Richard Barrios
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195377347
- eISBN:
- 9780199864577
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377347.003.0015
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Numerous factors accounted for the precipitous decline in musicals starting in mid-1930. The stock market crash and the Pathé studio fire in 1929 were dire omens, and the overabundance of backstage ...
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Numerous factors accounted for the precipitous decline in musicals starting in mid-1930. The stock market crash and the Pathé studio fire in 1929 were dire omens, and the overabundance of backstage films and unsuitability of filmed revues and operettas played a prominent role. Songs were cut from a number of (former) musicals such as The Life of the Party, while some major projects were aborted shortly before shooting. Most calamitous was MGM's The March of Time, a lavish and shapeless revue that was tinkered with incessantly and finally abandoned, a symbol of the hubris and miscalculation of the era.Less
Numerous factors accounted for the precipitous decline in musicals starting in mid-1930. The stock market crash and the Pathé studio fire in 1929 were dire omens, and the overabundance of backstage films and unsuitability of filmed revues and operettas played a prominent role. Songs were cut from a number of (former) musicals such as The Life of the Party, while some major projects were aborted shortly before shooting. Most calamitous was MGM's The March of Time, a lavish and shapeless revue that was tinkered with incessantly and finally abandoned, a symbol of the hubris and miscalculation of the era.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226853505
- eISBN:
- 9780226853529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226853529.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The radio play “The Fall of the City,” with its bustling traffic of unruly mobs and untrustworthy ministers, reflects the political friction lying beneath the audioposition choices made in many ...
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The radio play “The Fall of the City,” with its bustling traffic of unruly mobs and untrustworthy ministers, reflects the political friction lying beneath the audioposition choices made in many scripts and studios during the 1930s. The conventionalization of the style of a radio play can have a greater reach than a single broadcast because it implies a normativity among the aesthetic instincts of the listeners. This chapter examines the normative use of perspective in such radio programs as The Columbia Workshop, The Shadow, The Mercury Theater on the Air, and The March of Time. It argues that late-1930s directors developed two audioposition formulas that account for the overall sound of the period—the intimate style and the kaleidosonic style—each of which embodied an aspect of the political rhetoric of the period and enabled prominent broadcasters to solve representational and narrative problems. When these styles became imbalanced, radio aesthetics ended its connection with space and time, and dramatists turned to stronger models.Less
The radio play “The Fall of the City,” with its bustling traffic of unruly mobs and untrustworthy ministers, reflects the political friction lying beneath the audioposition choices made in many scripts and studios during the 1930s. The conventionalization of the style of a radio play can have a greater reach than a single broadcast because it implies a normativity among the aesthetic instincts of the listeners. This chapter examines the normative use of perspective in such radio programs as The Columbia Workshop, The Shadow, The Mercury Theater on the Air, and The March of Time. It argues that late-1930s directors developed two audioposition formulas that account for the overall sound of the period—the intimate style and the kaleidosonic style—each of which embodied an aspect of the political rhetoric of the period and enabled prominent broadcasters to solve representational and narrative problems. When these styles became imbalanced, radio aesthetics ended its connection with space and time, and dramatists turned to stronger models.
Charles M. Joseph
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300075373
- eISBN:
- 9780300129366
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300075373.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter marks the coming of television's newest brainchild, the documentary drama and how it would play into Stravinsky's benefit in terms of the portrayal of his image. It begins with the ...
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This chapter marks the coming of television's newest brainchild, the documentary drama and how it would play into Stravinsky's benefit in terms of the portrayal of his image. It begins with the impact that Louis de Rochemont's March of Time had on the way the public viewed current events. It would be a form that caught on quickly and employed globally as a tool to report objectively the events of the day. On several occasions, Stravinsky was invited to score a documentary—opportunities he would regularly decline. Television would have an increased commitment to the documentary drama, enjoying a rise in its popularity at the time. As this continued on in the background, Stravinsky's reputation as a composer of the age would also see a climb in reception—and it had done so despite his music's diminishing accessibility to the American public. He would later become a subject of the documentary, the most “documentable” composer of the twentieth century.Less
This chapter marks the coming of television's newest brainchild, the documentary drama and how it would play into Stravinsky's benefit in terms of the portrayal of his image. It begins with the impact that Louis de Rochemont's March of Time had on the way the public viewed current events. It would be a form that caught on quickly and employed globally as a tool to report objectively the events of the day. On several occasions, Stravinsky was invited to score a documentary—opportunities he would regularly decline. Television would have an increased commitment to the documentary drama, enjoying a rise in its popularity at the time. As this continued on in the background, Stravinsky's reputation as a composer of the age would also see a climb in reception—and it had done so despite his music's diminishing accessibility to the American public. He would later become a subject of the documentary, the most “documentable” composer of the twentieth century.
