Lina As Kathy Off Screen example essay topic

In the "Golden Age" of the studio system, musicals were popular fare. Stars were defined as much by their singing and dancing skills as they were by their acting skills, screen presence, and good looks. Though music has been a part of movies almost as long as sound itself, it took time before the movie musical developed into a mature genre. Perhaps the final step in the musical genres coming of age came with the advent of the integrated musical in which songs are linked to both narrative and character development, and in many cases function as dialogue. Singing in the Rain is an excellent example of an integrated musical.

As we shall see sound motion pictures develops concurrently with the movie musical genre. When the movies learned to talk, as it were, in the late 1920's, singing wasn't far behind. Indeed, the first recognized sound motion picture was nothing more than a silent movie with songs. Alan Crosland's The Jazz Singer, featuring the then popular singing star Al Jolson as the son of a Jewish cantor who wishes to be a "jazz singer", contained inter-titles for dialogue but when the singer sings he sings much to the apparent delight of 1920's movie audiences heretofore accustomed to silent offerings. This film was followed by the all-talking Lights of New York, and soon after motions pictures were proudly proclaiming themselves to be "all-talking" and in many instances "all-talking and all-singing" extravaganzas. To say that The Jazz Singer led the way for musicals is questionable since, as noted above, the film in effect was nothing more than a means by which Jolson relayed his unique music hall talents.

But music, nonetheless, was the primary marketing tool for much of the sound films that followed. Much like the early melodramas, particularly those of D.W. Griffith, whose impetus for Broken Blossoms (1919) was the enormously successful melodrama The Chink and the Child (sic) by Thomas Burke, the new sound films merely appropriated the musical revues and operettas so popular in the late 1920's. Charles Riesner's Hollywood Revue of 1929, produced by MGM, for example, was nothing more than a filmed stage revue featuring top talent of the era. Vaudeville comedian Jack Benny and silent movie idol Conrad Nagel combined to introduce the musical routines as well as the burlesque and vaudeville comedy routines, and the whole film was photographed as if it were stage play with each act opening and closing with a curtain. The famous Warner Brothers musicals of the early 1930's featuring elaborate choreography by Busby Berkeley followed such a form by restricting the musical numbers to stage-bound productions. Essentially, the Berkeley narratives were centered on performance; in this sense, characters were either show business types or amateurs who were eager to perform for the sheer pleasure of performing.

In Berkeley's own Gold Diggers of 1935, for example, dowager Mathilda Prentiss (Alice Brady) sponsors a charitable stage show to be directed by the supercilious Nicolai Nicole ff (Adolphe Men jou). In between what is otherwise a romantic comedy, musical numbers are presented during rehearsals of the benefit show with the film's grand finale, the extravagant "Lullaby of Broadway" sequence, presented during the play's actual performance. What is so interesting about the above examples is that films calling themselves musicals did in fact build on the form of Crossland's Jazz Singer the episodic nature of the numbers notwithstanding. The musical numbers were nothing more than filmed acts, as it were, consisting of very distinct and separate numbers, a detail referenced in the "Beautiful Girl" number in Singin' in the Rain which, at one point, even mimics Berkeley's style itself (the high angle "kaleidoscopic" finale). This lengthy discussion of early musicals is significant here in order for us to establish the value of a potent collaboration among five individuals in the late 1940's whose aesthetic contribution to the movie musical remains as powerful today as it was innovative in the late 1940's and early 1950's.

Hence, the movie musical did not reach its own in dealing with music on the screen until the arrival of producer Arthur Freed at MGM. Freed's films eschewed, for the most part, the "stage-bound revue" for an integration of musical number and story. In Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939), for example, one of Freed's first efforts along with Berkeley's Babes in Arms (1939), Dorothy's adolescent frustration educed by being disregarded by her busy family and by being constantly harassed by the nasty busy-body Miss Gulch, leads to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", which by any standards can be seen as nothing more than a soliloquy, a sense of inner communication that happens to be accompanied by full orchestra. But it remains Freed's collaboration with choreographers / directors Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen and writers Adolph Green and Betty Camden to take the musical numbers from mere show to full integration with narrative.

