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Latin America has seen no more charismatic
a woman than Eva Peron, before or since her abrupt, tragic
death for cancer at age 33. When Andrew Lloyd Webber
and Tim Rice released their instant hit album of songs
about her life, Evita, in November 1976, this Argentine
neophyte-saint had been dead for almost a quarter century, and
her husband Juan Peron for just two years.
The triumph of Alan Parker's Evita lies in its controlled
passion, and its translation of a sardonic, almost agitporp
70s stage show into a poignant commentary on ambition, nationalism,
and one woman's obsession with her long lost father. A line
by Tim Rice, sung by Che', describes Eva as "a
cross between a fantasy of the bedroom and a saint". So
Parker's screenplay resists the temptation to idealize this
people's heroine, played by none other than the western world's
foremost icon of female super power in recent years - Madonna.
Evita retains the virtues of the original musical: the tawdry
glamour, the dirgelike tone of start and finish, the symbiosis
that bound Eva and Peron as intimately as any two tango dancers.
After so many failed attempts to bring Evita to the screen,
Parker and his co producers Andrew Vajna and Robert
Stigwood took a commercial risk by abandoning conventional
dialogue and retaining the operatic nature of the original,
counting on one song after the other to carry the story back
and forth in time. Perhaps only "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg",
in this most taxing genres, has emerged so happily as does Evita,
with Gerry Hambling's editing matching the music chord
for chord and bar for bar. This loyality to lyrics and score
ensures that the music predominates over the small arms fire,
street riots, and sundry explosions that pockmark the history
of Argentina between 1943 and 1952.
Just as the original stage production, directed by Harold
Prince, chose ostentatious blacks and whites to establish
a tone of garish density, so Darius Khondji's lighting
and Brian Morris's production design confirm the elegiatic
nature of the material. The sepia browns, the olive, almost
khaki, hues of the interiors and the costumes serve to heighten
the nostalgia that even Evita herself feels with each backward
glance at her life. There's a torch in every hand, a sheen of
light on every car, staircase, and cobbled street, as though
the drama itself were unfolding on a limelit dance floor.
This visual idiom achieves it's zenith in "Waltz for Eva
and Che'", permitting Madonna and Antonio Banderas
to pass from passionate exuberance to chaste melancholy within
a single scene.
Parker, who had approached the young british songwriter about
making a film of Evita even before the show reached the London
stage, directs with rigor and commitment of a man who knows
the material inside out. The clash betwen illusion and reality
has long been his trademark, from Bugsy Malone and Fame
through Birdy and Come See The Paradise. Resisting
close ups (save for ironic effect) Parker refuses to let Evita
tug at our heartstrings. The role of the detached, ironical
Che', becomes crucial to the distancing effect required, while
Sarah Monzani's make up for Madonna renders the
star not just a remarkable clone for Eva Peron, but also
a doll like figure beyond contempt or corruption.
Shot on location in Argentina and Hungary, often
in controversial circumstances, Evita trascends what was already
the greatest of Lloyd Webber's musicals through its bold use
of extras and, yes, the actual Casa Rosada balcony in
Buenos Aires where Eva sings "Don't Cry For Me Argentina".
Madonna may have little formal training as an actress,
yet: her image and sensational singing identify her with this
film as indelibly as Streisand with "Funny Girl",
Garland with "A Star is Born" or Dietrich
with "The Blue Angel".
Bold and bossy in "Buenos Aires", ethereal in "You Must Love
Me", tremulous in the reprise of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina",
she exults in her celebrity as Evita must have in hers.
Antonio Banderas, sultry and strutting by turns,
brings Che' right to the forefront of the drama. Jonathan
Pryce gives the character of Peron a tragic restraint, moving
forever in the shadow of his wife and pronouncing his lyrics
with the wistfullness of a man who somehow feels ashamed of
being a dictactor. And all credits to the wryfaced Jimmy
Nail, watching Madonna belt out the exultant "Buenos Aires"
in a city bar in the knowledge that this small town crooning
can never live with her charisma.
Peter
Cowie
From the "Evita Criterion Edition".
Peter Cowie
is the editor of the annual International Film Guide,
and author of several books on the cinema, including studies
of Welles, Bergman and Coppola.
He is the International Publishing Director of Variety.
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CAST
Evita - Madonna
Che' - Antonio Banderas
Juan Peron - Jonathan Pryce
Agustin Magaldi - Jimmy Nail
CREDITS
Directed by Alan Parker
Screenplay by Alan Parker and Oliver
Stone
Produced by Robert Stigwood, Alan
Parker and Andrew G. Vajna
Line producer - David Wimbury
Associate Producer - Lisa Moran
Cinematography - Darius Khondji, A.F.C.
Production Designer - Brian Morris
Edited by Gerry Hambling, A.C.E.
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by Tim Rice
Based on the musical play Evita
Lyrics by Tim Rice
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Produced on Broadway by Rober Stigwood
in association with David Land
Music Production - Nigel Writght
Music Supervision - David Caddik
Costume Designer - Penny Rose
Choreographer - Vincent Paterson
Casting by John and Ros Hubbard
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