Fame English Movie
Cast And Crew
Theatrical Release
9/25/2009
Studio Credit
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios
Director Credit
Kevin Tancharoen
Cast Credit
Paul Iacono Neil
Kristy Flores Rosie
Naturi Naughton Denise
Kay Panabaker Jenny
Kherington Payne Alice
Collins Pennie Malik
Walter Perez Victor
Anne Marie Perez de Tagle Joy
Johanna Braddy Katie
Production Credits Credit
Eric Reid Executive Producer
Mark Canton Producer
David Kern Co-Producer
Tom Rosenberg Producer
Beth Depatie Executive Producer
Gary Lucchesi Producer
Harley Tannebaum Executive Producer
Writer Credit
Allison Burnett Screenplay
Aline Brosh McKenna
Reviews
This movie is based upon the 1980 film which follows NYC talent attending the New York City High School for the Performing Arts, (Known today as Fiorello H. Laguardia H.S.) students get specialized training that often leads to success as actors, singers, etc. In 1936, New York City Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia founded the High School of Music & Art in order to provide a facility where the most gifted and talented public school students of New York City could pursue their talents in art or music, while also completing a full academic program of instruction. In 1948, the School of Performing Arts was created to provide training in performance skills to students who wished to prepare for professional careers in dance, music or drama.
In Alan Parker's FAME, teenagers selected for New York City's High School for the Performing Arts push their talents to the limit to make it big in show business. This episodic tale follows savvy Coco (Irene Cara), timid Doris (Maureen Teefy), gay Montgomery (Paul McCrane), macho Raul (Barry Miller), soulful Bruno (Lee Curreri), and others as they struggle to achieve their dreams of stardom while coping with the universal teenage problems of loneliness, insecurity, and embattled, mercurial identity. Cara, electric as the budding songstress Coco, shines brightest in the infectiously exuberant young cast. The film, which won Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Original Song, overflows at each corner of its loosely unfolding narrative with inspired music and dance numbers that seem to burst forth spontaneously out of sheer irrepressible emotion. With FAME (later developed into a hit television series), Parker finds a happy medium between the wildly diverging tones of his previous two features, the goofy kids-as-gangsters musical BUGSY MALONE and the harrowing prison thriller MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, and in doing so creates an enjoyable, glittering portrait of guileless teenage ambition.
Preceded by Saturday Night Fever and followed by Footloose and Dirty Dancing, Fame is one of the best films focused on dance as a metaphor for success and maturation. Director Alan Parker, showing unusual restraint, shepherds a heartwarming story of rough New York teenagers who grow up while attending a performing arts high school. Their talent at dance enables them to transcend their backgrounds, their sometimes terrifying social milieu, and their own shortcomings. It's a vision of ethnic and social harmony achieved through effort at a craft that in some ways parallels youth sports movies. Dancer-singer Irene Cara is the star, and the film launched her (short-lived) singing career. The music and the dancing are spectacular, helping to overcome a story that, despite a few directorial risks, is fairly predictable. Fame is a well-made feel-good movie. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Fame is set at New York's High School of Performing Arts, where talented teens train for show-business careers. The film concentrates on five of the most gifted students: singer Irene Cara, actors Paul McCrane and Barry Miller, dancer Gene Anthony Ray, and musician Lee Currieri. More so than the subsequent TV series Fame, the film emphasizes the importance of keeping up one's academic achievements in this specialized school. The faculty includes no-nonsense English teacher Ann Meara, erudite musical instructor Albert Hague, and martinet dance teacher Debbie Allen. Of the film's cast, Ray, Currieri, Allen and Hague were carried over to the TV version of Fame, which premiered in 1981. The score for the film version of Fame was honored with an Academy Award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
DISCUSSION:
Having seen this when I was in middle school, and remembering when it was a big sensation—not to mention the soundtrack receiving fairly regular airplay in my home—I knew that one day our paths would cross again. But alas, now I know with fair certainty that I have seen this movie for the very last time. At least I hope so.
