All the same, Audrey will always be Liza Doolittle to me. never saw the Broadway production or the 1938 movie.
I was always far more interested in the content/plot (Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw)--which was not a musical) than I was the music. My Fair Lady is about the only musical I actually like... and while the songs are classic, it …
All the same, Audrey will always be Liza Doolittle to me. never saw the Broadway production or the 1938 movie.
I was always far more interested in the content/plot (Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw)--which was not a musical) than I was the music. My Fair Lady is about the only musical I actually like... and while the songs are classic, it isn't the songs that attracted me.
My Fair Lady/Pygmalion was one of the things I used to teach in 12th grade English.
And yes, Julie Andrews was a fantastic singer/actor, so props to her.
People always liked to screw around with the ending, because the original ending did not satisfy audiences who were focused on the romance aspect of the plot rather than the social commentary of the play. Shaw was all about the social commentary aspect.
My Fair Lady followed in the tradition of modifying the ending to give the audience the more expected romantic ending.
Shaw, himself, was actually deceased when the movie was made and shown, IIRC--but his response to it would have been predictable based upon his response to earlier efforts/variations that did the same thing.
Shaw didn't 'resolve' the romantic question one way or the other in the original, and so producers were able to make up what they wanted. As you mention, it was only after some of those productions were performed that he explained how he actually saw it ending.
How an original author perceives their work and the way it is presented in different media - legend, book, theatre or movie - is seldom an exact copy. Shaw used a tale from Roman mythology for the basic plot line. That was modified into a musical which became a movie. To claim Shaw as the ultimate arbiter of correct plot line is a limited approach to the creative process. To claim a deceased author’s presumed preference to which contemporary artist gets a role in a movie as “fact” is best viewed as a statement of personal preference.
It is true that once a creative work is released, the creator has no control over it :) (exception being if someone miquotes the actual work or uses it for profit without permission)
There is the finer points of copyright law but when a work is based on mythology it opens the question of ownership. There has always been the special category of oral tradition stories in indigenous cultures that come with the understanding that those stories belong to the people who are part of the living tradition and should not be copied or reused unless one has the permission of the group or group representative.
This does not apply to the stories of “classical” Geek and Roman mythology. However if an artist or author bases a work on Roman mythology such as the story that was the inspiration of Pygmalion and gets published, that exact iteration does have a copyright for the stipulated number of years. But taking the tale from print to a musical and changing the ending, it could be argued, makes it a different entity than the print version, with the implication that using the original story from mythology does not infringe on copyright. Who gets to play the lead role when the work goes from musical to film is up to producers and directors. Every armchair critic has a right to their own opinion on who that should have been.
All the same, Audrey will always be Liza Doolittle to me. never saw the Broadway production or the 1938 movie.
I was always far more interested in the content/plot (Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw)--which was not a musical) than I was the music. My Fair Lady is about the only musical I actually like... and while the songs are classic, it isn't the songs that attracted me.
My Fair Lady/Pygmalion was one of the things I used to teach in 12th grade English.
And yes, Julie Andrews was a fantastic singer/actor, so props to her.
GB Shaw took issue with My Fair Lady's ending iirc.
People always liked to screw around with the ending, because the original ending did not satisfy audiences who were focused on the romance aspect of the plot rather than the social commentary of the play. Shaw was all about the social commentary aspect.
My Fair Lady followed in the tradition of modifying the ending to give the audience the more expected romantic ending.
Shaw, himself, was actually deceased when the movie was made and shown, IIRC--but his response to it would have been predictable based upon his response to earlier efforts/variations that did the same thing.
Shaw didn't 'resolve' the romantic question one way or the other in the original, and so producers were able to make up what they wanted. As you mention, it was only after some of those productions were performed that he explained how he actually saw it ending.
How an original author perceives their work and the way it is presented in different media - legend, book, theatre or movie - is seldom an exact copy. Shaw used a tale from Roman mythology for the basic plot line. That was modified into a musical which became a movie. To claim Shaw as the ultimate arbiter of correct plot line is a limited approach to the creative process. To claim a deceased author’s presumed preference to which contemporary artist gets a role in a movie as “fact” is best viewed as a statement of personal preference.
It is true that once a creative work is released, the creator has no control over it :) (exception being if someone miquotes the actual work or uses it for profit without permission)
There is the finer points of copyright law but when a work is based on mythology it opens the question of ownership. There has always been the special category of oral tradition stories in indigenous cultures that come with the understanding that those stories belong to the people who are part of the living tradition and should not be copied or reused unless one has the permission of the group or group representative.
This does not apply to the stories of “classical” Geek and Roman mythology. However if an artist or author bases a work on Roman mythology such as the story that was the inspiration of Pygmalion and gets published, that exact iteration does have a copyright for the stipulated number of years. But taking the tale from print to a musical and changing the ending, it could be argued, makes it a different entity than the print version, with the implication that using the original story from mythology does not infringe on copyright. Who gets to play the lead role when the work goes from musical to film is up to producers and directors. Every armchair critic has a right to their own opinion on who that should have been.
Interesting stuff here :)