Yankee Doodle Dandy (Michael Curtiz, 1942)Adam & Sam's take"Oh, I'm an ordinary guy who knows what ordinary guys like to see."Going into this blind, the film I found myself thinking about a lot watching this was, weirdly enough, Barton Fink. Perhaps more than any other art form, cinema has a strange relationship with its public. It's one of the most popular art forms and, like Barton Fink, it seeks to cultivate that closeness but, well, people making movies are still artists, with all the remove that implies from "ordinary guys". All of which is a long-winded way of saying that a patriotic war-time film about a populist flag-waving entertainer trying to achieve success on Broadway seemed like it would be fertile ground for reflecting on that relationship, and to a degree it is... my favorite scene here is the "Mary" song (as sung by Mary), which clearly adresses some of those issues and is really the only song that stands out in the whole film as being more than just, well, populist entertainment. This particular song is then given by Cohan to an established Broadway actress, and I thought the film (about 45 minutes in I think) was getting to its point, with the conflict boiling up between the need for "honest" roots as well as artistic recognition... and to my surprise, it completely ignores the issue when Mary doesn't mind. "Weird", I thought...
And then it turned out to be a biopic. Ah, that explains it.
I didn't recognize the name "George Cohan", but I sure did know "Over There", a song you wouldn't attribute to a fictional character our of nowehere, and from then it became pretty clear that I was expecting too much from this. We're not meant to feel ambiguous about Cohan : he's an all-American hero, standing for all that's true and beautiful about the home of the brave and land of the free. Patriotism is awesome, don't listen to the snotty high society turning up their nose at populism and please do enlist.
That doesn't mean Yankee Doodle Dandy isn't fun to watch, it very much is. James Cagney, while he clearly cannot sing, is extremely charismatic and watching him tapdance his way into success is certainly enjoyable. The moment (which Adam & Sam also single out) at the end of the film, where he starts dancing in the stairs after being awarded his medal, is a nice summation of his performance : spontaneous and extremely charming. I'm a little disappointed the film didn't turn out to be particularly interested in the tension inherent to a man rising up to fame being called "the Yankee Doodle Boy" ? Yes I am. But, largely thanks to Cagney, it's pretty good at being a straight biopic, so that's alright.
6/10