In this regard, the musical numbers-as showy as they are-are linked to both narrative and character development, and in many cases function as dialogue. To see this musical integration in action, we need only look at the final moments of Singin' in the Rain. The story, of course-in proper musical narrative form-is sheer romantic fairy tale about a man who meets the love of his life, loses her through treacherous means, and then gets her back. In this particular narrative, set within the milieu of Hollywood's own transition from silence to sound in 1927, matinee idol Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) falls in love with chorus girl Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). As the "flickers" become "talkies", Don's co-star, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), cannot make the transition because her voice is not only nasal but also her diction and manner crude. In Hollywood, where everything is fake, Don and studio manager R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell) contrive to have Kathy dub Lina.

Of course, the audiences approve of Lina's considerable talents, which cause Lina to exact more demands on Kathy, the rightful star of the films. At the premiere of Don and Lina's musical version of The Dueling Cavalier, audience response is overwhelming. At one point, Don's accompanist, Cosmo (Donald O'Connor) tells Lina that she was fabulous. "You sang as good as Kathy Selden", he notes. Lina believes that she alone is the star of the movie and the star of the studio as well. To prove her point she says that she will speak for herself rather than have someone else do "all the talking".

At this point, Kelly and Donen use a series of long takes with moving cameras to relate the transformation of Kathy Selden from chorus girl literally in the background to star of the movie. At first, in long shot favoring screen right, Lina is shown in the background with the audience in foreground. There is obvious approval, and then Lina begins speaking. As she speaks, Kelly and Donen cut to a long shot from the stage point of view (actually, a reverse angle from Lina's POV) as is expresses confusion. Cut to a medium shot of Lina with microphone in foreground as she continues, apparently oblivious the audience reaction.

Kelly and Donen now cut to a medium shot of the audience where one member states that "she didn't sound that way" in the film, and then another cries out, "cut the talk, Lina, sing!" Lina, in medium shot, reacts with fear at which point Kelly and Donen cut to a medium shot of Cosmo, Don, R.F. and Rod (King Donovan) in foreground with Lina in background. Here, the separation is significant, and even more pronounced when the group of men move screen left with the camera panning with them where Cosmo, Don and R.F. huddle and contrive some kind of plot. Kelly and Donen then cut to a long shot (which is the same as shot number one illustrated above) at which point Lina runs off stage with the camera panning with her escape to the winds. A direct cut but from a different angle-from Lina's point of view-to the huddle follows at which the three men respond to Lina's presence. The camera pulls back to take Lina and the men in medium shot as the men tell her that she should sing. R.F. calls Kathy and she enters the frame from screen right, and R.F. then orders Kathy to sing for Lina.

Kathy angrily agrees and then exits frame. Lina is told to go out on stage and sing, and she, like Kathy, exits screen right. The three men then move so ever so slowly screen left while the camera follows at which point the three men express some sardonic glee. Clearly, the scene indicates the plotting and conniving on the part of the three men.

Indeed, the camera's movement on the z-axis as the conspirators hatch their plot makes us part of the huddle despite the fact that we are not privy to the scheme. But the camera movement mixed with the movement of the performers makes for an energetic flow of material that will pick up pace as the sequence continues. The next shot is from the perspective of the stage. In medium shot, the orchestra conductor asks Lina what song she will sing. In medium shot, Lina moves to the curtain and asks Kathy.

The shot is followed by Kathy behind the curtain, retaining continuity not only of narrative but also of thought by displaying prominently the microphones. In Lina's scene, the microphone is always in the foreground, and it always remains detached and rather aloof if not outright commanding. Yet, in Kelly and Donen's mise-en-scene, Kathy, from a side angle, holds an identical microphone and tells Lina that she will sing "Singin' in the Rain". Clearly, in Kathy's case, she commands the microphone and it becomes merely an extension of her. Lina returns to the microphone but her newly discovered command-her ability now to "sing"-is cut short by the conductor, who asks her, "what key?" Again, Lina leaves the microphone and returns to the curtain where she asks Kathy, "what key?" At this point, Kelly and Donen keep our attention fixed on Lina as Kathy, off-screen, replies, "A flat". A self-induced triumphant Lina walks to the microphone where he tells the conductor, "A flat".

