Movie Review: La Cage Aux Folles x2

Podcast Episode: COMING SOON

---

            Welcome folks! I’m Al and this is the podcast of the Holiday Pride: A Pittsburgh LGBT+ Community Museum.

            Warning: conversations about racism, homophobia, and slight sexual content such as frank descriptions of sexual organs.

            Silly warning: I have made the great mistake of watching a French-Italian movie knowing full well that I can’t pronounce any of the words or names. Please forgive my inability to reliably say the same thing correctly more than once.

            La Cage Aux Folles is a stage play from the 1960s and it has been adapted to the screen a number of times. I watched two versions. La Cage Aux Folles a 1979 French-Italian film and The Birdcage a 1996 American film.

            I have seen The Birdcage before…but I do not remember it. I remembered the plot just enough to realize that it is an adaption of La Cage Aux Folles as I was watching the French-Italian film. However, I don’t remember the movie well at all. I was only going to review La Cage Aux Folles as I hadn’t seen it before, but as I watched and got random, faint memories of watching The Birdcage I knew I wanted to compare them. It helped that I was able to find both of these films for free on YouTube which I will link in the description. I hoped I would be able to find a third version, but alas, these were the only two I could find.

            These two movies most certainly come from the same source material, but approached it in very different cultural ways. La Cage Aux Folles was filmed with French and Italian actors in 1979 while The Birdcage was filmed in America in the 1990s. As politics feature relatively heavily in the plot, there’s a lot of references to the particular nation the film takes place in’s politics, but also the different filming styles between nations and time periods also changes the humor and storytelling.

For sake of ease, and mostly my ability to pronounce words, I will use the names from The Birdcage. To be clear, the names are different between the two movies. In La Cage Aux Folles, the names are very Italian and French, but I will butcher them every time I attempt to say them so to reduce my editing time and to protect your ears, I’ll stick with the 90s names.

In general, the plot of these movies is focused on a gay couple, Armond and Albert, who own and run a drag club. Albert is the star performer. Armond’s son Val, who is from a fling he had as a young man, comes to visit and tell his father he found a girl, Barbara, he wants to marry despite being 20 years old. The girl’s parents, Laura and Kevin, are ultra conservative people and her father is typically part of some organization that claims to be the moral authority. She, worried about what her parents will think, tells them that Val’s parents are an ambassador to Greece and a very traditional housewife.

Then the leader of Kevin’s moral authority group, of which he is the secondary leader, dies. Specifically, he dies in bed, with a black prostitute who is a minor (remember that racism warning, it gets kind of worse form here). Essentially, the exact opposite of the ‘moral’ people they championed. This makes Kevin a target for the press. His wife, Laura, suggests that their daughter getting married very traditionally to an ambassador’s son will save their image. So, they go to meet Val and his parents, with the press following them thanks to their bribed driver.

Meanwhile, Val gets a warning from Barabara about the lie and he begs Armond to help him by pretending to be an ambassador and conservative. Which includes sending Albert, a true drama queen, away and completely making over their home to be significantly less gay as its full of sculptures with penises. At first Armond doesn’t want to do this, but folds to his son and then fails to explain everything to Albert. Some shenanigans ensue including Armond going to ask Val’s mother, who had no hand in raising Val, to pretend to be his wife. Now, Albert helped raised Val from the beginning, and he doesn’t like when Armond talks to Val’s mother because she always tries to get Armond to have sex with her.

Regardless, she agrees to help, there are a few more shenanigans, and then the dinner happens. Armond and Albert have a very gay maid/servant/helping hand who tries to be a proper butler, Armond attempts to act less gay, Albert gives up being a masculine uncle and hides in his room, and Barabara and her family arrive highly suspicious. Armond and Val struggle to keep the conversation moving along while Val’s mother get’s caught up, queue Albert coming in in full drag.

They bumble through the night until everything starts to fall apart. Eventually the lie is outed, Kevin and Laura know that they’re gay men and they’re above a drag club (it’s made clear that Kevin and Laura are so straight they don’t consider the idea that Albert is in drag while Armond and Albert are too busy to care about the news so they don’t know about the scandal to be clear). Furious, Barabara gets disowned/forced to leave with them, however, the press has found them as well, so they’re trapped inside.

