![]() ![]() He took (highly leveraged) ownership of the museum, in 1841, he hired an ![]() ![]() Recounted by Barnum to illustrate his sense of advertising. To his memoir, “Struggles and Triumphs,” which gives life to a voiceĪnd a round of activity that aren’t heard or seen in “The Greatestįor a sense of what’s missing from the movie, consider an incident Not by the movie but by a footnote in an edition of Melville’s “TheĬonfidence-Man,” a novel not without its own Barnumesque echoes) sent me To serve the movie’s plot without offering much in the way of urbanįlavor or historical resonance. Museum was on Broadway and Vesey Street, a corner that I pass almostĮvery day on the way to The New Yorker’s office-and Barnum’s rise toįame is intertwined with the turmoil of the young city, which turns out The story of Barnum is in large measure a New York story-his American Historical character worth making a movie about, are elided in favor of Major details, ones that make Barnum a fascinating and appalling Of its broadest strokes match up with those of his life, many of the But the movie purports to be about Barnum, and, while some Its authentic emotion in a rousing song and a hearty production number. Unappealing-in fact, there’s one through-line to the story, greatlyĪmplified from a nugget of an idea, that’s quite moving and that exudes Barnum, the long-famed “Prince of Humbug,” should be largelyįabricated out of synthetic cloth. ![]() Greatest Showman,” the new musical (which opens today) based on the life I suppose there’s a sort of poetic injustice in the fact that “The ![]()
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