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What Would John Waters Do?
by Richard Horgan |
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6/27/2007 at 10:51:38 PM |
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Appropriately enough, screenwriter Leslie Dixon (Mrs. Doubtfire, The Thomas Crown Affair) has a way with words.
Ask her how much of a challenge it was to adapt the Broadway musical Hairspray for film and she replies, “I don’t think the word challenge even begins to describe it. I would rather friggin’ carve Mount Rushmore with a pair of tweezers. That would be easier.” Inquire about the biggest difference between movie and stage musicals and Dixon answers, “Musical plays have scenes that are 12 to 14 minutes long in the same location, sometimes with two songs. You can’t do that [in a movie]; you have to get the hell out of the room.”
Dixon’s motto while working on Hairspray, per a sign adorning her Beverly Hills home office, was, ‘What would John Waters do?’ Luckily for her, director Adam Shankman also has a twisted sense of humor and backed up Dixon all the Great White Way, albeit not without artistic friction.
“We had our moments, but there’s no question he knows what’s funny,” she says during our recent interview. “I never had that depressing argument I’ve had with other directors, which is like, ‘That’s not funny.’ Or them telling me it’s not funny. But there were definitely some things [in the script] that occasionally raised an eyebrow, like the pregnant-smoking-drinking women, and the seatbelts dragging outside the car with the kids bouncing crazily in the back seat. Because I remember as a child, never being buckled in during the ‘60’s, ever. Nobody thought about it.”
Hardcore fans of the musical have voiced their displeasure on the Internet about the fact that the song “Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now” is not in the movie. Dixon feels their pain. No matter how many whacks she took at it, she couldn’t get away from a scene that would require a triple split screen along the lines of the telephone song in Bye Bye Birdie. And keeping the number in would also have made the film’s first act, leading up to titular gal Tracy Turnblad’s visit to The Corny Collins Show, an unwieldy 45 minutes long.
But it all worked out in the end. Hairspray is this summer’s most splendiferous movie surprise, an old-fashioned musical with modern sensibilities that hits all its marks: casting, costumes, production design, art direction and pacing. For her part, Dixon knew she, Shankman and producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan (Chicago) were onto something when she attended the first cast read-through of the script, which took place in Toronto just prior to the start of filming.
“Adam, being the showman that he is, had it be a read-through and sing-through,” Dixon recalls. “He had dancers... The studio was there, everybody was there. I got to watch Michelle Pfeiffer cry while Queen Latifah sang; it was just such a wonderful, moving experience. I walked away and nobody came up to me and said, ‘Why don’t we change this? This could be better…’ Everybody was going ’Mmmmm.’ I never changed anything, except a couple of little things for budget.”
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