MovieChat Forums > Nine (2009) Discussion > In the first place: Why?

In the first place: Why?

posted 9 years ago by Ace_Spade
6 replies | jump to latest

I'm wondering what the point of making Nine is, and I'm wondering what people on here think.

8 1/2 is a brilliant film and a wonderful thing to take in. It is such a terrific piece of art, one that I found touching and funny and weird and insightful. I love it.

So, basically, when I first heard about Nine, or 8 1/2: The Musical, I find it hard to understand why anybody would want to make it at all. I don't think there's anything needed to add to 8 1/2.

Now, to be fair, I've only seen about half the film (Nine) and I haven't seen the staged version at all. But I'm not asking about the end product. I'm asking "why do it to begin with?" (Besides "money")

It strikes me the same way a "novelisation" of a movie does. It seems unnecessary and almost vulgar to displace the work into a different medium for no real benefit. I understand the desire to adapt many things, but this one always puzzles me.

Anybody?

[–] DryToast 9 years ago

"Why Nine the stage musical?" and "Why a film version of Nine the stage musical?" are two different questions. And yet another question is "Why this film version of Nine the stage musical?"

Seeing the film of Nine will not convey to you what the stage musical is like, or how different it is from 8½, or how specifically its own piece it is. I hope you get a chance to see a good stage production of it, or at least listen to the complete 2-CD recording of the original Broadway production. Even if it turns out that you don't like it, I think you will see that it's not merely a cannibalization of a great film for the sake of a money grab.

The movie version of the stage musical is another matter. It throws out the entire structure of the stage piece and does indeed play like a bland, watered-down remake of 8½, with a few songs cherry-picked from the long, rich, varied and colorful stage score, one each for each star (plus one extra each for Guido and Luisa), with each star being cast mostly for name value rather than for character or skills. The best things about the show just aren't in the movie at all.

"You must sing him your prettiest songs, then perhaps he will want to marry you."

[–] Ace_Spade 9 years ago

Okay. Maybe that's why I was confused by the whole process. I have seen part of the film and the part that I saw (beginning to halfway through, roughly) was too similar to 8 1/2 in plot structure.

If I get a chance, I'll investigate Nine further.

Is it possible to explain the difference here, or is it more just that you have to see it?

[–] DryToast 9 years ago

Perhaps the short answer is that Nine puts greater emphasis on the women and their internal lives than 8½ does, and even Guido's "Casanova" film project (which is maybe half of the second act) is a way of exploring the power that the women in Guido's life have over him, and his (failed) attempt to resolve that struggle. (I'm making it sound clinical, but it's not, it is wild and imaginative.)

The stage musical has less spoken dialogue and more music than most other musicals, and moves back and forth between fantasy and reality, past and present, internal and external in abstract, theatrical and musical ways (whereas the Fellini of course does these things cinematically, and the movie of Nine does them clumsily in isolated sequences).

Another issue of course is that on stage, the songs are used as action, with people interacting (whether in fantasy or reality), not in the isolated fantasy sequences of the Nine movie (where Guido is somehow putting words into everybody else's heads).

"You must sing him your prettiest songs, then perhaps he will want to marry you."

[–] Ace_Spade 9 years ago

Hm. Interesting. Yes, if the writers wanted to explore the women of the piece more, I can see why Nine wouldn't be redundant on arrival.

Thank you for your replies.

[–] BestOfAllPossible 9 years ago

This is particularly why Fellini didn't want it to be called 8 1/2: the musical and the creators called it 9. Also why he didn't want his name on the project, and instead it says, "Based on a translation by Mario Fratti." Fellini thought it was a good idea, but wanted it to exist as its own project, not simply his film with songs stuck in.

This also puts more emphasis on Guido's relationship with his younger self, a nine-year-old boy. The film cut the title song in which all Guido's female relatives bathe him on his 9th birthday. That could have been beautifully filmed. Young Guido in the film was practically an after-thought.

In the stage show, once all the women in his life have left him, he's confronted by his younger self who sings "Getting Tall" as a way of telling him it's time to grow up.

Despite the use of fantasy in this new film, a lot of things were taken way too literally.

[–] BestOfAllPossible 9 years ago

(I will add, however, that I found the opening and "Be Italian" to be cinematically thrilling, and I wish the rest of the film could have been as good.)