Salina Art Center

Federico Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece 8 ½ made experimental techniques palatable to mainstream audiences and forged new ground in cinematic autobiography, using fantasy and dream sequences to dramatize the inner life of Fellini’s surrogate, director-hero Guido Anselmi.  The art house classic was an unusual choice for Broadway musical adaptation, but Nine stuck close to the psychological issues of its filmic protagonist, successfully translating Fellini’s surrealism into glitzy, colorful musical numbers—and winning a Tony award for Best Musical in 1982.  Now the hit musical comes full circle, returning to the silver screen in this adaptation by director Rob Marshall and starring Daniel Day Lewis as Guido Contini.  Marshall proved with the Oscar-winning Chicago that he knows how to film a musical so that it retains its vitality and sense of spontaneity, while “opening up” for the far more expansive proscenium arch of the movie screen.  And Day-Lewis has proved, time and again, that he’s up to any acting challenge; in an era of timid, introverted leading men who seem afraid to look at the camera or speak their lines audibly, Day-Lewis cuts a bold swath with his larger-than-life portrayals.  Day-Lewis seems to be having fun, whether he’s channeling the personality (and vocal inflections) of legendary film director John Huston for his Oscar-winning role in There Will Be Blood, or (literally) carving up the scenery as the glass-eyed, Snidely Whiplash mustachioed villain Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York.  Daniel Day-Lewis wasn’t so relaxed in his younger days; this looser, more theatrical, Falstaffian ethos has been fairly recent—but marks a fascinating new stage in the actor’s career.  Stepping into the shoes of Marcello Mastroianni (Fellini’s original film) and Raul Julia (the stage musical) gives the English-Irish actor with the impeccable scholarly lineage (his father was former poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis) an opportunity to play a suave, Continental ladies’ man.  The role is almost a dare for Day-Lewis to overplay it, turning into a broad, luxuriantly accented Chico Marx-style Italian caricature.  But the actor steps back from the abyss, reining in the florid mannerisms and instead tapping into the contemplative side of the character—which is appropriate, because the story is about how Guido deals with the pressures of fame, overwork, and tricky relationships by “escaping” into his own mind (through memories, imagination, or a mixture of both).  Guido sees his life as a circus, with himself as ringmaster and the many women who have influenced and shaped his life showing up as “acts” to amuse, bedevil, arouse, and challenge him to action.  The great joke is that these women, whom Guido objectifies, have more autonomy than he can handle.  Eventually they’ll force this egotist to see where he’s gone wrong and accept some responsibility.  While Daniel Day-Lewis anchors the film, it’s the actresses who dazzle and seduce: Marion Cotillard (as Guido’s wife); Penélope Cruz (his mistress); Nicole Kidman (his muse); Dame Judi Dench (his costume designer); Sophia Loren (his mother); and many others, all with sublime musical numbers, sung in a variety of styles, which gradually reveal Guido’s complex personality.  This is one of the few musicals in which the songs are as essential to the narrative as an opera’s libretto: there are no “show stoppers” because every song moves the story, deepens our understanding of Guido and each of the women in his life (both how he sees them and how they really are).  Music and narrative are combined as fluidly as in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, probably the most comparable cinema experience.  Suffused with intoxicating views of Rome and joyful, unexpected performances from a once-in-a-lifetime ensemble, Nine is a movie musical that Fellini himself might have made, one that reconciles metafictional narrative, keen psychological insight, and unabashed kitsch to create a uniquely entertaining cinematic experience.