This is not the sort of admission you normally get from LuPone. As The New Yorker's Michael Schulman put it in a very entertaining profile of her last year, "LuPone is Broadway’s reigning grande dame, with a big voice and an even bigger mouth. She’s one of the city’s last living broads: brassy, belty, and profane, with the ferocity of a bullet train coming right at you." Part of the fun of seeing LuPone live, I assumed, would be watching her steamroll through the evening, flexing her vocal gift while letting us Los Angeles residents know how lucky we were to be in the presence of greatness. Vulnerability was a surprise.
I grew up consuming a steady diet of pop, rock and hip-hop, largely avoiding musical theater and the sort of vocalists who belt, croon or soar. As I got older, Into the Woods and Frank Sinatra became part of my musical lexicon, but I remain more drawn to songwriters than singers. It's not as if Sinatra (or countless others) can't make a song their own -- make you feel that, for example, no one else has sung "I'll Be Around" before they breathed it into life. But I'll always take a Bob Dylan over a Michael Bublé, no matter how many octaves he's mastered.
I say all that to acknowledge that I can't always appreciate superhuman vocal technique. When it comes to singing, I go for emotion, feel and character over firepower and pizzazz. But even I sensed early on in Saturday's performance that LuPone seemed a bit off, not as confident as I imagined she would be as she flubbed a line or two. So when she stopped the show and offered her mea culpa, it got a huge, warm response from the adoring crowd, but it also confirmed what even my unsophisticated eyes and ears suspected. It also seemed to unlock something for LuPone, allowing her to fully embrace the fragility of the songs she was there to sing. Which helps enormously when you're singing about love.
The show was part of LuPone's 25th anniversary tour for Matters of the Heart, a collection of tunes that cover Broadway numbers and pop songs, happy reveries and sad ballads, and all manners of love, from parental to carnal. For this tour, which features piano and a four-person string section, she has been sticking to many of the tracks from the original album while adding some new selections, including "God Only Knows" and "The Last Time I Saw Richard," which depending on your mood might be the greatest song Joni Mitchell has ever written. But there was also "Being Alive," one of Company's show-stoppers now enjoying new life among filmgoers as "that song Adam Driver sings in Marriage Story." In the Noah Baumbach Oscar-winner, Driver's divorcing dad delivers it with the pain and regret of someone who understands the lyrics' bereft sentiments in his bones. On Saturday night, LuPone sang it like it was an aging rock band's guaranteed crowd-pleaser before they come back for the encore, her high-octane voice all showy guitar solos and flagrant smashing of instruments. I longed to hear the Driver version again.
Not unlike many Broadway albums, Matters of the Heart is a pristine rendition of familiar songs that lacks the electric spontaneity of a live performance. Plus, the record doesn't contain the bits of commentary LuPone sprinkled in on occasion during the show, helping to lay out the night's thematic through-lines. Before singing Randy Newman's "Real Emotional Girl," she told the crowd about meeting the love of her life, husband Matthew Johnston, while making the 1987 TV movie LBJ: The Early Years. She mentioned their son, calling him her greatest achievement, and then worked her way through "Real Emotional Girl," Judy Collins' "My Father" and Fascinating Aïda's "Look Mummy, No Hands," three different perspectives on childhood and the process of looking back at those strangers we call our parents. The mini-suite ended with one of her new additions to the show, Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," which in this context was less about romance and more about the lost and regained connections between a mother and a child. LuPone never flexed, never tried to better the originals. If she wasn't in top form vocally, which my friend (a big LuPone fan) noted, she did what my favorite singers do, which is embody the song as if it's the only truth they know.
As someone who's long adored Dylan and Newman, I've been accustomed to more dazzling singers interpret their material, usually adding polish to the vocals or arrangements so that the songs become more pleasing to a wider audience. Too often, unfortunately, the very human essence of the original song gets swept aside in the name of making the tune "better." The phenomenon occasionally reared its ugly head Saturday night, most disappointingly during LuPone's performance of "The Last Time I Saw Richard," Mitchell's pained memory of a friend lost along the way. In LuPone's hands, it turned into a bit of an acted monologue, a Broadway ballad that abandoned Mitchell's direct, piercing treatment.
That said, my reaction to LuPone's interpretations definitely depended on my affinity (or lack thereof) for the originals. Two covers she performed while seated, her voice just above a whisper, practically demanding the audience lean forward to listen, were among the night's highlights. I consider "The Air That I Breathe" perfectly fine, and I had no previous knowledge of Beth Nielsen Chapman's "Sand and Water." LuPone latched onto both songs' emotional essence by pruning away their easy-listening tendencies to get at something real about, respectively, romantic contentment and the mourning of a dead spouse. And then, later in the show, she gender-flipped Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" to fairly devastating effect. Much to the chagrin of my own parents, I've always considered the song sappy. Revisiting Fogelberg's version the following day, it hit harder than it ever had before. LuPone revealed the song's poignant chasm between present and past for me.
