Chicago

Chicago has to be one of the best musical movie adaptions out there. Turning a stage production into a movie always comes with its own challenges, but the musical numbers in this movie are very creatively done to give them a life of their own. At the start of the film, after Velma (at this point, it is unknown to the audience) has murdered her sister, Veronica, and husband, Charlie, she is seen heading to the jazz club where she performs. Her face is kept hidden with different camera angles and dark lighting, and it becomes apparent that something is up when she tears her sister’s name off the poster outside the stage door. There are several quick jump shots to various parts of the stage, like the instruments in the band before she gets onto the stage lift. As she is lifted up to the stage, her head is down and her face kept in shadow while the music from the band starts playing. Then suddenly, she looks up and her face is revealed in the spotlight. The other character, Roxie, watches from the audience and envisions herself in the Velma’s place at one point, while jumping back and forth between fantasy and reality. The film  makes a lot use of blurring fantasy and reality in every musical number, depicting the events of the story in vaudeville-style stage acts. There are a lot of jump cuts in-between what’s really happening and what Roxie’s mind is making it out to be. One scene that uses lighting as an effect is the Cell Block Tango, when the “six merry murderesses” are singing about how they killed off their husbands/boyfriends for wronging them in some way or another. At the very start, they are all posed behind cell bars and under strategic lighting so only their silhouettes are visible. When they all turn around to sing, they are suddenly lit up by spotlights.