep or Close. They’d have brought their own brands of professionalism to the role, but the character would have been drawfed by their stardom. Madonna can’t establish character as she’s so commercially who she is, but she imparts a needed if accidental ambivalence: Evita is a pop opera perpetuating myth—the adoration of the Latin putadonna—without validation. It takes fearlessness to do that, and Madonna’s got plenty. Evita opens up in a way suggesting Coppola doing a pleb Wagnerian turn—the whole thing’s beautifully photographed to look like sun-kissed cream by Darius Khondji—and the ambiance very authentic to Buenos Aires’ snobbism: this city and its people consider themselves European first, Latin maybe. (And why the patrician chorus seems right to be right out of the “Ascot Gavotte” from My Fair Lady.) Just about stealing the picture is Antonio Banderas as Che, the conscience of the betrayed: his passion, his swarthy good looks and his from-the-depths-of-diaphragm voice energize the concept—and the movie.
Text COPYRIGHT © 2007 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved. |
