Kevin Kline as Cole Porter in De-Lovely: Stiff
Published July 25, 2004
Ashley Judd as Linda Porter ends up carrying the movie. It isn't that her interpretation of Linda's character deepens, exactly, but that as Cole's antics wear on Linda, Judd's manner becomes more and more appropriate, and more redolent. Her self-containment works for a woman who would make a bargain of a marriage. That, along with the fact that Linda doesn't guess how much work it can take to realize gain on a bargain, then make sense of Judd's tearlessly disappointed air. Judd is rosy-marmoreal where Ida Lupino, that bring-your-own-nectar goddess, was brazen, and Judd seems more naturally comfortable in front of the camera, but she has Lupino's tenseness, and Linda Porter's story gives it texture.
I love watching Judd react; here she grows into the arch poise of a fashionable woman gaining intimate acquaintance with other people's bad behavior. (She manages to seem more mature than her husband, which compensates for the fact that whereas Linda was eight years older than Cole, Judd is 20 years younger than Kline. Hollywood, that great big notional bordello, has to provide trophy women even for homosexuals.) As Linda's freshness turns into a high-polish veneer, Judd makes you feel that it's one thing to make a deal with your husband and another to live it out. You might even feel that this is the truth of all relationships--Judd makes Linda's metamorphosis over the course of this managerial marriage both specific to the Porters' arrangement and universally applicable. She may not have the grandeur to get the full, triumphant irony out of the dying Linda's supplying her husband with a suitable male companion to take her place, but she's worth watching throughout.
Even without an adequately charismatic actor in the central role, the movie might have worked as a revue, if the director Irwin Winkler had the sense to shoot full-on production numbers. For the first twenty minutes or so (it passed like an eternity), Kline, with a voice he admits in the movie is limited at best, does most of the singing. Then Robbie Williams appears as a nightclub singer giving a snappy rendition of the title tune and I felt like I'd grown new ears. Williams looks reborn, too, and all at once you feel in your entire body why you'd want to make a biography of Cole Porter. With those songs, how could it miss? Well, it could miss by cutting away from Williams as haphazardly as Winkler does so that we don't get the full impact of the singer's revved-up work.
Winkler does give us two ingenious musical sequences, one in which Porter has to teach John Barrowman (an English star of stage musicals) to sing "Night and Day" in the late stages of readying the new Broadway show in which it's to debut. The actor doesn't get the song and so Porter explains that it's about romantic fixation and has him look into his eyes and sing it along with him. In the process of rehearsing, which sweeps seamlessly into the bravura opening night performance, the two fall for each other. In an even more suavely shot sequence, Vivian Green sings "Love for Sale" splendidly while Porter's catting about in the Hollywood gay scene is summed up in what feels like an unbroken 360-degree scan.
- Kevin Kline as Cole Porter in De-Lovely: Stiff
- Published: July 25, 2004
- Type:
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Art House, Video: Drama, Video: Music, Video: Performing Arts, Video: Romantic
- Writer: Alan Dale
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Comments on this articleComments
Thanks for the praise, and esp. for the public service announcement. I hope people will listen to those classic recordings. I grew up on American show tunes and can appreciate your ardor.
I do think it's important at the same time to remember that there are other gods in CP's subdivision on Mt. Olympus (personally I prefer Rodgers & Hart) and that there are other subdivisions, too (I think that the singer-songwriters of the '60s and '70s (e.g., Bob Dylan: "Positively 4th Street" or Joni Mitchell: "Edith and the Kingpin") brought a new maturity to American songs). Finally, though saying this often gets me into arguments, there are other heavens that offer more complex rewards, which is why I mentioned Richard Strauss in my review.
Alan, I agree that the musical Olympus is a crowded, multi-roomed place -- and I would never rule out a potential saint because of style, era, or genre.
As Duke Ellington (?) said, "There are only two kinds of music: good and bad."
