Producer Martin Richards noted that “it took O. J. Simpson for everyone to really understand Chicago.  Chicago found its time” (Richards, 2003, p. 18).  The media themselves described the Simpson trial and other subsequent high-profile trials as “media circuses.”  Richards went on to say: “It's all about murder, greed, and debauchery, everything we hold near and dear to our hearts—its everything that’s happening today in the papers, It's today’s headlines, It's the 6:00 news” (p. 18).   In a “Behind the Scenes Special” (Marshall, 2003a, DVD), Ebb, who wrote the musical’s “book” and lyrics; Marshall, the film’s director; and various cast members, further comment on the dark themes that run through Chicago:

Ebb:  At the time I wrote the words for Chicago, I thought of it being relevant to the late 20s and it’s sort of coincidental that kind of decadence and celebrity is still so pertinent.  Whoever thought you’d watch court trials on television?  More so than when it opened in the mid 1970s the themes of Chicago have become much more relevant. It feeds into the bureaucracy of the judicial system . . . how everything has become commercialized and everything has become show business. And everybody’s going to go out there and make a buck no matter what hideous horrible thing they do. . . . Chicago is about America’s royalty and unfortunately it was criminal, people didn’t know who the Secretary of State was, but they knew Al Capone.  It’s a timeless piece, I don’t think we’re ever going to change.  We’re fascinated by that, by those people.

Marshall: It’s a comment on us and how we, as a culture, tend to celebrate people who have done bad things.

Reilly: It’s a satire of that obsession in a way with a lot of humor and humanity and with a great deal of chutzpah.

Zellweger: It’s a dark look at a very prominent part of our reality.

You Oughta Be in Pictures Again—But How?

Fosse had always wanted to make his Broadway musical Chicago into a movie, but after his death in 1987, Chicago languished on the back burner.  In 1994, Miramax came on board.  Several stars were considered including Goldie Hawn and Madonna, and many different directors were also contemplated.  Various screenplays were attempted, but none of them seemed satisfying, because it was not clear how to translate the stage version to the screen.  Musicals, at the time, were seen as being a relatively risky proposition for Hollywood.

It was not until 2000, when Rob Marshall came into Miramax and described how he would do the musical, that the vision for the movie became clear.  Marshall was given the go-ahead and he enlisted Bill Condon to write the screenplay, because Condon understood and shared Marshall’s vision for the movie. And just what was that vision, you might be wondering?

Imagination to the Rescue

Marshall thought that the musical numbers could be brought to the stage by seeing them through Roxie’s imagination.  The question or problem of how to integrate the songs without stopping the movie, had been a major stumbling block originally, but by embracing the fact that these numbers take place on stage versus disguising it, they found their answer or solution.  (Marshall, 2003a, DVD)  After getting the go-ahead, Condon wrote the screenplay, reflecting this vision, drawing some of his material from the play, the musical, and also the prior screenplays.  Although filming began in December 2001, choreography and rehearsals took place earlier in the year.  Marshall choreographed the movie as well directed it, and did not want it merely to be a restaging of Fosse’s choreography.  Eerily enough, the choreography for “All That Jazz” was scheduled to be shown to Catherine Zeta Jones on September 11 (C. Rawson, 2002, online). The movie premiered on December 10 2002, and M. Richards recounts: “It was a late birth and the baby arrived right on time” (M. Richards, 2003, p. 18).

Roxie’s Reveries

We see the world through Roxie’s eyes, through her imagination.  The opening moment of the film establishes this concept: we see a close-up of Roxie’s eye, that transforms into the flickering middle C in the movie title: CHICAGO.  We will soon see that the film is her story and that the world is seen through the eyes of her fantasies or reveries—the in-between place of play.  The flickering quality of the lights may also remind us of the etymological roots of lila.  This imaginal world is a neither/nor, subtle world, known in symptoms, symbols, reveries, and emotions, (Romanyshyn, 2002, p. xix-xx). 

We will also be seeing or “C”-ing into the liminal place that Chicago was during that time period.  In Grof’s cartography, the movie gives a wonderful portrayal of the second and third perinatal matrices, (BPM II and BPM III) where the Saturnian themes of jail, confinement, mix with Plutonic themes of bondage, aggressive sexuality, violence, and manipulation.  The especially Plutonic, underworldly, return of the repressed nature is there from the beginning in the song “All That Jazz.” 

Roxie dissociates and goes into song and dance numbers at the Onyx Club in her mind.  At the beginning of the film, at the actual Onyx Club, Roxie projects herself onto the stage and imaginally takes Velma’s place during Velma’s performance of “All that Jazz.”  We see that Roxie is “a dreamer, a naïve wanna-be star, who desparetely wants to be on stage.  She sees her life through musical sequences…. and when things happen too difficult to handle emotionally it becomes a performance in her mind,” Marshall (2003b, DVD) explains, “all the characters are seen through Roxie’s eyes… and she projects them onto a stage and thus they can exist on a stage as they’re meant to be played.”  Marshall referred to this as the “conceit” of the movie. Condon (2003) concurs, discussing what the difference from the stage version entailed, and explains: 

Roxie is someone who’s obsessed with being on the stage—being noticed.  She has an overly active fantasy life, and when things get too unpleasant, she projects herself out of reality and re-imagines the experience as a vaudeville number.  On stage, all of Chicago is a vaudeville.  Not only the numbers, but also the book scenes, which are highly stylized.  But the central conceit of the movie—that the musical numbers represent Roxie’s escape from reality—meant that there had to be a real world for her to escape from. (pp. 16-17)

Interestingly “conceit” is defined as: 

2. an imaginative poetic image, or writing that contains such an image, especially a comparison that is extreme or far-fetched

3. an object created from the imagination

4. an idea, opinion, or theme, especially one that is fanciful or unusual in some way

5. a witty, inventive, or amusing expression (archaic)

vt 1. to think of, to consider, to imagine, or to understand something (archaic) (Encarta, 1999, Word Dictionary) 

Marshall relates “in order to preserve the intention of the original piece, we made an alternate world intersect with reality moving through it.” Paradoxically, the “movie became cinematic by remaining theatrical.”  The film is a “hybrid of theater meets film, as people feel it’s live and we’re there” (Marshall, 2003b, DVD). ∆ RC[ch2] 

Ongoing Themes That Play Throughout Chicago

First, we will take a look at the broad play-related themes that play out in the movie— transitions, the back and forth movement, and the show-business metaphor.  We can then take an excursion to explore the Onyx and look at the deeper nature of Roxie’s reveries, and finally take a glimpse at mirrors that do and do not mirror reality.  Later, as we play our way through the movie, we will touch on the Trickster and see these facets of play as well as others play themselves out.