Jennifer Hudson is a cinematic delight and sonic wonder but prior to 2006 one of the greatest songs of our age was the sole property of one artist. Sure, hundreds have sung the role in revivals, reviews, at clubs and amateur productions. Yes, it has been recorded by others but only one woman in history has the definitive, the undeniable, the ultimate rendering.

That woman is Jennifer Holliday.

I remember hearing the record for the first time early in 1982 at the request of a friend who was an inveterate music buyer. He bought everything and he raved about everything. Having heard his admonitions in the past I figured the record was probably okay but I distinctly remember being staggered the first time I heard Jennifer Holliday singing And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going. You remember things about your life and your situation when you hear your favourite music. Holliday set me in an era the first time I heard the song. I knew this was probably the most powerful performance I had heard on record to that point in my life. I liked Ms. Ross, I had heard Billie Holliday, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha, dozens of others. It was an era of anthemic singers; Grace Jones, Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, Cheryl Lynn, etc., etc. etc. Holliday, with one song -- a single recording -- set a new bar.

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What must have the first renderings of Holliday's interpretation sounded like? Jennifer Hudson has said that Henry Krieger taught her the song one on one at the piano "just like he did with Jennifer Holliday". Aside from the terror of knowing that for Hudson, just imagine how those first few run-throughs must have developed. In the late '70's and early '80's Krieger and Bennet had something in mind for the song -- and while Nell Carter was an early candidate for Effie -- they knew they needed Holliday to do it; she walked out on work-shops at least twice and they kept bringing her back. Performance rarely gets a perfect combination of lyric, melody, tutelage and interpretation. Who's idea was it that Holliday's interpretation would literally span the entire performance genre of American music in 4 minutes? It's almost preposterous to think they would have tried and yet it's there; devotional, soul, rock, swing, jazz, blues. Check out how Holliday is able change gears at the 2:07 mark in the original cast recording to go from blues to a blistering soul as she emotes "Tear down the mountains, Yell, scream and shout." The song begins with three symbolic bell-like tolls and cascades to a tumultuous torrent with Holliday's plaintive repeat of the title phrase at the 2:27 mark -- it is a spine tingling moment of the most raw and dynamic energy ever laid down on a track.

Holliday is literally living the song and we believe her every time we hear it.

There are flashes of great art in Dreamgirls that leave the student slack-jawed with awe. The movie is framed by one such piece that is both perfect in its symmetry and poetic with its foreshadowing. At the start of Dreamgirls four sisters sing together at a talent show, they are not the Dreamgirls. At the end of the movie we see four different women -- four "sistahs" -- singing together and they are no longer the Dreamgirls; they are saying goodbye. The movie says hello and goodbye with startling clarity and a clear sense of purpose. This movie has been made with a goal in mind and with devotion to the source material. Another elegant touch can be found in the lyrical twist built into the two versions of "One Night Only". In Effie's offering, she sings about how her lover of one night does not have any more time for her. In the Dreams rendition by Deena Jones, the lyric is turned on its ear; now it is the singer, Deena, who doesn't have any more than one night for her latest conquest. While this touch does exist in the original Broadway musical, we would expect Hollywood to squelch a detail like this -- they are lacking in so much of what we watch in movies now -- it almost seems like a bonus when somebody bothers to put the effort into making the small touches that render real symbolism in the story.

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One of the performers who seems so willing to accept the significance and depth of the roles in Dreamgirls is Eddie Murphy. Murphy has astounded for years with his ease and flow on screen and yet he has never appeared in anything great. James "Thunder" Early is Murphy's greatest role, a perfect showcase for a man who should have and should be taking better parts. Murphy almost succeeds in erasing his most questionable choices of roles with his redemptive performance. His Early is tragic, sympathetic and conflictingly comedic. Murphy's skill is in his understanding and ultimate surrender to the part; it stands in perfect contradiction to the dumb-founded Jamie Foxx, who, as in Jarhead, seems utterly incapable of determining what he is doing; in the part, on screen and in the overall context of the story.

