Chicago, based on the book by Bob Fosse

Chicago, based on the book by Bob Fosse

One may wonder if The Hours, Gangs of New York or The Pianist are not better than Chicago, the motion picture that has won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Catherine Zeta-Jones and other important prizes at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and other festivals and Award ceremonies.

Renee Zellweger is dazzling, exhilarating in the leading role of Roxie Hart, married to the slow, unimaginative, loyal Amos Hart aka the acclaimed John C. Reilly – nominated for the Oscar and the Golden Globe for his exceptional performance.

Roxie has a lover, but what she is interested in most, obsessed actually is fame, becoming a celebrity at no matter what cost – when that seems to happen, she is overjoyed and when it appears to elude her, the heroine becomes depressed and lost, angered and vindictive.

After a quarrel with her lover, she kills him, is sent to jail, facing a death penalty, but she is defended – although at a certain point the accused fires the lawyer – by the exuberant, flamboyant attorney, Billy Flynn aka the controversial Richard Gere, winner of the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical.

This counsellor would stop at nothing to win his cases.

What is original though, unique in this musical comedy where the protagonists are killers, other important characters  are just as ruthless, the press is more interested in salacious details, tabloid gossip, passing fame, than in getting the truth, is the…dancing.

Although the court drama has some interesting, unexpected changes, revelations, strategies of the defense, in many of the films we have seen before, these details have been on display…

Anatomy of a Murder, …and justice for all, Kramer vs Kramer, The Caine Mutiny, A Few Good Men, The Verdict and so many others are better than Chicago.

Where Chicago is different and superior in that the others do not have this outré, effervescent aspect is in transforming the court drama into a dancing show, with Velma Kelly, Roxie Hart, Billy Flynn and the others staring a testimony, deposition or an argument and then start singing and jumping around.

The choreography is superb, even when it includes gruesome scenes.

One prisoner is sentenced to death by hanging and this is presented on a stage, with a ballerina climbing the stairs, getting the rope over her head, around the neck, at the same time with the dying woman.

Catherine Zeta-Jones, who has won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, portrays Velma Kelly.

She is a singer who has killed her husband and sister when she has found them in bed together and she would play a crucial role in turning the fate of Roxie Hart around, as couched by the shrewd, ruthless lawyer.

Since they have been in prison together, Velma comes as a star witness for the prosecution, claiming to have found a diary in which Roxie Hart writes the truth about the murder…allegedly.

While on the stand the accused testified that there was a fight with her lover, who had had a gun and could have killed her, therefore, the death was self-defense, accident or most likely both, in the diary there is another story.

Knowing that a journal is private and nobody would read, never mind use it, the woman has somehow confessed to a cold-blooded, premeditated murder that she does not regret.

On the contrary!

The lawyer for the defense would contest the authenticity.

When the prosecution asks if Billy Flynn accuses the…accusation of tempering with the evidence, the attorney says…no

Of course not!

But now that you mention it…

Chicago is remarkable in its exquisite combination of comedy with gripping crime stories, proposing characters that are complicated – although murderers, they all not entirely repugnant, they are clever, attractive and talented.

The women who have killed are not completely innocent, but they are also not totally loathsome, heartless monsters, in a world where men rule, abuse, torment, cheat, harass and enslave women – this is the 1920s – the defense they have to put up has to be violent.

Nevertheless, for all the merits of Chicago, the under signed would have given the Academy Award for Best Picture to any of the competitors – with the exception of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers –

The Hours, Gangs of New York and The Pianist are better than Chicago is.