Prolific Characteristic Of The Musical Film Genre example essay topic

Jane Feuer, in her essay "The Self-Reflective Musical", writes that a prolific characteristic of the musical film genre is to create an illusion of enhanced entertainment by manipulation of three themes: spontaneity, integration, and recognition of an audience. These themes all serve to naturalize individual musical performance and to involve the film's audience more closely with the plot and its characters. Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Done and Gene Kelly, 1952, USA), true to its genre, encompasses this artificial aura of entertainment, deceiving its audience into genuine concern for its characters. Key to the musical's power as a genre has been to embody American popular mythology. For example, by juxtaposing romantic relationships with the inherent energy and grace of song and dance, the musical illuminates courting with an almost magical quality.

By celebrating common traits of the musical genre film, Kelly's most celebrated work turns entertainment into myth, convincing its viewers to laugh with its jokes and engage the film's plot points. Spontaneity in the delivery of song serves to both hide the planning and technology applied to the performance and to emphasize emotion projected by films in the genre. Watching someone burst into energetic song and dance in a somewhat random manner projects an almost over-emphasized sense of emotion within a character, whether it be glee or melancholy. A good example of this phenomenon occurs in Gigi (Vincente Minelli, 1958, USA).

Watching Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan quibble musically over the life that accompanies the Parisian aristocracy in "It's a Bore" helps to emphasize the seemingly never ending fun and excitement that Gaston refuses to recognize. Chevalier's message to Gaston is emphasized by the contrast between his spontaneous entry into song and the laid-back and fun-loving characteristics that he engenders in most of his films. Singin' in the Rain, similarly, uses sudden musical performances as a way of highlighting passion within the film. One of the standout musical solos in the picture is Cosmo Brown's 'Make 'em Laugh' routine. Besides trying to give his friend Don Lockwood performance advice, he races quickly through clownish body gestures aimed at delivering chuckles to the audience. The climax of the number comes when he seems to defy gravity in dance.

"We know that sequences like Donald O'Connor's neck-breaking "Make 'Em Laugh" number had to be painstakingly rehearsed, but it feels like it was made up on the spot". The song also gives Brown the opportunity to comment on the high and low art argument over film when he exclaims "Or you could study Shakespeare and be quite elite, and you charm the critics and have nothin' to eat". Here, Brown's spontaneity clashes with the calculated and dry dialogue often seen in so-called "high-art" live theater productions. Spontaneity's technical aspect is explored in the contrast between "The Dancing Cavalier" and "The Dueling Cavalier" in the film. "The Dueling Cavalier", which was disliked by the intradiegetic test audience, is riddled with technological problems including being out of sync and Lina's inability to work with a microphone. "The Dancing Cavalier", on the other hand, was turned into a musical and cleaned up through editing for release.

This juxtaposition acknowledges the technology and filmic devices that help to hide the work that goes into a film's production, one of which being spontaneity. The first film had very little excitement, which contributed to the audience judging the film solely on its poor construction and editing. When turned into a musical, these technological problems faded away as the intradiegetic audience was pulled in by the classic characteristics of the musical genre. "The musical, technically the most complex type of film produced in Hollywood, paradoxically has always been the genre which attempts to give the greatest illusion of spontaneity and effortlessness". In Singin' in the Rain, the differences between the two Lockwood and Lamont films illustrate this idea perfectly. By creating the first "Monumental Pictures" film to encompass characteristics of the musical genre, Lamont hides the technological difficulties of the first film and generates an over-exaggeration of passion from his character.

The on-screen recognition of a filmmaker of the audience viewing his film is another aspect of the musical that helps to exaggerate the notion of entertainment. The filmmaker can then manipulate his audience with cinematic devices meant to target viewers. Often this is done by contrasting an intradiegetic audience with the audience viewing the film itself. "While setting up an association between success and lack of audience manipulation, the musicals themselves exert continuous control over the responses of their audiences". In The Producers (Mel Brooks, 1968, USA), during the first showing of the theatrical performance "Springtime for Hitler", the shock and extreme disapproval of the intradiegetic audience causes those watching the film to find inherent humor. The subject matter of the play is so audacious and is in such bad taste that it has an inherent humorous and ridiculous quality to it.

