History
The film is based on the 1975 Kander and Ebb Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was based on the Maurine Watkins play, Chicago. That original play was based on the stories of two real-life Jazz-era killers, Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner.
The original 1975 Broadway production was not well received by audiences, primarily due to the show's cynical tone. However, the minimalist 1996 revival was much more successful, still running on Broadway in 2012, and the influences of both productions can be seen in the film version. The original production's musical numbers were staged as vaudeville acts; the film respects this but presents them in a cutaway form, while scenes that take place in "real life" have a hard-edged realism.
A film version of Chicago was to have been the next project for legendary stage and film choreographer and director Bob Fosse, who directed and choreographed the original 1975 Broadway production. Though he died before this film was made, his distinctive jazz choreography style is evident throughout. In particular, the parallels to Cabaret (1972) are numerous and distinct. He is thanked in the film's credits.
Chicago was produced by American companies Miramax Films and The Producers Circle in association with the German company Kallis Productions. Chicago was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The courthouse scene was shot in Osgoode Hall. Other scenes were filmed at Queen's Park, former Gooderham and Worts Distillery, Casa Loma, the Elgin Theatre, Union Station, the Canada Life Building, the Danforth Music Hall, and at the Old City Hall. All vocal coaching for the film was led by Toronto-based Elaine Overholt, whom Richard Gere thanked personally during his Golden Globe acceptance speech.
Read more about this topic: Chicago (2002 film)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)