Albert comes up with the idea to dress the family in drag and help them escape by dancing out of the club. Both movies end with the marriage between Val and Barabara, with all of their parents attending.

It’s a quirky, campy, queer story and, like I said, both films took culturally different approaches to this story. They’re two very different films with opposing strengths and weaknesses. While I enjoyed the first half of the French movie more, I enjoyed the second half of the American movie just as much. So, to compare these, I’m going to break the plot down by scene because both films had just about all of the same scenes.

Both movies begin with a long shot moving through the titular La Cage Aux Folles in the French version and the Birdcage in the American. The camera at La Cage Aux Folles is surrounded by a bunch of queens dancing together, some dressed overly feminine and the others as overly masculine. They all have the same makeup which makes them look like mimes. You know, the tiny lip makeup and ghostly white faces?

Meanwhile, the American club has a bunch of queens on stage lip-syncing “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge. Armond is going around talking to patrons and workers alike while his stage manager is asking where Albert is. In the French version, they’re also wondering where Albert is, but the difference here is that in the French version, Armond is doing his best to get Albert ready for the show while in America, their maid, Agador is dealing with Albert.

A quick side note. In the French version of the movie, their servant’s name is Jacob, and he is a black man. In the American, it’s Agador, a young man from Guatemala. A lot of the racism that’s in these movies is often directed at these two. Jokes about slavery, blackness, brownness, mexicanness—it’s all in there. They’re slung as ‘playful’ banter between a young man and his employers. Both movies make it really clear that both Agador and Jacob love working for their bosses, it’s just a bit awkward with modern eyes that both of their bosses are white. Jacob calls both Armond and Albert ‘master’ or ‘mistress’ in turn.

An important thing to point out here, is that racism in Europe is incredibly different from racism in the US. I don’t know enough about the French and their relationship with systematic racism, but I guarantee you it acts and looks different than in the US and it’s certainly viewed, fought, and understood differently as well. I don’t know if Jacob calling them ‘master’ is a bit, a returning jab from him to them. I also don’t know how dated those jokes are over there. I will say that it’s racism regardless.

The racism directed at Agador, I’m familiar with and it is dated and bad. If you do seek out either of these films, just be aware that there’s racist jokes in both.

Moving on! The whole issue when we finally see Albert is that he’s having a dramatic tantrum about his age and that Armond doesn’t love him anymore. In the French version, this is partially solved by Armond grabbing a doctor who lives next door. He calms Albert down with promises of no medications while in America, Armond suggests that another queen gets to have the spot light which breaks Albert out of it. Albert also asks Agador for ‘pirin’ pills which is just aspirin with the a and s scratched off, as Agador lets Armond know secretly later.

Once calm, Albert and Armond have a conversation about how Albert has been losing weight to make himself seem prettier or has been trying to get Armond to tell him he’s pretty. This has led Albert to the conclusion that Armond doesn’t love him anymore and may or may not be cheating on him. In France, Albert is really being a brat here, accusing Armond of a bunch of things and not letting him defend himself or listening to him when he tries. The same is true in the American version, but in France, when Albert says the line “Go ahead, hit me! I know you want to,”…Armond does hit him. In America, he simply pushes him off of his chest. In France, Armond hits him in the eye.

We don’t see the hit, but there’s a pretty hard cut from Albert saying “Go ahead hit me” and him rushing out of the bedroom in full drag singing opera and holding a cloth to his eye with Armond following him shaking his hands. It’s hard to say that it did happen, but that’s the joke. Which leads me to some filming style differences between these movies. Some cultural ones too.

For starters, the actors play these characters very differently. The American actors (Albert is Nathan Lane and Armond is Robin Williams, by the way) are far more expressive, they physically say more things too. They explain their feelings and jokes way more. In comparison, the French actors (also both very famous actors over there) are much quieter verbally. They say a lot in their actions and their faces. You have to pay attention to what they do say and what their faces are doing in order to catch their meaning.