The shock of the on-screen audience is a filmic device working to emphasize this humor. Singin' in the Rain, as is routine for the genre, is also very sensitive to how the film will affect its viewers. In the picture, during a screening of the first "talkie", the on-screen audience decides that combining audio and film was nothing more than a fad and would die out as the popularity of silent pictures would easily outshine the new technology. Obviously, the film's viewers will find this absurd, yet this contrast, between a modern audience and this simulated roaring twenties audience, creates an illusion of participation in the story. Similar illusions occur during the two screenings of "The Dancing Cavalier" and the "Dueling Cavalier". During the "Dueling Cavalier", the on-screen audience believes the film to be a comedy, laughing both at the technical inadequacy of the film and the screech of Lina's voice.

As they walk out, some exclaim it to be "the worst picture I've ever seen". Their disapproval causes the extradiegetic audience to feel sympathy, not so much for Lina as she is portrayed in the film as a pest, but for Don as they obviously want to see a happy ending for the film's icon: Gene Kelly. The film's climax occurs with the approval of the on-screen audience of "The Dancing Cavalier", a musical where Lina lipsynch her songs to Kathy's actual voice. When Don reveals to the intradiegetic audience that Kathy was the actual singer, the film's viewers are meant to feel relieved that the story will end with the demise of Lina's career and new found happiness between Don and Kathy. The on-screen audience again is used as a tool to exaggerate feelings of joy stemming from the happy ending. Integration between success on the stage and success in the personal life of a character is another filmic tool used to exaggerate entertainment.

"The self-reflective musical asserts the integrative effect of musical performance. Successful performances are intimately bound up with success in love, with the integration of the individual into a community or a group... ". In The Band Wagon (Vincente Minelli, 1951, USA), when Gabrielle sings "New Sun in the Sky" during the premier of the new show, its contrasts greatly with the earlier backstage performance seen in the film. The song, with gold and red plastered all over the screen and enthusiastic song coming from the chorus, is joyous as Gabrielle, with the chorus framed in the background, goes on to express amorous feelings for Fred Astaire's character, Tony, at the end of the picture. The earlier seen backstage performance is much more drab and soulless, as Tony and Gabby were not getting along at this point in the plot.

"You and the Night and the Music", performed in the rehearsal, functions to reinforce the idea that high art is inaccessible to the audience and therefore inappropriate for a Broadway show. This contrast between these two musical performances helps to emphasize where the characters are in their private lives. Singin' in the Rain uses this type of contrast from the film's very opening. Lina Lamont is not allowed to speak at all during the premier in the opening scene as the studio fears that her exceeding annoying voice will embarrass it. She constantly asks the head of the studio if he thinks that she is "stupid or something". At the same time, she believes her own publicity journalists who say that she romantically involved with Don Lockwood, while Kelly's character constantly rejects and berates her.

The difficulties that Lina experiences throughout the film in both her professional and private lives foreshadow her eventual downfall and embarrassment after the screening of "The Dancing Cavalier". The myth of integration is further explored in the film with Debbie Reynolds' character, Kathy Selden. After Kelly and Reynolds' perform "You Were Meant for Me", where they reveal their mutual love for each other, Selden's professional career takes off. Her close relationship to Lockwood lands her work at Monumental Pictures where she eventually sings in Lina's place in "The Dancing Cavalier". Just as Lina's poor performance outlines her eventual downfall, Kathy's harmonious musical productions foreshadow her gradual professional success. By combining these two aspects of the lives of the characters, the filmmaker manipulates the extradiegetic audience into more appreciation for the musical performances in his film.

One of the fascinating aspects of the three themes explored by these musicals is that each serves to make the film more self-reflective on the genre traits it displays. By being aware of its own audience, musicals reflect on the differences between theatrical high-art and its own classification as popular art. Acknowledging an audience allows the film to proceed as if it were a theatrical production rather than a film. The integration of personal and professional life is self-reflective on how musicals sometimes distort the difference between the joy in song and true happiness. By integrating them, filmmakers further this distortion and involve the viewer more with a film's musical productions and its characters. Spontaneity is reflective on the unrealistic quality of song in dance in a cinematic plot.

By bursting into song, rather than having it placed in a theatrical production or rehearsal, this unrealistic quality is further expanded. Moreover, each theme celebrates a characteristic of the musical genre rather than attempting to cover it up, further contributing to the sheer joy that musicals attempt to engender.