A similar criticism has been leveled at the acting ingenue Beyonce. Here, however, Condon found the right person. Beyonce's on-screen quizzical looks perfectly fit the climbing ambitions of the thin and "perfect" Deena. Beyonce never comes close to establishing a relationship with her audience beyond the lense, she is in love with the camera and herself, unwittingly she plays a uniquely correct Deena. Beyonce's reedy voice and undisciplined lack of breath control have been superbly exploited by the director and musical producers.

In contrast Jennifer Hudson does not even seem to notice the camera, she connects and offers compelling visuals throughout the movie. Hudson's voice is also exemplary, although her ability to interpret some of the songs is questionable. Where her interpretation and power could not encompass the universe of the original Dreamgirls themes, the cinematography steps in to render a new interpretation. In the later parts of the And I'm Telling You... scene, a flat-footed, bare legged and bruised Hudson performs for an empty room. Amidst the mirrors, the lights, the stage Hudson is not an iconic performer, she becomes a frail and angry child in an adult body. She is scorned and scornful at the same time and takes And I'm Telling You in a more personal direction. It has been reported that four versions of the song were interpreted by Hudson, the team chose the right one for her on screen. In all, Dreamgirls fulfills an essential requirement for great art, it creates a cohesive link between the story, the lyrics, the music, the times and its cast. Dreamgirls, the movie combines smaller pieces of art and design into a more complete whole.

Tomorrow: The Jennifer

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In an industry so utterly devoid of an ethical center, a humanistic soul and a purposeful mission, Dreamgirls astounds with an artful combination of flash, brilliance and truth amidst a sea of dis-belief suspending artifices. Why shouldn't it? Dreamgirls is ostensibly about the entertainment industry and about the only thing the entertainment industry ever gets right is itself. Remember how perfect everything felt about the era in Cameron Crowe's, Almost Famous? Well Dreamgirls is a genre picture like that with nearly maniacal dedication to art and symbolism thrown in for good measure.

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Of course there's more to Dreamgirls than the Hollywood treatment the original musical gets. There is, of course, the terribly important, gut wrenchingly important, important importance of it all against the back-drop of the greatest disease culling artistic terror since the Black Death. Can we ignore what Jennifer Holliday's monumental rendering of And I'm Telling You... has come to symbolize with the passing years? Rendered in honour of the memories of both lyricist Tom Eyen and director Michael Bennett it has become an anthem of love and loss but posited against an era of AIDS deaths it is an anthem. To ignore what Dreamgirls has meant to so many communities -- from opening night in 1981 -- and subsequently, to everyone that has been touched in some way by AIDS -- which is everyone -- would be to deny truth.

Now that we no longer live in the age of the blockbuster, Dreamgirls is as close as we can get to knowing that a community of artists, technicians, producers and financiers can still execute on a real dream. A big dream. Dreamgirls carries within it a reasonable facsimile of historic truth with the punch of artistic symbolism. We can no longer posit about what it might have done if released "on time" in 1984 or 1987 or 1991 or 1995. It didn't get released because it wasn't made then. We can't stop to think about how this picture compares in box office to Grease or Sound of Music or West Side Story because it has been released now, in the age of the long tail, the first era after hits were made. Somehow it seems fitting and with the silver anniversary of the Broadway musical a distant memory for many of us and completely unknown to a large percentage of its viewing audience, Dreamgirls -- the movie -- now delivers context to a different era. Think of how different it is. How many of us would have imagined the startling change in acceptance of gay marriage and adoption there has been. For most of us in Western societies -- save for America -- it doesn't matter anymore and it never should have. So Dreamgirls is about a memory of how it was; for women in the the '60's and the entertainment industry, for African Americans, for other minorities. It's all a memory isn't it? Things are better now aren't they? Say that and think of the things that still don't make any sense. The pitiful official response to tens of thousands stranded in New Orleans. The unwillingness to be moralistic in the Sudan while engaging with gusto elsewhere. The persecution of legitimate travelers and legal immigrants against a back-drop of nationally sponsored religious fervours. No, there really is nothing left for the classic story of Dreamgirls to tell us anymore, is there?

