Jacques Audiard talks about why Emilia Pérez It’s a musical. After being well received at Cannes and TIFF Emilia Pérez was released on Netflix this week, on Wednesday, November 13th. The film’s plot tells the story of a drug cartel boss in Mexico who kidnaps a lawyer and recruits him to help her achieve her dream of becoming the woman she always was. Emilia Pérez features a main cast that includes Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez and Mark Ivanir.
Talking to the New York TimesAudiard explains why he decided to do it Emilia Pérez a musical. The director explained that he had already thought about the idea of making a musical for his films. A self-made hero and A prophet. Although he “I lacked the courage to do this“in those times, he has”long-loved opera“, which prompted him to do Emília Pérez. Although he has “a deep curiosity for this total spectacle,” he “was not harmed by an excessive love for the musical genre”, as he doesn’t always like musicals. Check out Audiard’s full quote below:
Interviewer: Why did you decide to make this a musical instead of a drama?
Auditorium: If we had had this conversation three or four months ago, I would have said it just clicked with me. But in fact, this is wrong. I think the musical has been haunting me for a long time. With my second feature, “A Self-Made Hero”, the composer Alexandre Desplat and I thought about making a small opera, but we didn’t have the courage to do it.
After my film “A Prophet”, [co-writer] Thomas Bidegain and I thought about creating a musical setting in the world of drug trafficking, a love story in the midst of drug trafficking. But that didn’t happen. When it came to the character that ended up giving rise to “Emilia Pérez”, I knew I could do it and immediately wrote a small opera in the form of a libretto.
Interviewer: Have you always been a fan of opera??
Auditorium: I have loved opera for a long time. Now, I’m not a regular viewer. Sometimes I get quite bored. But I have a deep curiosity about this total spectacle. Perhaps my desire to make an opera came from my feeling as a spectator that what is missing is contemporary opera.
Interviewer: Were you hesitant to approach the visual language of musicals?
Auditorium: I didn’t hesitate. I was not harmed by an excessive love for the musical genre. In fact, I don’t like many musicals. It’s a little pretentious to say, but maybe I had the intention of trying to make a musical that I liked from my perspective as a spectator.
What does this mean for Emilia Pérez
The film is not a typical musical
It’s interesting to hear that Emilia Pérez is a musical made by someone who doesn’t “I actually like a lot of musicals.” Musical films are often flashy ventures that are clearly made by musical theater lovers, like the ostentatious historical film The greatest showman. There are ways in which Emilia Pérez It turns out to be an atypical musical in this sense. For example, many of the songs are very short, without the typical arc of a ballad or group number from a Broadway musical. It’s still awash in music, but the music it contains is often brief.
Furthermore, Emilia Pérez presents a variety of vocal styles that do not all fit into the conventional, highly trained voice mode. Two doctors, one in Singapore and one in Israel, look more like typical people singing than seasoned theater actors, which adds a different feel to the film. Even the film’s protagonists bring with them a variety of vocal styles, adding heterogeneity to the film, which is a refreshing alternative to film adaptations of Broadway musicals such as Dear Evan Hansen.
Our opinion on Emilia Pérez as a musical
There aren’t that many original movie musicals
Emilia Pérez It’s worth being a musical just for Saldaña’s performance, which shines in both the music and the dramatization’s dialogue. But beyond any performance, however, Emilia Pérez is refreshing as a musical simply because there are so few original movie musicals out there. The film may scratch an itch for those who like musicals and are looking for another original, but it also offers a type of alternative musical that is more operatic and very different from what normally appears on screen.
Source: NYT