It must be both blessing and curse to have an incredible singing voice. At some point, age intercedes, diminishing your gift either incrementally or all at once. As Robert Christgau once wrote of Sinatra's 1993 Duets album, in which the Chairman of the Board struggled to prove he still had it, "He who lives by the larynx shall die by the larynx." I thought of that quote a few times Saturday night, despite LuPone remaining a far superior interpretive singer to most anyone who's ever walked the earth. Besides, I can roll with a diminished voice: Paul Simon's "A Quiet Celebration" tour from last year taught me that. If anything, the occasional lyrical lapse and false start only made LuPone's performance that much stronger and braver.
LuPone doesn't like being called a diva. In last year's New Yorker profile, she said, “I know what I’m worth to a production. I know that I’m box-office. Don’t nickel-and-dime me before you put me onstage. Don’t treat me like a piece of shit. Because, at this point, if you don’t value me, why am I there?” To be sure, LuPone has had her share of jerk moments that go beyond "Oh, she's such a delightful diva." Still, I also am wary of that sexist term since "diva" tends to be applied to powerhouse female singers who don't suffer fools.
Nonetheless, I was imagining Saturday's show to be a masterclass in grande-dame behavior, all of us mere mortals gladly paying our respects to a world-class vocalist stunning us with her instrument. Instead, I got a display of touching humanity that made songs like her evening-closing "Hello, Young Lovers" (from The King and I) and the 1940s' hit "My Best to You" feel like gentle prayers, to herself and us, to find love in a world growing darker by the day. I didn't write down what she said at the end of the night, but it was a plea that, despite the terrible country we're currently living in, that we remember that love is still a greater force than hate. It was a beautiful sentiment, almost as beautiful as these lines from "My Best to You" which she made hers:
So here's to you, may your dreams come true
May old Father Time never be unkind
And through the years, save your smiles and your tears
They're just souvenirs, they'll make music in your heart
Remember this, each new day is a kiss
Sent from up above with an angel's love
So here's to you, may your skies be blue
And your love blessed, that's my best to you
Some of the best love songs have a brittleness to them, because they know that love is delicate, always at risk of breaking if not properly handled. But maybe that's not always true -- maybe love is strong enough to outlive all of life's hard things. Even a diva's nerves.
(Photo by Jacob Earl.)
When I arrived in Sundance a month later, a colleague and I went to grab our badges, the first thing you always do at a film festival. When we got to the press office, I ran into another colleague who had been attending Sundance for several years. I mentioned this was my first time. "Yeah, it's too bad we weren't going back when this festival was actually special," he said with an air of absolute authority. "We're sorta here at the end." This was 2009.
I bring up these stories to say that, since the start of my film festival life, I've had cold water thrown on my enthusiasm. Since that first Sundance, I've been to Toronto, True/False, Cannes, Venice, Hot Docs and SXSW — to say nothing of the local festivals I've attended, including AFI Fest and the much-missed Los Angeles Film Festival — and invariably I will run into someone who's sour on the experience. There are reasons to be grouchy, of course: Festivals are an extraordinary amount of work, often forcing people to eat poorly and sleep worse while they're far from home as they drag themselves from screening to screening. (More than one colleague has advised younger festival-goers that, really, it's totally normal if you break down into tears at some point.) But on the other hand ... you get to go to a film festival, which is incredible. There's nothing else like it in the movie universe. It can instantly recharge your batteries being around other film-lovers, especially the public, as we all discover new movies together and debate their merits. Festivals can be emotionally, physically and spiritually exhausting. They're also the best.
Talk this way too loudly among your peers and you risk accusations of being a Pollyanna. You can inspire an eye-roll or two, for sure. But I never get sick of festivals, and I always take a moment to remember to be grateful to soak in the moment when I'm at one. For years, I thought film festivals would never be a part of my life. They have now long been a steady staple. I am incredibly lucky, and I don't want to ever forget that.
* * * * *
My sunny mindset was challenged by this year's trip to Venice and Toronto. Not because I didn't have a good time — I did — but because I have never before encountered so many different colleagues who seemed full of despair and disillusionment. Those dark clouds were existential — about festivals, about our work in general, about the very industry we cover. And how could you blame them? On the eve of critics' arrival in Venice — the first of the three major fall film festivals — we were hit with three straight pieces of bad news. Respected critics Ann Hornaday, Richard Lawson and Michael Phillips all were leaving their jobs, whether through a buyout or a "change in editorial direction." It was the fitting end to a bad summer in which criticism itself seemed under fire, prompting strong responses from the likes of Richard Brody, Ty Burr, Kristen Lopez and others. As a result, fall festival season — usually a moment of optimism as we kick off a period of (hopefully) great movies — felt ominous this year. Like the beginning of the end.
