Follies: The movie...?

[KathyB]

I don't know how reliable this source is, and I'm too lazy to look this up anywhere else, but it's saying a movie adaptation of Follies is in the works. 


https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/a-follies-movie-may-soon-have-you-losing-your-mind.html#_ga=2.235356553.924247132.1573833583-966557050.1572621995

Yes, I would go see it, no matter what it turns out like. I have never seen Follies and who knows what other kind of chance I'll ever get.

If anybody else has a second source for this story, by all means share it.

[Leighton]

It's being widely reported so guess it is fairly set to go

[scenicdesign71]

I enjoyed the NTLive broadcast of Follies, and also Cooke's film adaptation of On Chesil Beach.

Even taken together, that enjoyment doesn't necessarily add up to "he should be the one to adapt Follies for movie posterity".  But of course I'll go see it, no matter how it turns out, with or without stars of Streep's or Close's stature.

My reaction is complicated, to put it mildly, by Matt Weinstock's tantalizing Last Word on fantasy-Follies movies (specifically Hal Prince's own mid-1970s plan to reset it on a Hollywood backlot slated for demolition), published six years ago:

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/11/29/loveland/

This isn't the first time I've reposted that link, and probably won't be the last; it remains the most fascinating piece of writing I've ever read on the subject of Follies, full stop -- even if it does confirm (as I really wish it wouldn't) my melancholy suspicion that the show itself has long since passed irretrievably into the very same (unreliable) history it memorializes.

But if we're going to have a cinematic Follies, for my money Todd Haynes would be the way to go.  Say what you will about his supposed academic coldness, or his offbeat approach to "I'm Still Here" in Six By Sondheim, Haynes is almost unparalleled in his uncanny ability to reanimate America's pop-cultural past.  With him at the helm, you'd practically smell the passage of time -- from the mustiness of the crumbling theater to the perfumes worn by the various guests-of-honor at Weissman's reunion, as distinct (or maybe not, in some cases) from those of their younger showgirl selves thirty years prior.

Hopefully Cooke and his collaborators can manage as much; it's a particular skill -- perhaps the crucial skill -- without which it's tough for me to imagine this film even partially succeeding.  Chesil Beach's studiously immersive midcentury English mise-en-scène certainly doesn't discourage me, but neither does it, or the NT Follies, wholly convince me that Cooke is the obviously-ideal person for this.

Nevertheless, I very much hope to be won over by the finished film.

[scenicdesign71]

BTW, here's the source mentioned in that Vulture piece:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dominic-cooke-sets-movie-adaptation-stephen-sondheims-follies-1254884

"Over the years, there have been many attempts to bring Follies to the screen, but not until Dominic Cooke's brilliant production at the National Theatre of Great Britain did it seem like it could be a real movie.  I'm more than delighted, I'm thrilled, that it's finally going to happen," Sondheim said Thursday in a statement.

The story was also reported that same day by Variety, Deadline, Broadway.com, Broadway World, and Playbill.com.