Amy Sherman-Palladino Have always wanted to do TV about dance.
“Gilmore Girls” and “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” creator’s latest, “Star,” Follows two prestigious dance companies in New York and Paris who decide to exchange their best talent in an attempt to shake things up and get more eyes to the art. Back in 2012, only a few years helped “Gilmore Girls”, Sherman-Palladino a season of “Bunheads“In the lead role of Sutton Foster as a former Vegas-Showgirl who stops working at a small-town ballet school.
But none of the series click like the Creator’s other work – and the answer can be on the subject.
Performing Arts – Music, Dance, Theater – has always been linked to television and film, but challenging to put on the screen and make available to Hollywood viewers. This is often manifested with Middling film musicals and on TV side with shows like “Smash“(A cult favorite now on Broadway)”Mozart in the jungle“(Notorious for winning a Golden Globe and urging Google looking for” What is “Mozart in the jungle”), “Fosse/Verdon” (critically acclaimed but not generally seen) and “Bunheads” himself (poorly received by critics but it had its own fan after).
None of these titles struggle with love for the source material. Sherman-Palladino danced professionally before quitting to write for TV, “Smash” was created by playwright Theresa Rebeck, and “Mozart” follows a philharmonic orchestra and is based on Oboist Blair Tindall’s experiences and memoirs.
There is something deeply human to look at artists meet adversities and strive for their passion – or at least there should be. The same themes are ultimately manifested on a show like “Friday night lights”, where the discipline for football in high school is not in itself related but strongly reasoned with viewers for the show’s lovely characters and hard composed society. But for performing arts, that connection usually translates only through reality competitions instead of narrative fiction.
It does not help that “Mozart” and “étoile” are set in the silk world of art, a space for privilege that is available for few (also as a public member trying to find affordable tickets). “Bunheads” is weighed down by the obvious executive note to mainly recreate “Gilmore Girls”, so that the ballet is anything but temporary. (“Smash” just got down in chaos, but I personally can’t wrong it for it.)
“Friday night lights” may be set in the more beloved sports world rather than the art, but it offers a strong template for what can bring performing arts to life on the screen. Like all good shows, the project must be character driven; In his review of “étoile,” Indiege’s leg travers noted that the characters were “huge, fruitlessly difficult – difficult for each other, difficult to invest in and difficult to see clearly until it is far too late to care.” This is a risk when telling the story of Egomania and Divor, but I dare say that it worked for an extremely successful series called “Glee.”
For this purpose, the efforts must mean. This can feel like a screenwriter 101, so how can it be applied here? Two prestigious ballet companies need money – probably not the sweeping audience hook it can be. An underdog dreams of being a Broadway star? Now it can reason with anyone singing in the shower. An inexperienced OBO player falls under the wing of her eccentric leader? Not a situation that we have all been in, but an exciting dynamic.
And finally, also noted in Indiege’s review of the “Étoile” show or the film must explore performing arts in a way that differs from the real experience. Putting a camera in the audience POV in a dance show is just a reminder that the real thing is probably much better. Putting a camera in the wings, on stage, up close and personal – with a mixture of static and tracking images and difference angles in a way that no one can experience in an auditorium – now it is worth watching. Why are limited by physics laws when you have movie magic on your site? Change suits or attitude if it feels right, or use the medium for music, dance or theater to add a surreal element. “Smash” season 1 often jumped between the rehearsal room and a staged version of the same song, a fantastic and easy way to make each number more engaging. That and “Glee” referred to its fair share of dream sequences, with mixed results but points for effort.
There is no need to get too far in the weeds with any of it-if “Friday night lights” had spent more scenes on the details of every game or depiction of games in real time, maybe I haven’t done it to the end. Sherman-Palladino knows this from “The Fantastic Mrs Maisel”, which deals with comedy like “Étoile” could have treated dance. The series always made time for Midges (Rachel Brosnahan) inner life and personal relationships, which illustrated how these factors affected her stage performance and overall life course. No one at “Étoile” has a life outside the ballet, which in itself can be a convincing thread to pull on but remains unexplored as the rest.
So while “Étoile” may not be what was promised or hoped for, it can always be a lesson. All art is intertwined and viewers are not necessarily against discovering it on the screen – they just need to be welcomed in, and TV has the power to do so.
“Étoile” is now flowing on Prime Video.
