Director Bill Condon‘s vision for adapting “Kiss of the Spider Woman” for the big screen was to draw inspiration from the old MGM musicals. Specifically, Vincente Minnelli’s productions from the golden age of Hollywood.
Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel “Kiss of the Spider Woman” was first turned into a movie by director Héctor Babenco in 1985. Condon’s version, now in theaters, is based on the stage musical by Terrence McNally, John Kander and Fred Ebb. It stars Jennifer Lopez in the dual roles of screen goddess Ingrid and the sultry and seductive Aurora.
Production designer Scott Chambliss was instructed by Condon to “mimic as closely as we possibly could the style of those movies and not filter it through contemporary tastes.” Those films included “An American in Paris,” “Gigi” and “Ziegfeld Follies.“
However, the film’s plot meant that Chambliss felt like he was making two movies in one. Set in Argentina in 1983, as a military dictatorship rules the country, Luis (Tonatiuh), a gay window dresser, is imprisoned with Valentin (Diego Luna), a political prisoner. Luis hangs a poster of his favorite movie star, Ingrid, and spends his time fantasizing about Ingrid as Aurora.
For the showstopping musical numbers, which play as a fantasy in Luis’ mind, Chambliss says, “We were always referring back to Vincente and his work.” He adds, “Sometimes, it was his less successful movies that we were looking at for inspiration, like ‘Yolanda and the Thief.’”
For designing the prison cell, Chambliss explains, “In looking at that tiny cell and the drama of those two men and the horror of the prison they were in, it felt like this prison had to be operatic in its drama and in its visual style. That’s what led us directly to the location we chose to be our prison in Montevideo, which is this grand, scary-as-hell ruin of what used to be a prison.”
The two stories are intimately tied together through the characters. For Aurora’s lair, Chambliss was inspired by the musicals of Hollywood’s golden age, specifically the 1953 film “Sombrero.” “Cyd Charisse is dancing on a soundstage on a fake-ass mountaintop with the two-dimensional painted backdrop right behind her head, and these ridiculous-looking sculptures and rocks. It’s the most fabulous thing ever,” he says. The sheer artificiality of that scene was something he and Condon wanted to capture. “The Spider Woman’s lair itself was the perfect moment to do that.”
Chambliss confirmed there were no visual effects tricks used in the movie, “except to plug in a few deep backgrounds when we needed to.” Aurora’s spider web was made out of string and glue, very much in line with how the old musicals were created. Says Chambliss, “It is as old school as it gets, and that was such fabulous fun.”
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