Phineas Taylor Barnum and the Horatio Alger Myth

Rating: Null/10 (26 April 2018)

In the bonus track of the DVD of "The Greatest Showman," the director, who is a specialist in music videos, asserted that the music was "the heart and soul of the film." At the same time, he continued, "we wanted it to feel classical." Unfortunately, the musical score for this film did not have any sort of classical feel. It was purely contemporary music and rather uninspiring. In fact, all of the musical numbers tended to sound the same.
With Hugh Jackman, supported by a fine ensemble cast, the character interpretation of the promoter P. T. Barnum was engaging. The screenplay sought to unfold the nineteenth-century Horatio Alger myth of a little street urchin's rise to riches through industry and perseverance. But the self-made man theme became caught up in a personal drama of Barnum's insecurity as the son of the tailor, who never overcame his feeling of social inferiority.
The film took Barnum through various stages in his entrepreneurial career.
Stage #1 was the Barnum Museum of natural history that was a flop. Even Barnum's young daughter recognized that his museum was lifeless.
Stage #2 was his attempt at creating a "curiosity" show with a conglomeration of human "oddities" that he recruited. The filmmakers sought unconvincingly to turn Barnum's creative idea into the theme of diversity and the universal brotherhood of man.
Stage #3 included the legitimate acts that Barnum developed in his circus. It is not clear what the fictional playwright character Philip Carlyle contributed to this stage, other than to fall in love with the trapeze artist and give the film a romantic subplot.
Stage #4 was the time when Barnum sought to become "artistic" in producing a prestigious touring show starring Miss Jenny Lind ("The Swedish Nightingale"). This subplot was strained when Miss Lind, who felt a kinship with the insecure Barnum, implausibly cancelled her tour because, apparently, Barnum would not sleep with her.
Stage #5: The famed Barnum & Bailey tent show.
The film was unsuccessful in attempting to turn Barnum into a kind of Citizen Kane, wherein we are instructed into his lost "Rosebud" from his youth. The Barnum of this film is depicted as a kid with a dream, driven by the creative impulse that "men suffer more from imagining too little than too much."
The story of the historical P.T. Barnum is much more prosaic than the one depicted in this film. Barnum said famously that "the noblest heart is that of making others happy." Barnum's story was a uniquely American saga of a hustler, who tapped into the desires of Americans for entertainment and, more than anything, was motivated to make money....just like the hustlers who made this schlock film entitled "The Greatest Showman"!