From Alan Parker, who has some sort of pedigree in movies about music [he did Pink Floyd's The Wall and later went on to do Evita and The Commitments], comes this movie about the Manhattan High School for the Performing Arts. The movie begins with a title: "The Auditions" and that what we have; a bunch of kids auditioning for the school. The first is this frizzy redhead Montgomery who was sent to military academy, and describes two days’ leave which he spent with his mother "just like we were sweethearts." Uh, eww. We don’t need Oedipally-stuck boys at our school just now, thank you. Then there’s this nerd who plays symphonic music on a bank of many synthesizers, and a redhead girl Doris who has a Jewish mother who insists on speaking for her and documenting her audition on her instamatic. Many artistic disciplines are represented, and the kids seem to try out in all of them. We also get glimpses of some of the teachers, including a black drama teacher who is all sensitive 70s seriousness, and a Jewish music teacher with a beard, glasses, and withering look. Among the auditionees are a black girl who insists that her boyfriend Leroy accompany her to her auditions. When they both get the opportunity to dance, Leroy WAY upstages her, quite purposefully, and gets accepted to the school, while the girl gets dumped out. She is understandably furious, but Leroy is all like "Whatever." We also see a number of horrible, horrible auditions, and think that these people are there to show us how competitive the school is and how only the best of the best make it.
But actually, no, because soon after we get our title "Freshman Year," we see that nearly all the people who had horrible auditions were accepted to the school! Maybe we’re supposed to think that the teachers are so perceptive that they can discern the diamond even within the most dull of stones, but the net effect is a feeling that this elite school is not elite at all, and is probably absolutely desperate for money.
We have a few scenes meant to demonstrate the kids getting accustomed to the nasty, gritty New York of the late 70s, which looks like a horribly grimy, run-down place that is 100X more interesting than it is now. Blah, blah, some stuff about the beginning of classes, and at 28 minutes we have: the Hot Lunch Jam! What happens when you pack all those creative kids into one room together? Why, spontaneous explosions of song and dance, of course! Here we start with the noise of the crowded lunchroom, with one guy tapping drumsticks here and another shaking a tambourine there, then suddenly it all coalesces into a beat! Then one adds piano! Then Irene Cara starts singing! Then they all start dancing! And the entire lunchroom seems to know the words—of this song they’re making up on the spot! Those artistic kids are so IN TUNE.
One interesting point, for a movie that tried so hard to launch Irene Cara as a superstar, is that we never see her audition, she just shows up in school. And she cannot yet act [or lip-synch] very well, which was a surprise, as her performance blew me away in Sparkle of four years EARLIER. She is soon hitting up keyboardist Bruno to form a band, but he has issues about people other than himself hearing his music. One night they’re out on the town and Irene is spouting all this mumbo-jumbo in such a factual tone it made me laugh. For example, she says "How bright our spirits go shooting out into space depends on how much we contribute it to the Earthly brilliance of the world" as though announcing a simple fact such as "there are two pints in a quart." Meanwhile everyone is always practicing and doing scenes and reciting dialogue, so much so that the movie becomes a little meta for a bit, as all of our actors are acting that they’re acting.
But what of the hot-button 70s issues? Just hold onto your hats, because we’ve got illiteracy, homosexuality, poverty, and prejudice against electronic music coming up in just the next 30 minutes. First it turns out that Leroy cannot read, and is badgered to do so by the redheaded teacher we’ll come back to later. Then Doris supposedly "can’t think of" a painful memory—although we all know this is denial—but is soon given a fresh one by her Jewish stage mother. Then Montgomery decides that he is going to use his "painful memory" to come out as gay to his class! He does, and THE NEXT SHOT is of him applying lipstick, making this movie somewhat of an enduring painful memory for me. Let's face it folks: doing drag is ALL THERE IS to gay life!
Doris has a brand-new most painful memory after her mom makes her warble "Happy Birthday" at a kids’ party, and Ralph opens up about the pain of life in the Bronx. You know—I’ll bet he’s going to turn his pain into ART!
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