Tomorrow: Symbolism and Performance in Dreamgirls, the Movie

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From today through Wed. Feb. 21, I'll be taking a look at Dreamgirls, the show, the movie and the art. Today we kick off with an overview and a perspective on Dreamgirls rebuke by members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

In 1981 Michael Bennett brought Henry Krieger's and Tom Eyen's Dreamgirls to life after a period of workshopping in the late 1970's. For Bennett, Dreamgirls was not a necessary ingredient to define a successful career; A Chorus Line had cemented that, but it became the determinant in defining his greatness on Broadway. Dreamgirls did not win Best Musical at the 1982 Tony Awards but who hums songs from Nine in the shower these days? Within a couple of years of its opening, Dreamgirls had established itself as the premier musical of its era and stands as one of the greatest American musicals of the last 30 years.

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Dreamgirls the movie has lived as a promise since the early '80's. While various production attempts have been launched only one has succeeded in creating a finished product. As the 25th anniversary of the musical loomed, David Geffen leased the rights of Dreamgirls to director Bill Condon. The results speak for themselves. While most movie musicals of the past 25 to 30 years have been disappointing, Dreamgirls the movie, captures both the artifice and the attitude of the era it represents as well as the era in which it was produced. There will be no Best Picture award for Dreamgirls at the Oscars in 2007 but good art does not need an Oscar. Too often, the Oscar does not represent the epitome of art or creative insight. The Oscars exist in a complex web of political wrangling and PR hype. This year, Dreamgirls hype machine went overboard and caught a backlash from Academy members. One can only be thankful that the PR flacks cannot retroactively alter the results on screen.

It is probably worth reflecting upon why the shameful huckstering of Dreamgirls PR team was necessary. Why were so many put off by the intensive lobbying and the carpet bombing of the ads, the notices and the promos? In 1983, the Dreamgirls PR campaign would probably have caught fire but it was so relentlessly old school and so completely ignorant of modern social interactivity that it just smacked of arrogance. That said there were some master strokes in the concepts, one being the payment of all performance royalties by Dreamworks for amateur companies performing Dreamgirls in 2006. In the final analysis however, PR blather resulted in a net loss for an astonishing piece of big box office art. As consumers, we are not the losers as we still got to see the picture and can return again and again. No, only the star making machinery of Geffen's world is the loser and I scarcely think the Ferraris will be repossessed in anyone's driveway on Mulholland as result of going over the top of even Hollywood's elongated tolerance for marketing guff. So let's forget the Oscar's and look at the art.

Tomorrow: Dreamgirls, Hollywood and Art

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Sometime between today -- Jan 2, 2007 -- and the 2007 Academy Awards I will be declaring Dreamgirls Week at bradfordgibson.net.

Now for those of you who expect this site to be all about technology, business and podcasting... well it's my personal site too and you know that I have made forays into the musical realm before. I still get a significant number of site hits from the Google search string "I want to write a musical".

Before I dip my toe into the Dream Girls water I need your help. If you want to contribute then please get in touch with me. I'm talking to sound gurus like Derek K Miller (see you at Northern Voice 2007), food/wine/cinema critics like Ethan Johnson (whose simple "wow" is high praise indeed) and media divas like Leesa Barnes. This is my open casting call for essays and scholarship on one of the greatest artistic events of our lifetimes. How about some thought being put to:

Or if you can't hack the academic stuff, try comparing it to other earthquakes like Saturday Night Fever, Les Miserables or the birth of Jazz. If by some troubled route you know it's big but you just don't like it... well okay, I want to hear about that too.

And I'm Telling You, Go now and do your research. I am available by way of comment here, the "feedback" menu choice at the web site or GollyGeeMail... thebradcast... then use the at symbol then type in Gmail period com.