Evita

Director: Alan Parker

1996 / 135min / 35mm

Don’t cry for her, Argentina—after years of dauntless campaigning, Madonna landed the coveted role of actress-cum-First Lady Eva Perón in this lavish, costume-change-a-minute adaptation of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1978 stage musical, featuring Jonathan Pryce as the statesman who shares his power and his bed with Eva, and Antonio Banderas as narrator of her meteoric rise and tragic end. “Evita is actually a very visual movie, and Alan Parker is probably one of the most exciting and visual directors I have ever worked with… He wanted to make the film look very real, almost like a newsreel, but also very glamorous at the same time… There were certain scenes where we had up to 4,000 or 5,000 extras, because Alan didn’t want to use any special effects—he wanted it all to be in front of the lens.” —Darius Khondji

Distributor: Walt Disney Studios/20th Century

Part of Radical Chiaroscuro: The Work of Darius Khondji