By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

Hairspray: The Musical Movie

Posted Monday, October 29th, 2007 - Comments Off on Hairspray: The Musical Movie
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July 13, 2007
I first saw it in a slightly premature screening – New Line was thrilled with what was delivered – and the show was so charming and sweet that it was pretty irresistible. Still, there were flaws that stuck out, the most frustrating being that Adam Shankman is a better choreographer than a visual director. He set things up beautifully and then didn’t quite know how to show it. Often, he over-edited when what we, as an audience, needed was a simple shot of the person singing or dancing … the emotion is in the eyes and physicality of some great performances.
When I finally saw the final version, there were two notable differences … and, for me, improved the experience by about 20%. First, it felt like Shankman had taken out some of the edits that felt so hyperactive. And secondly – and more importantly – the soundtrack, serviced by composer Marc Shaiman, was complete.
It was truly fascinating to experience. I am used to seeing rough cuts of films. I understand cutting and what is and isn’t there when a movie is shown mid-process. But the difference between the first and second screening, for me, was like seeing tiles in a bathroom when they are just being placed and then, when the grouting is done just right. The music, which is far lusher than the Original Broadway Cast Album, fills the empty spaces in a remarkable way. Shots that weren’t changed work better than before. And in a show like this, there is something powerful about how rich, emotive wall-to-wall music acts as a hammock for everything else. This is not like Chicago or Dreamgirls, pretending on some level that they were not traditional musicals. This is overtly a musical, from the first number, as Tracy wakes up singing and does the John Waters version of the Beauty & The Beast opening “Belle” number as she walks around Baltimore.
The rest…

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

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~ David Simon