My Fair Lady (1964)

USA
directed by: George Cukor
written by: Alan Jay Lerner + George Bernard Shaw (play)
starring: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Jeremy Brett
seen: 23rd December, 2007 - comment: 23rd April, 2017

I guess I just don't understand the purpose (point) of classical movie musicals. At least this particular movie musical. It seems to be a slavish adaptation of the Broadway play and doen't really seem to want to translate itself into language of cinema instead of theatre. Other thing that bothers me is the singing style concoction - Higgins and Pickering are talking their way through their singing parts using their normal voices, Eliza and Freddy are dubbed over by professional singers exhibiting their stylized prowess, and father Doolittle is using down-to-earth folk singing. And what should I make of the fact that on one hand I get extremely elaborate numbers like the Ascot sequence (which I actually like a lot) and on the other I see numbers like Higgins walking around his library for five minutes or Freddy standing alone in the street doing nothing for the whole song?

And while I'm at not understaning stuff, was there a particular reason we needed to hear the lengthy wedding song of father Doolittle and watch his innocent cavorting with pub floozies? His entire presence in the movie baffles me the most, probably because of the same reasons that kept me from finishing reading Colas Breugnon by Romain Rolland. I think I understand why G. B. Shaw put him in the play, but the movie uses social criticism as much as another cardboard set piece in the non-political spectacle and nobody expects it to actually mean something in the world outside of entertainment. I mean, the biggest uproar it caused was gossip as to why wasn't Julie Andrews cast.

To me, the most valuable thing about the movie is that Eliza herself decides to come to the professor because she would like to improve her life. And that's why it pains me that the film-makers dismiss the character the same way Higgins does. She's supposed to be the crown jewel of their work but literally everything else will get much more attention than her. Most of her character development happens off-screen. Instead of her voicing her feelings about the qualities she found in herself we get a shot of her walking down the stairs, contrieved and dolled up, with men gazing at her.
This approach to the leading lady seem very antediluvian to me. Other filmakers of early sixties are putting out works about relationships of men and women like Onibaba, Repulsion, Woman in the dunes, Red desert, and I am supposed to be amazed by a beautiful woman looking even more beautiful with diamonds hanging all over her?

(And let's not forget that 1964 is the year of A Hard Day's Night when it comes to music.)
In short, My Fair Lady is not a film for me.