Eric Nichols

Musical Films as a Genre

Definition:

Musical Films:  Motion pictures consisting of a plot integrating musical numbers.  Although usually considered an American genre, musical films from Japan, Italy, France, Great Britain, and Germany have contributed to the development of the type.  The first musical film, The Jazz Singer 1927, starring Al Jolson, introduced the sound era of motion pictures.  …

www.britannica.com

Examples:   Sound of Music 1965; The Wizard of Oz 1939; Singing in the Rain 1952

Representational Genre:

In musicals, we see them come in both drama and in narrator plus dialogue form, but with musicals we see songs and dances take the place of some of the dialogue between characters and audience.

Narrative Genre:

        Romance, Comedy, Tragedy and Satire

Subject Genre:

Older/Middle Aged audiences: Flying Down to Rio 1933 starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers; White Christmas starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope       Younger Audiences:  Grease starring John Travolta and Oliva Newton-John   

Children Audiences:  almost anything by Walt Disney

Identifiable highlights of genre: 

Break into song and dance at any moment; Resolve internal and external conflicts, announce their feelings, or self-reflecting.

Alternative names:

        Songs, lyric poems, live theatre, operas, plays, etc.

Questions:

1.  Can we bridge the gap between generations to regain the simpleness of life or are we going to keep progressing through time and forget about the ways things used to be in films?

2.  As a genre, have we seen the last of the musical films or will they survive our passion for blood and guts? Can they compete with what today's generation wants to see?   

Report:

Question 1:  Can we bridge the gap between generations to regain the simpleness of life or are we going to keep progressing through time and forget about the ways things used to be in films?

Question 2:  As a genre, have we seen the last of the musical films or will they survive our passion for blood and guts?  Can they compete with what today's generation wants to see?

Aimee Ann - Because of what people want to see now, you probably won't see as many musicals being produced.  Most musicals were produced in a very compact amount of years.  Lately there hasn't been a lot that has impacted the whole world… Kids don't necessarily want to watch the old type musicals.  Musicals are not necessarily what people want to see now.  Moulin Rouge was the latest musical; in the future they will probably be darker…

Susie - Kids, however, know these musicals, her daughter's boyfriend knew Grease word for word…

Jennifer L. - DVD is bringing musicals back.  Musicals seem to be going more mainstream… Night shows are using musical casts as part of their performance as their musical performance…

Eric - David Letterman, Rosie O'Donnell are known for spotlighting musical casts…

Janet - Instead of the cast breaking out in song, now days you have theme songs, background music, not necessarily a musical, but still an important aspect.

Student - Musical of Dr. Seuss and Rent are more modern forms of musicals, musicals used to be composed of huge casts and they seemed to be more like films with music in it, example: Fred Astaire, music in film

Jennifer L. - Now they are turning popular movies into musicals, example:

Footloose

Dr. White - Ah! Wilderness has also been made into a musical and an opera…

Keisha - Now we have movies that are not musicals per se, but musical elements, example: Center Stage, Save the Last Dance.  There isn't much singing or anything, but the movie is centered around the dancing, this is this generation's idea of a musical.

Eric - Dance has become a part of movies and this allows musical elements, for instance, Center Stage…  songs were there, but no one sang.

Kelly - There is a big gap in the dancing movie, last real dance movie was White Nights…

Student - Maybe the definition of a musical has changed.  I always thought of Footloose as a musical, they don't sing, but they dance throughout the movie… Also Dirty Dancing started out on stage before it was a movie.

Eric - Children are watching Disney, which has many musicals, but kids tend to go from animation to blood and guts during young adulthood, maybe this is caused when they get older and begin to hang out with their peers…

Dr. White - That may also be because the parents stop controlling as much of what their children see.

Dr. White - It begins as a cartoon, then it turns into a live stage musical, but does that ever get turned back into a movie?  Is there a movie of Beauty and the Beast or Lion King with human actors? 

Kelly - there was a TV show…

Dr. White - I guess that idea of it turning back into a movie hasn't happened yet…

Eric - Roger Rabbit was an example… There was one Gene Kelly movie where he dances with Tom and Jerry.  I have one question about your subject genre in terms of older/middle age audience: 30's musicals had huge scales of dancers.

Dr. White: One thing we (Americans) are getting out of touch with in theatre is that in the past most people who went to a show went to see live performances… Many people knew how to do dancing and music.  Nowadays we don't need that, you just need a few stars… example: Wizard of Oz and its large cast. 

Student - Now people fill it up with special effects…

Dr. White - Yeah, it's not scales of people, it's scales of effects.

Audiences for movies have changed, movies used to be for grownups, now it's for everyone and try to appeal that way… now centered around adolescent tastes.  Now, T.V. is where chances are taken in terms of intellectual content and dramatic content.  Movies need to appeal to a large audience and are to be safe and acceptable (with some exceptions of course).  Eric was varying on theme that art doesn't imitate life… How could we then defend a musical in that it gets away from everyday reality?

Kelly - If Long Days Journey into Night is all there is in life, there has to be some sort of relief: read, theatre, park… we need relief in the midst of all the intellectual.  Comedy and musicals offer relief… huge productions of the 30's didn't have TV, but they had huge productions because that is what they went to see… there has to be more…

Dr. White - Art imitates life; wouldn't it be a cool world if everyone just sang to each other… everyone has an impulse to sing…

Candy - …It's fun to be silly and break away from the monotony…

Dr. White - You can expand on what life is… not just routine…

Candy - It's really no different than Long Days Journey into Night when they start quoting Shakespeare and poems…

Dr. White - Like Eric said earlier, it's tough to write a song that says absolutely nothing… scat singing.  It reminded me of Jennifer's presentation about nursery rhymes and nonsense syllables, that's part of it, but youthful and innocent people doing that allows you can buy into it somewhat.

Student - There are many different times of musicals, some musicals you get more out of them than expected...  the problems bring a story into the musical…

Dr. White - One possible alternative name would be 'revue', and it means you bring out a bunch of greatest hits, etc… on stage… sometimes revues are called "follies…" We are approaching five presentations on musicals and they are all varied and diverse… new examples keep coming up...

Discussion Report:

The discussion started fairly slow but eventually the class became more active with their responses.  We brought up the fact that the musicals that we see represent the life struggles of modern times. We saw that children today are still watching the musicals that we grew to love as a child.  An example was given on how Grease is still a poplar musical film among the young kids. Musicals are still not widely produced as they were back in the 40's-60's but Walt Disney keeps them alive in their animations.  Moulin Rouge was the latest musical film which it did very well in the box offices.  The class agreed that musical film will stay around but the number of them produced each year will probably stay the same.  Our interests seem still to revolve around a need for violence and sex.