De-Lovely: The Cole Porter Story
by Irwin Winkler
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ashley Judd, Jonathan Pryce, Kevin Kline, Kevin McNally, Sandra NelsonDirector: Irwin Winkler
Brand: KLINE,KEVIN
Producer: Irwin Winkler
Producer: Charles Winkler
Producer: Gail Egan
Producer: Georgina Lowe
Producer: Rob Cowan
Producer: Simon Channing Williams
Writer: Jay Cocks
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 125 minutes
Published: 2004-12-01
DVD Release Date: 2004-12-21
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of De-Lovely: The Cole Porter Story
Movie Review: Music as Biography
Summary: 5 Stars
"De-Lovely" uses some of the greatest love songs ever written to serve as the connecting link to the biography of the man who wrote them, Cole Porter. The approach of director Irwin Winkler works as we see intelligent segues from Porter, composing in whatever setting, to ultimate execution on stage. A host of current popular stars such as Sheryl Crow, Natalie Cole and Alanis Morissette, to name but a few, are called on to provide the numbers with their ultimate flourish after Porter has laid the necessary groundwork.
Kevin Kline portrays the songwriter, who came from a small Indiana town but was a scion to great wealth. In Paris he meets and falls in love with Ashley Judd, who is described as "the most beautiful divorcee" in that dashing city of light. She is actually a shade short of divorce when she meets the fun loving songwriter, and one tense and brief scene develops involving the new lovebirds and the alcoholic, wife-beating husband she is shedding.
A major element of concern for Judd as wife to a man with constant champagne wishes and caviar dreams and a pocketbook to match is that he focus enough energy to fully develop his talents. Kline comments that the lavish villa they occupy in romantic Venice was once occupied by Robert Browning, who did far more writing there but had a lot less fun than the songwriter. At one point Irving Berlin pays court, telling Porter how impressed he is with his talent.
Coaxing by Mrs. Porter and a favorable tribute from Berlin prompts Broadway to beckon the songwriter's call. He disciplines himself satisfactorily to go there and take New York by storm with his music.
The subject of Porter's bisexuality is handled tastefully. Judd never attempts to change him, but chastises him when he fails to be discrete. Visits to a gay nightclub result in both Judd and Kline being blackmailed by one enterprising opportunist with a design on starting a theatrical agency. The Porters become the blackmailer's designated financial angels.
Porter explains to Judd and anyone close to him who wants to know that he is truly the sum of his various disparate parts. While Judd can give him a certain type of love, he requires another type of affection from homosexual encounters. If he sometimes seems to stray too far from work in pursuit of fun, he emphatically states that he needs to be in the correct mood to successfully create.
At one point Judd is prepared to leave Kline, but when he is injured falling from a horse and has to have his legs amputated she remains with him and serves as his pillar of strength. The gesture is fully returned. When Judd, an inveterate smoker, becomes terminally ill from lung cancer he is there to be her needed Rock of Gibraltar.
The music alone is enough to make viewing the film worthwhile, but there is so much more, excellent choreography and depth of characterization within the framework of superb music. In addition to the song that comprises the film's title, "De-Lovely", others greats from the Porter bountiful repertoire are also included, such enduring classics as "Night and Day", which was the title of the dramatic film version of Porter's life starring Cary Grant and Alexis Smith, as well as "In the Still of the Night" and "You'd be so Easy to Love" while at the film's conclusion a rousing rendition of "Blow Gabriel Blow" is appropriately presented.
Jonathan Pryce, billed as Gabe and appropriately the angel Gabriel, puts Porter through his paces from a different dimension. The songwriter has an opportunity to see his fascinating life pass in review, one beset by travel, adventure, luxury and, above all, love and song.
Summary of De-Lovely: The Cole Porter Story
"The most unusual and enchanting musical in years" (Roger Ebert), this cinematic ode to legendary composer Cole Porter is at once buoyantly fun and "heartbreakingly beautiful" (Liz Smith). OscarĀ(r) winner* Kevin Kline (The Ice Storm) is "perfection" (Rolling Stone) as the elegant and deeply complex Porter in a film that offers "knockout performances" (Gene Shalit) from Natalie Cole, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Diana Krall, Alanis Morissette and Robbie Williams, and "melancholy, wit and style to burn" (The Philadelphia Inquirer)! From Paris to Venice to Broadway to Hollywood, the lives of Cole (Kline) and Linda (Ashley Judd) Porter were never less thanglamorous and wildly unconventional. Though Cole's thirst for life strained their marriage, Linda never stopped being his muse, inspiring some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century.*1988: Supporting Actor, A Fish Called WandaSimilar DVD Movies
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