The editing compliments the French movie far more than the American. It was snappy and punchy, cutting hard and fast to different scenes that increase the hilarity of the last look made or last words said. More than once, the cut following a funny line made me laugh more than I would have from the line alone. There were few different viewpoints in scenes, so we’re left with shots of the actors hamming it up. The editing set up future jokes, making sure that us, the viewers saw something the actors hadn’t yet such as a plate depicting Greek men having sex. The camera shows us the plates at dinner with Kevin and Laura and then pans up to all of the characters sitting at the table. I gasped out loud when I saw the plate and all of them sitting, which made the following gag funnier.

The editing in the American movie, however, wasn’t that important? It just moved us from one scene to the next. There were only one or two cuts that tried to nail the same effect as the French movie and they weren’t as funny. For one, instead of hard cutting the moment the line was finished, the scene lingers longer than they need to, lessening the impact of the cut. I also found the American movie less funny only because they, perhaps accidentally, removed a lot of the irony. However, I’ll get to the missing irony a bit later, there’s a scene that better captures the difference.

So! Moving on. Albert is no longer weeping and finally goes on stage. A short note there, In France, Albert just sings and dances, in America, Albert has a comedy show? And then sings, he doesn’t lip-sync or anything. Anyway! While Albert’s on stage, Armond rushes upstairs and has Agador help him set up some food and drink before sending him away from the night. It really makes it seem like Armond is cheating. Especially when a young man comes to the door and they act very close.

However, it turns out that the young man is just Val, Armond’s son who requested the alone time because he wanted to break the news to his dad that he is getting married. Armond acts upset and briefly mocks that he will disown his son over this. Val, not taking the bait, just agrees to go which makes Armond fold. Of course he’s happy for his son, just worried. His son is 20 and met the girl in school (another side note, for some reason the American movie makes Barabara 18 instead of 20? It’s not that way in the French version).

Then we cut to Barabara and her terrible parents. In both versions, her parents are well off politicians and housewives. In France, Kevin is the advisor or second in command of the Pillar of Morality party. In America, he’s the vice president of the morality coalition and is a Republican Senator, because we must never break from the two party system here in the grand US of A.

Their home is often dark and gloomy. In this meeting, Barbara attempts, kind of, to tell them the truth, but ends up lying when they ask her what Val’s parents do. She tells them that Armond is an ambassador and Albert is a housewife. So, truly identical scenes, even Val calling her in the middle of it and Armond being forced on the phone and accidentally breaking his wine glass in an attempt at ‘cheering’ their future marriage on the phone in his nerves. In fact, this scene is practically identical, to Kevin almost catching her in a lie and her other family in the room (Mom in America and Grandma in France) helping her out. Even then, Barbara’s actress is  equally as wooden in both versions! Nothing against these actresses, but they don’t emote too much and they both look like a deer in headlights the whole time, although in America, she finds her footing in the second half. Regardless, the lie is mostly harmless and to get her parents off her back. Especially since she doesn’t think they’re ever going to have to meet.

The next day, Albert is excitedly getting his shopping done, happy that Val is home. After all, he and Armond met and started dating 20 years ago and seeing as Val’s mother isn’t in the picture and doesn’t even know her son, Albert clearly was Val’s mother figure. Armond tells him the news and Albert reacts identically to how Armond does, not overly happy, but letting it go since it makes Val happy.

This cuts to the president of France or the fellow republican in America, dying and found in very compromising positions. The American version makes some really funny jokes about the press like already getting the young girl the senator was in bed with to interview with them. Anyway, Larua suggests that the wedding between Barbara and Val will save them which, of course, leads to Val begging Armond for help without knowing what exactly is riding on this diner for Kevin.

Armond initially rejects the whole thing because he is happy and Val wants to send Albert away because there’s no way Albert will pass as a straight man. However, he eventually folds and then fails miserably to send Albert away just for the night. In France, Albert catches on right away and Armond just tells him what’s going on and he’s rightfully mad. In America, a really typically sit com scene occurs where Armond fakes an injury or says the wrong thing, and is too afraid to actually say what’s going on…it goes on for too long.

Either way, Albert bursts back into their home to find all of their decorations gone because Val jumped the gun on cleaning everything up. Albert runs out, upset and Armond follows him and pretty much instantly caves and tells Albert he can stay. That lands them in a local restaurant who knows them well (most of the locals do and are often happy to see them).