The conductor agrees, and the music begins. In medium shot, Lina starts swaying to the music as she mouths the words to "Singin' in the Rain". Kelly and Donen intercut the song with, first, Kathy singing, and, second, approval by the audience. Third, Kelly and Donen cut to an interesting and effective long shot. From a high angle, we see Rod, R.F., Don and Cosmo in foreground with Lena and Kathy in background where they are literally separated by the curtain.

Interestingly, Don moves his head from side to side, apparently keeping watch on both women. Lina continues her masquerade before Kelly and Donen cut to a group shot of R.F., Cosmo, and Don, who suddenly begin singing with Lina / Kathy. At the point at which the song states that "walk down the lane with a silly refrain" the three men do precisely that: there is no lane, but they continue with their silly refrain as they dance over to the ropes that control the curtain with the camera panning-allowing us to join them-where at the point of "happy refrain" they happily pull the rope. From a long shot from the audience point of view, the curtain opens revealing Kathy at which point the audience laughs.

In medium shot reminiscent of Greg Toland's deep-focus photography in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941), Kathy remains embarrassed in the background as Lina swings along oblivious to what has happened. The audience continues its laughter, and we return to Kathy's growing despair while Lina yet remains oblivious to the trick... Kelly and Donen then interrupt the sequence to show in medium shot the confused conductor before, in long shot, panning with Cosmo as he runs from the wings to fill in for Kathy. Suddenly, Lina has Cosmo's voice. Lina finally catches on and stops her mime.

Kathy then flees screen right out of frame followed by Lina who flees right behind her. Don now runs from the wings, camera panning, and with Cosmo at the microphone behind him and the conductor in the foreground Don orders members of the audience to stop Kathy. At this point, again in deep focus style, Kathy is shown running down the aisle to close shot where she is stopped by audience members. Don then tells the audience that Kathy is "the girl you loved tonight". Our attention is fixed on Kathy as Don continues, far in the background, saying that "she's the real star of the picture-Kathy Selden". Interestingly, Kelly and Donen cut on the word "Selden" so that her name is completed on a close shot reverse angle of Kathy, tears streaming down her face, and audience members behind applauding.

There is tenderness to the scene that surely reflects Chaplin's adage that "tragedy is close up". But this is not tragedy but joy. As we see Kathy looking back at Don we know there is a genuine love being expressed, and that expression turns back to Don, who, in medium shot with his arms outstretched", mutters simply, "Kathy". What can he now say but what only the heart can say, and the language the heart speaks is music. Don now begins "You are My Lucky Star" as the camera pulls back to make room for Cosmo to jump from the stage into the orchestra pit to conduct his friend's music.

Kathy moves forward, and in long shot Kathy returns to the stage as the camera follows her to the steps. In a closer angle, she stops to hear Don express his heart before Kelly and Donen reverse angles to show Kathy taking Don's hands at which point he brings her back to the stage where she truly belongs. The song here is now doing double duty; indeed, it is not only expressing Don's love for Kathy-and her love for him-but what the film now states as truth, that Kathy is the actual "star" of the film and star of Hollywood. The romance of a chorus girl making it to the top is completed.

Interestingly, Kelly and Donen move on the z-axis to complete the final sequence. At one point the camera moves in to a close shot of Don when he sings "this poor mortal" at which we dissolve to an artistic rendering of Don on a movie poster. The camera pulls back to reveal a 24-sheet poster of the film with Don and Kathy in the foreground. At this point as well, Don and Kathy have been replaced by a heavenly choir, intoning the "lucky star", making Don and Kathy one of those MGM stars of which there more than there are in heaven.