Star!

Annotation for KRRR! 2017 by Jaroslav Cibulka

Star! was directed by Robert Wise in 1968 and is a biographical musical with a running time of almost three hours, shot on 70mm film with an extremely generous budget of fourteen million dollars at the time. It is pompous, however, only to a certain extent. What is surprising is its civility, the emphasis on drama, and the remarkable way in which the musical component is incorporated into the biographical component and the dynamic they create between them.

The film tells the story of the life of the popular dancer, singer, and stage actress Gertrude Lawrence (1898–1952). It begins with her youth in a vaudeville cabaret and follows her gradual transformation into a distinguished lady and queen of high society, loved by the audience and many men. Moving to America only confirms her status at first glance… But not all that glitters is gold…

Although today we expect a musical to be able to elegantly transition from speech to singing, from walking to dancing, and to naturally mix reality with dreaminess, in this film the musical numbers, with perhaps a few exceptions, are limited exclusively to Gertrude's stage performances. The rest of the film, as a biography, emphasizes a credible depiction of its time. Star! nevertheless does not lack the dynamism and energy of a musical, because it is the musical performances that become a window into the inner life of the central heroine, emotional confessions full of longing and desires. Underneath all the success and social mask, there is a fragile woman full of insecurities. The boundaries between entertaining performance and inner statement are blurred. And therein lies one of the film's greatest strengths.

What is also stimulating is the mixing of documentary, sepia-toned shots in academic format with those of live action, of course in color and wide-angle. The 70mm format thus shrinks and expands, thereby drawing attention to its impressiveness in a novel way. The juxtaposition of musical scenes next to scenes of exuberant social life is almost masterful, thereby further strengthening the aforementioned inner meaning.

However, the Lawrence biopic is not only a remarkable musical, but also, through its audience reception, a statement about times full of change. It entered the era of the emerging new Hollywood film, a period of films warmly received by the audience and aesthetically, such as The Graduate (1967), Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and the upcoming Carefree Rides (1969). Robert Wise's classic musical could not have been further from the turbulent, socially critical and provocative face of Hollywood film - and Star! did indeed end up as a financial flop. The film cost fourteen million dollars, grossed only four in the US and ten abroad.

However, the proposed explanation becomes more and more problematic when we consider that the second highest-grossing film of the year was also a musical: Funny Girl (1968). Both are set in the same time period, are biographical and follow the rise of a star. Funny Girl came with Streisand's idea of ​​a star fulfilled, but mainly with a more narrative, more colorful and less motivated musicality and less emphasis on biographical or periodical ... that is, with much less daring means in terms of genre than the film Star! came with. In an era that favored unconventional films, traditional musicals attracted more attention than less traditional ones - but it remains a very valuable proof of the diversity of films from the New Hollywood period and, above all, an example of the possibilities of thoughtful work with musical conventions.

And in the royal format at the Mír 70 cinema, Star! Robert Wise will undoubtedly turn it into a cinephile experience.