I won't share individual stories I heard — those are theirs to tell — but I will say that I've never had as many conversations with friends and colleagues in which the tone was so dispirited. People were thinking of leaving the business. (Some already had.) Critics wondered if they were going to keep going to festivals. (Some were certain they weren't.) The general tone at both Venice and Toronto could best be described as "Try to find something that's bolted down and hang on for dear life." There was little optimism that things would eventually get better in our business — it was more a question of how much worse things would become. (The striking tagline for Kathryn Bigelow's A House of Dynamite, which premiered in Venice, seemed to take on a double meaning: "Not If. When.")
My attitude about grim industry trends has always been to keep my head down and work — focus on what I can control and try not to worry about what I can't — but it was hard not to be affected by the general glumness. I had been feeling all the same things as my friends and fellow critics, but to have it mirrored and amplified by those around me made those sentiments all the stronger and more pervasive. And that's only the business side of things: In a world in which Trump infects just about every aspect of our daily life, there was an extra layer of anxiety on top of everything else at all times. (By the way, film critics are hardly alone in feeling these doldrums when they get together.)
In such a dire atmosphere, an extraordinary fall festival season would have been a blessing. At a time when art and culture feel marginalized and imperiled, it's natural to pin one's hopes on cliches like "the power of movies" to heal all. But that was probably asking too much. To be sure, there were great movies at Venice, Telluride and Toronto — some of which first played in Cannes or elsewhere — but there simply weren't enough to overcome the gloom I often felt surrounded by.
When a festival (or a festival season) is slightly underwhelming, there is a tendency to overreact and ascribe larger meanings to what happens on the ground. It sure can be tempting: Hang out with film critics and journalists long enough, and a cynical malaise can set in, a pessimistic insistence that cinema is in a downward spiral, both critically and commercially, from which it cannot recover. But I think that's a self-fulfilling prophecy — it's the worst kind of confirmation bias, and must be avoided at all costs lest you close your eyes to the excellent films in our midst.
There are too many vital filmmakers out there for me to discard my fundamental enthusiasm for the art form, and for festivals themselves. Also, there are too many colleagues who, despite it all, have held onto that belief, too. And if you're lucky, you can spend time with them, and with just everyday movie-lovers, who remind you that what we've devoted our lives to us is a wonderful, meaningful pursuit.
I have never lost that guy who, in 2008, learned that a long-held dream of attending a film festival was going to be realized. Sure, I grouse about the stupid TIFF ads before screenings and complain about the monsoon we all experienced one crazy night in Venice. But, also, I love that stuff. I love it. I've spent 17 years being told that the sky is falling, that things used to be better, that I arrived too late, that it's all downhill from here. That's not how I see it. And you can't make me feel otherwise.
* * * * *
Below are my rankings for everything I've seen that played at Venice, Telluride or Toronto, either over the last few weeks or at some point earlier this year. Links lead to individual reviews.
63. Eleanor the Great
62. Normal
61. Mother
60. The Man in My Basement
59. Roofman
58. Bad Apples
57. Nuremberg
56. Sacrifice
55. Fuze
54. At Work
53. Hedda
52. The Lost Bus
51. Ballad of a Small Player
50. Marc by Sofia
49. Sangre del Toro
48. John Candy: I Like Me
47. The Wizard of the Kremlin
46. The Smashing Machine
45. Ghost Elephants
44. The Little Sister
43. The History of Sound
42. The Sun Rises on Us All
41. Made In EU
40. Pillion
39. The Christophers
38. The Ugly
37. Eagles of the Republic
36. Arco
35. Broken English
34. After the Hunt
33. Jay Kelly
32. Frankenstein
31. Notes of a True Criminal
30. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
29. No Other Choice
28. Landmarks
27. La Grazia
26. Nouvelle Vague
25. The Secret Agent
24. It Was Just an Accident
23. Renoir
22. Orphan
21. The Testament of Ann Lee
20. Highway 99: A Double Album
19. Megadoc
18. Hamlet
17. Train Dreams
16. Cover-Up
15. Orwell: 2+2=5
14. BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions
13. Bugonia
12. Sentimental Value
11. Blue Heron
10. Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes
9. Father Mother Sister Brother
8. Remake
7. Hamnet
6. Below the Clouds
5. Sirat
4. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
3. Two Prosecutors
2. The Mastermind
1. Sound of Falling
My biggest takeaway from fall festival season? This really was a great Cannes, with my top three all premiering at the French festival back in May. Looking up and down the list, several movies will need a second viewing to see where they're ultimately going to land in my end-of-the-year rankings. (I'm especially curious to give The Secret Agent, It Was Just an Accident and The Testament of Ann Lee another spin.) And, of course, there are the many films I wasn't able to get to, including A House of Dynamite and The Voice of Hind Rajab, among several others. But for now, I'm home and happy to be back with Susan. The next three movie-mad months are gonna be a whirlwind. Can't wait.
Or you could just listen and find out.
