The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 276 Days to go: 268
Movie #101: Evita
Evita marks the coming together of so many things that I love: movie musicals, feminist stories, the Argentine Tango (though I would not know that was what it was until Dancing With The Stars informed me, many years later), songs that resonated with me emotionally, clever lyrics, Madonna and baby news. It would seem odd if I didn’t adore it, honestly, but of course I do.
Madonna has often said that the role of Evita was one she was born to play, and I believe her. As the film portrays her, Eva (Evita) Peron was a woman of great ambition and passion. She was used and exploited by men, and so she used and exploited them right back. She wanted to be famous, and she wasn’t going to settle for anything less than it all. That sounds exactly like Madonna to me.
Also like Madonna is the fact that a woman who exploits her own sexuality and displays bald ambition and performs calculated moves is someone to be reviled and looked down upon — certainly the case with Eva. A man’s ambition is something to be proud of, a woman’s ambition is something to scorn. But despite the detractors, Evita and Madonna both managed to become exactly what they wanted to be, with millions of devotees and a worldwide stage.
Evita is of course based on the Broadway musical of the same name, but unlike other stage-to-screen adaptations, this one is performed entirely in song. Entirely. There are a couple whispered or spoken interludes, but they’re still almost always accompanied by music, meaning essentially the whole thing is sung. That’s a tricky feat to pull off, especially with so many people disdainful of the musical already, but even more so without the framing and structure of spoken dialogue to provide context and support to the music. In Evita, the only framing comes in the form of Ché (Antonio Banderas), an Everyman figure who narrates and provides commentary on the film’s events. He’s the bartender in the restaurant, the worker in the factories, the protester marching in the streets. He represents the poor of Argentina — the people Eva appealed to and, in some cases, those who felt let down by her. It’s a startlingly ambitious musical (again, much like Evita herself) to combine the complex and volatile history of Argentinian politics in the 1940s with the story of the life and death of Eva Peron, but Ché is there to help guide us through the transitions (through all the songs), and it works beautifully.
Being largely unfamiliar with Argentinian politics, I can’t say the movie succeeds quite as well as it would like to with making the audience care about the rise of the Labor Party or the accusations of fascism or the supposed disapproval of the military and of Juan Peron’s (Jonathan Pryce) advisers toward his relationship with Eva, but it definitely resonates emotionally with the story of the rise of Eva herself. Madonna’s first scenes are of her waking up with a singer visiting her little town. She’s supposed to be fifteen here, but I’ll allow it since actually having a girl who looked fifteen waking up with this obviously much older man (he even looks older than Madonna) would be gross. She’s smitten with him and believes he loves her, that he’s going to take her away with him to Buenos Aires now. (“Would I have done what I did if I hadn’t thought — if I hadn’t known — we would stay together.”) She’s full of hopes and dreams and spitfire, and though you see her companion clearly doesn’t want her with him, it’s still a blow when she follows him to his home, where he is greeted by his wife and children.
From there she transitions to the song “Another Suitcase in Another Hall,” which I listened to incessantly in early 1997. The last few months of 1996 had been bad ones for me, and 1997 started off as a challenge as well. I was lost, I was floundering, and I wasn’t sure where to go next. When Evita came out on Christmas Day 1996, this was the song that spoke to me. It fully captured the lack of direction and focus I felt, the essence of being at sea and alone. “Being used to trouble, I anticipate it. But all the same I hate it — wouldn’t you?” The lyrics spoke to me — all of them — but no more than here:
“Time and time again I’ve said that I don’t care,
That I’m immune to gloom, that I’m hard through and through.
But every time it matters all my words desert me,
So anyone can hurt me–and they do.”
Having been put down and derided my whole life, I’d developed something of an armored exterior. I would be cool, be “chill,” be “like one of the guys.” But inside I was always the same vulnerable girl who never belonged anywhere, who no one ever noticed, who couldn’t count on anyone to ever be there for her. It still creeps up on me now, sometimes. So with these lines, I felt a kinship with Evita — and with Madonna — as if, at least in that infinitesimal, insignificant way, I was understood. You can watch and listen to the whole song here:
The next song, “Goodnight and Thank You,” is also one of my favorites, as it explains and justifies Evita’s upward mobility, complete with obscene hand gestures from Banderas. And while “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” is the signature for a reason — it’s a sweeping, anthemic, regal song, the simple strains of “You Must Love Me,” an original composition written especially for the film, is quite lovely and affecting. I also appreciate how, when it won the Oscar for Best Original Song, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber thanked (the wretchedly awful eventual Best Picture winner) The English Patient for not having any songs. It’s the little things.
Some other little things I love about Evita are sprinkled throughout — like how the tango is danced for all occasions and to express all emotions: sadness, lust, celebration, whatever. Or how the lyrics of “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” are reprised by Juan Peron’s mistress when Eva takes over the role. Or how there’s a sly line about “okay, she can’t act,” which also is a criticism that’s followed Madonna herself quite a bit, though she accomplishes some excellent work here. Or how Banderas was an obsession of Madonna’s once upon a time, appearing in Truth or Dare as the little known Spanish actor he was in 1991, who despite her obvious lust, wasn’t interested in her at all. It feels like the best inside joke of all time. Or how Madonna found out she was pregnant with Lourdes while filming, and you can maybe see evidence of a little tummy in a few of her scenes.
Evita is a difficult musical to love, really, but it does hold a lot of sentimental meaning for me, so I hold it in very high regard. And every now and then, I pull it down off the shelf and sing for a solid two hours and fifteen minutes.
Viable Option 