Flannery's understanding of theatrical lighting design also led to work on major motion pictures. He served as theatrical lighting consultant on Robert Zemeckis’s Death Becomes Her. This film required the credible integration of theatrical performance, stage environments, practical lighting, visual effects, and motion-picture photography—an intersection particularly suited to Flannery’s multidisciplinary experience.
Discussing the number “Me,” performed by Madeline Ashton in the fictional Broadway disaster Songbird!, Streep said she immediately recognized its extravagant camp appeal:
"I mean, come on! It was so much fun.”
Streep explained that she knew from the moment she performed the opening number that Death Becomes Her would eventually become a gay cult classic. Dallas Voice interview and Vanity Fair retrospective.
Her recollections suggest that she understood exactly what the number was doing: it wasn’t intended simply as a badly conceived Broadway musical. It introduced Madeline through a deliberately outrageous collision of vanity, theatrical excess, disco-era choreography and Tennessee Williams melodrama. Songbird! is supposedly a musical adaptation of Sweet Bird of Youth, with “Me” reducing its star’s entire worldview to a celebration of herself.
"I mean, come on! It was so much fun.”
Streep explained that she knew from the moment she performed the opening number that Death Becomes Her would eventually become a gay cult classic. Dallas Voice interview and Vanity Fair retrospective.
Her recollections suggest that she understood exactly what the number was doing: it wasn’t intended simply as a badly conceived Broadway musical. It introduced Madeline through a deliberately outrageous collision of vanity, theatrical excess, disco-era choreography and Tennessee Williams melodrama. Songbird! is supposedly a musical adaptation of Sweet Bird of Youth, with “Me” reducing its star’s entire worldview to a celebration of herself.
