‘Evita’s’ Journey

LONDON —  Two very different Englishmen sit together on a sofa and discuss “Evita,” the $60-million film musical about Argentine first lady Eva Peron that brought them together in an unlikely partnership.

On the left: cockney-accented Alan Parker, director of ambitious but commercial films in various genres, ranging from “Fame” and “Midnight Express” to “Mississippi Burning” and “The Commitments.” On the right, speaking in the tones of a minor British aristocrat, is Andrew Lloyd Webber, the world’s most successful musical composer, whose staged works, including “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera,” fill theaters everywhere.

Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice wrote “Evita” 20 years ago but have since gone their separate ways. And several directors of world renown have had their names attached to a possible “Evita” film. But Parker finally started shooting in Buenos Aires last January, having chosen Madonna as his Eva Peron. Parker and Lloyd Webber worked closely to rescore and refashion the work, which opens Wednesday.

At Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful company offices last week they talked of Madonna’s performance and her criticisms of the script’s portrayal of Eva; how Rice briefly reunited with Lloyd Webber to write a new song for the film; and the future of the film musical. The two men were amiable and jovial: “The main difference between us,” said the left-of-center Parker about the conservative Lloyd Webber, “is our politics.”

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Question: How long have you two known each other?

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Parker: Only two years, when I agreed to do the film. I went round to Andrew’s house and we had our first proper chat about it.

Q: But you’d been interested in making the film 20 years ago.

Parker: When the album first came out [in 1976] I asked David Land, who then managed Andrew and Tim, if they would like to make it as a movie. The message came back--the boys want to do it on stage.

Lloyd Webber: Hal Prince wanted to do “Evita” in the theater. He’s one of my idols, so I wanted that, too. But I’ve been a huge fan of Alan’s since “Bugsy Malone,” which I thought was extraordinary. It continually comes home to you as a theater composer that no one’s tackled the musical in cinema for years and years.

One of my collaborators, Don Black, once said to me: The guvnor [boss] is Alan Parker, he’s the only one who could ever direct an entire musical film. So when Alan’s name came up, I said, yes, please. So we met--and I think we got on, didn’t we?

Parker: I think so. We’re still talking now, Andrew, so that says something.

Lloyd Webber: Alan said to me, “I understand you’re very difficult.”

Parker: As he did. I think the phrase came out of our mouths at the same time.

Lloyd Webber: We seem to be still standing.

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Q: Andrew, had you given up on ever seeing “Evita” on screen?

Lloyd Webber: If you’ve written a lot of stuff, there comes a point when new work overtakes you, you’re thinking of the next project and you forget the old ones. I wouldn’t say I ever gave up on an “Evita” film, but I wasn’t pushing to make it happen. You get resigned and say, “Maybe it will.”

Q: When it finally happened, was it hard to relinquish control?

Lloyd Webber: No. The joy of working in another medium is understanding its imperatives. For instance, “Evita” originally had a game of musical chairs.

Parker: It was a theatrical device. . . .

Lloyd Webber: . . . And unless you stage it like Bob Fosse there’s no way you could do it on film.

Parker: I also brought back a song on the album, “The Lady’s Got Potential,” which was dropped for the stage because the lyrics didn’t seem relevant. But I needed a song to illustrate the rise of Peronism, so Tim rewrote the lyrics to show what was happening at that point in the film.

Q: To reunite you with Tim Rice again, did Alan act as a mediator?

Parker: [laughs] Boutros-Boutros Parker.

Lloyd Webber: Tim and I know each other pretty well and we have the odd dinner every now and again. He’s a strange guy in my view, a kind of chameleon. We always leave swearing undying love, saying we’ll do 20 pop songs together, but we never seem to end up doing it.

But it was no great difficulty to get the lyric [of the one new song, “You Must Love Me”] out of him. He got it done extremely quickly.

Parker: When I met Tim at Andrew’s house in France, I was piggy-in-the-middle. We discussed everything that needed changing for the film. We’re all strong individuals, and Andrew and Tim are not the kind of people who change for the sake of it. My logic had to be correct.

Lloyd Webber: Tim can be prickly with people at first, and was a little defensive, saying why should we change this?

Parker: Of course, it’s hard to go back and change something which is 20 years old. Any writer would have difficulty.

Lloyd Webber: But we were dealing with a different entity. There was no way the film could stay the same. So few musicals have been filmed recently, so it was a voyage of discovery.

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Q: I gather the first day’s recording of the soundtrack was a disaster.

Parker: I called that first day Black Monday.

Lloyd Webber: Alan and I had dinner that first night and decided we had to go and talk to Madonna to see how she felt. Because something was very wrong.

Parker: The logistics were wrong. We were working by trial and error. Three worlds were colliding: musical theater, pop and film. And we made the serious mistake of doing the giant aria “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” on the first day.

Lloyd Webber: But we got it right in 48 hours. And on that Friday we did the greatest orchestral session we ever did.

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Q: Alan, what do you feel about Madonna’s performance?

Parker: It’s inconceivable now that anyone could have played it as well as she played it. For the lament, the deathbed scene, she goes somewhere she’s never been before as an actor.

Lloyd Webber: It’s an extraordinary fit of image and person. She totally vindicates the choice. It’s an adroit and extraordinarily observed piece of work. She’s a very clever woman and took on something that she obviously knew she needed and could do. We couldn’t have asked for it to be done better. Alan could have chosen a different actress but the synergy she brings to the part transcends anything else.

Q: But, Andrew, you had reservations about her.

Lloyd Webber: About something quite specific. At a press conference in Australia four years ago, when “Evita” was not on the hot list to be made as a movie, I said I was worried the film starts with Eva at 15, and maybe, bearing in mind the film might not be made until next century, Madonna might be too old. The question was asked in that context. But I never doubted it would be a good idea.

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Q: Madonna told this newspaper she felt “Evita” portrayed Eva Peron unfairly, that it was written from a male chauvinist point of view and that she persuaded Alan to change it.

Parker: I spoke to her about that. She hadn’t seen the film when she said it. Did she change or manipulate anything? The truth is, whatever she’s done or I’ve done, you can’t escape the heart of the original piece, which is Tim and Andrew’s work.

Lloyd Webber: If you’re an actress playing Eva Peron, you try and get under the skin of the character. Madonna would want to be Evita.

Parker: When she went to Buenos Aires, she met all these people who knew Eva, because she wanted to love her, to like her, to be her. So her responsibility was the portrayal of the role. She didn’t affect the point of view of the movie.

Q: Would you two collaborate on another film musical?

Parker: I’d direct another musical, though maybe not immediately. But you know, no one’s ever been able to persuade Andrew to do an original score for a musical film. Now I have an in, maybe he’ll do it for me one day.

Lloyd Webber: If Alan would work with me again, I’d be delighted. “Evita” leaves people with the thought that people can sing on screen once more. The exciting thing is, it’s been made at all. It’s taken Alan to convince people who maybe don’t understand what the musical has been and can be, to try it again. It’s a huge kick-start.

Parker: Studios want most other films to fail, but all studios want ‘Evita” to succeed. Because they all have musicals ready to go.