Thanks for the comment. Love the quote, whoever said it. If only criticism were always that simple. I re-listened to Jackson Browne a couple years ago and thought sometimes the lyrics were simultaneously bad and good. Not bad and good by turns, but a single phrase or word would be both bad and good.
to me COLE PORTER has alway the top .would loved to have met him . as for the unfavourable notices ofDLOVLY /critics are made up of those who cannot ACT
You seem to equate liking Cole Porter and liking De-Lovely. It's BECAUSE I like Cole Porter that I didn't enjoy the movie--it doesn't serve him very well as a man or as a songwriter.
Never heard "Critics are made up of those who cannot ACT" before. Perhaps you were thinking of the saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." Not all critics are GOOD teachers, certainly; but then not all readers are talented students, either.
I just saw the movie. The flasbacks were distracting. I liked the music and didn't realize he had so many songs.
I am interested in some background about Linda Lee Porter. Does anyone know more about her?
John Lahr's article "King Cole," from the July 12 & 19, 2004 issue of the New Yorker, is a good place to start. It mentions some book-length biographies that would go into greater depth.
No real comment...just a queston...Was that Kevin Kline playing the "old" Cole Porter??? Or was that someone else??
That was Kevin Kline, transformed my make-up designer Sarah Monzani. It was quite a makeover--he looked like Ray Milland circa Frogs.
as a student of popular music, I appreciate and respect the masters of the Great American Songbook probably more than I love them. There are many songs I love, and the elegance and sophistication has been put to great use by many whom we now broadly call jazz singers, but in the broadest sense the Broadway-oriented theatricality and artificiality of this approach can feel arch and, again in general, doesn't hit me with the same emotional immediacy as the best of instrumental jazz and popular song in the wake of the freeing rock 'n' roll revolution.
This is very late in the game, but I've just come to this site. I believe the quote Lee Glaze (Aug 2004) was thinking of was Brendan Behan's "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it."
However, critics are not supposed to be actors. Actors act, critics critique. I agree with your review 100%. You verbalized exactly how I felt about the disappointing film. The film "Night and Day" omitted the homosexuality, and DeLovely made it the major theme so it became more important than the writing of the songs. If three is the charm, maybe the next time someone will get
the right balance and cast.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/17866)
Nice review, Alan. The film sounds horrible. I had high hopes for a better bio than that Cary Grant makeover-hetero-romance. Too bad they blew it AGAIN.
As a public service, I thought I'd mention:
Cole Porter, imo, was a songwriting god, and his output is unmatched in contemporary music. Because of my love, respect, and pure joy at the sound of a Porter song, I own just about every CD compilation and/or collection of Cole Porter works available.
Here are a few important recommendations left off the above list:
* Frank Sinatra "Sings the Select Cole Porter" on Capitol
* "From This Moment On - The Songs of Cole Porter" -- a great 4 volume box set from the Smithsonian.
* "Anything Goes: The Cole Porter Songbook - Instrumentals" on Verve
* "I Get a Kick Out of You - The Cole Porter Songbook vol ii" - on Verve
* "NIght & Day: The Cole Porter Songbook" - on Verve
========
Additional Bonus:
Shark's Nomination for GREATEST LYRICS in history:
When they begin the Beguine
It brings back the sound of music so tender
It brings back a night of tropical splendor
It brings back a memory evergreen
I'm with you once more under the stars
And down by the shore an orchestra's playing
And even the palms seem to be swaying
When they begin the Beguine
To live it again is past all endeavour
Except when that tune clutches my heart
And there we are, swearing to love forever
And promising never, never to part
What moments divine, what rapture serene
Till clouds came along to disperse the joys we had tasted
And now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted
I know but too well what they mean
So don't let them begin the Beguine
Let the love that was once afire remain an ember
Let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember
When they begin The Beguine
Oh yes, let them begin The Beguine, make them play
Till the stars that were there before return above you
Till you whisper to me once more, "Darling, I love you!"
And we suddenly know what heaven we're in
When they begin the Beguine