This is the scene where the lack of irony in America is really obvious. In this scene, Armond is trying to coach Albert through doing masculine gestures. In the French and American versions, Albert is trying to spread something on bread before destroying it trying too hard. To start, Albert has his pinkie up and is very dainty and feminine in doing the task which Armond scolds him for and tells him to do it firmly and tough, like a man! However, in the French version, Albert is holding the bread so tightly that it shatters in his hand and he does it twice. In the American version, he only does the bit once and he stabs the bread instead. The difference here is comedic timing. The French version has really funny timing of when the bread breaks, usually when Albert shakily says he managed to do it right or asks Armond if he did.

At the end of this bit, Armond tells Albert he did okay before telling Albert to walk like John Wayne instead of being swishy. However! In the French version, before the walking conversation, Armond goes to take a drink and Albert shakily points out that Armond is holding the glass with his pinkie out just like how he was yelling at Albert for doing. Armond, without hesitation or realizing the irony, says ‘oh it just does that’ just like Albert did before Armond yelled at him again.

See, Armond is far more visibly masculine than Albert throughout both movies. Albert is very feminine, very stereotypical gay man who is also a drag queen. Meanwhile, Armond is in suits and has a nice, thick, manly mustache. This whole time, it’s implied that Albert is the one who is too feminine, too obviously gay and needs to be coached, meanwhile Armond is just as bad! He has the same gestures. He has the same habits and also has to correct himself. He’s just the one who is more visually masculine and therefore ‘passes’. This is an irony that is consistent throughout the French movie and…insists is there in the American movie.

No offense to Robin Williams, he’s a great actor and really funny comedian, but he just didn’t do the gestures. He didn’t have that air of a gay man to him. Enough so that the other characters, especially Val, had to insist that he had such gestures that just weren’t visually there. Meanwhile, both actors in the French movie killed it! There’s a scene where Albert is running away and Armond is chasing him and they are running the same exact stereotypical way. It makes the visual humor of the French movie that much better in the first half.

There’s another bit of cultural or structure differences between the movies. I felt like Armond and Albert truly have been in love for 20 years and are an old married couple who know each other really well. Armond is so used to Albert’s dramatics and Albert knows when Armond is being serious or not but ensures he knows he’s not happy with him. Armond never out right apologizes to Albert for insults, instead he makes grand gestures or small actions to make it clear that he does love and care deeply for Albert.

I wasn’t so convinced of that in the American version. Nathan Lane nailed Albert, but Robin Williams was a bit stiff and just came across as an asshole most of the time and almost not a lovable one. In fact, in the end of this restaurant scene, Albert is called a slur in the French version and when he tells Armond, Armond instantly goes to defend his honor, even if its against an extremely tall man. In the American version, this fight occurs because Armond is being a jerk to a very tall man.

It made me a bit sad, because I really liked Albert and Armond’s relationship in the French version. They felt like a real couple. Alas, they’re different films.

Moving forward, Armond gets the idea to ask Val’s mother to help them. Both Albert and Val aren’t super happy with that idea. Val doesn’t like his mother because she abandoned them when he was born. Albert doesn’t like her because the last time Armond saw her, she tried to have sex with him…and also abandoned them when Val was born.

They go regardless and she does exactly as Albert suspects, making him leave Armond behind. Val’s mother agrees to help anyway as Armond rushes after Albert to make up with him.

This time, Albert is a bit more serious sounding. He tells Armond he’s leaving because he’s not wanted. When asked where he’s going, he tells them he’s going to a cemetery. Armond’s apology is a speech about how Albert is annoying and dramatic and ridiculous, but he makes him laugh. So his current grave plot he has bought in a fancy, pretty cemetery will have to be traded out for a plot beside Albert in the shitty cemetery he was going to so he ‘never misses a laugh’. It’s a sweet sentiment in both films, but in the American version, a legal ‘partnership’ is tacked onto the end.

See, as the American movie takes place in 1996 and there isn’t legal marriage for gay folks, there are legal ways for queer folks to be basically married. Armond gives Albert the paperwork for their palimony, making them legal partners.

So, they return and Albert attempts to appear masculine in a suit and realizes that he can’t do it so he locks himself in his room. Val’s mother is on the way, and Barbara and her family have arrived.

Agador, who is typically barefoot but has to wear dress shoes, does a bunch of physical comedy attempting to not fall (and fails). Armond is bad at talking. Val is trying his best, so to are Kevin, Laura, and Barbara…it’s just a mess. Queue Albert bursting onto the scene in drag when Val’s mother continues to be delayed getting to them. And Albert kills it.

In France, all of the characters are a bit smarter, so Albert doesn’t fully trick Kevin or Larua, but he’s at least helping with the lies and filling the silence with noise so it’s less painfully awkward. In America? He’s the star of the show! He’s charming Kevin (almost charming the pants off of him). There isn’t a single suspicion that he’s in drag—and this is where the two movies differ the most.

This diner scene in the French version goes fast. Albert shows up, they cover up plates of Greek men having sex, then Albert is revealed, a parade of their employees (also drag queens) come in to celebrate their anniversary, and the lie is revealed again. In the American version, this diner goes on for some time. These movies are about the same length with the American version a bit longer, and that time goes into the diner scene.

In the American version, Val and Armond are in physical pain as Albert masterfully agrees with just every crazy republican thing Kevin says. He has him utterly charmed with him and comes up with excellent lies and just rules the night. By the way, there’s a bit in this version where their last name has to be changed from ‘Goldman’ to ‘Coleman’, that’s GOLD MAN to COLE MAN, because Val and Armond are Jewish which is another strike against them as this is America and Christians hate all non-Christians including Catholics. So, Albert comes up with a good lie for all of that confusion and he just does such a good job.

 It all still falls apart, however. Albert’s wig still gets jolted and they hurry off to fix it. While they’re gone, Val’s mother arrives, causing obvious confusion. Then, another important difference between the movies.

When Kevin asks how many mothers Val has, Armond in the French version tells him that Albert is the only mother. In America, Val is the one to call Albert his mother and the difference suits the different movies. In America, Armond isn’t so much the problem. He doesn’t want to do any of this, he’s upset he has to hide in the closet, and he gives into Albert easily. It’s Val who wants to hide it all away far more, and him admitting that Albert is his mother is a really important thing in this film. In France, Armond thinks Albert is the problem here and that he’s just ‘giving in’ and that his mannerisms aren’t as bad as Albert’s, but him revealing Albert is to show that he really doesn’t care about any of this and he is who he is, mannerisms and all.

Regardless, Kevin and Laura want to leave in a huff, in France they disown Barbara who refuses to go with them while in America, Barbara tries to resist them, but ends up folding and going to follow, only for them to open the door to find the press outside and gathering in mass to catch Kevin at a drag club and put another nail in the coffin of his moral authority group.

Trapped, they consider what to do until Albert gets the idea to disguise Kevin and his family as queens so they can get past the press without being spotted. In both versions, there’s a line from Kevin complaining that the white dress they put him in makes him look fat, one last little piece of irony, before they get through the club and into a getaway car.

Both movies end at Val and Barbara’s wedding. The French movie ends with Albert and Armond arguing as the credits roll by, Albert once again being dramatic over Val’s mother being there. In America, it’s a very nice ceremony where both sides of the isle are glaring suspiciously at each other and there are two religious men, one Jewish, one Christian. Both sets of parents are there and it’s a happy ending.

While both movies are startling similar, they are also so incredibly different. While I really liked the first half of the French movie, where the establishment of Albert and Armond as characters is really good and funny, I much preferred the second half of the American movie where Albert saves the day more than once.

I didn’t like the rampant racism in both films. I also probably won’t watch them again. I can see why they are well loved at the time they were made. It’s nothing horribly whacky, but they’re silly and meant to be campy. I did enjoy them and some of the non-racist jokes made me laugh.

I’d recommend them to anyone mentally ready to handle dated jokes and some offensive language. There is something timeless about this story. I could see this story working today with very few differences but some updated jokes. I’d love to see the stage performance both movies are based off of and maybe note the differences there too.

That was a review of La Cage Aux Folles and The Bird Cage by the Holiday Pride. Thank you for listening and thank you for sticking around.