John Richardson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195367362
- eISBN:
- 9780199918249
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195367362.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter discusses recent independent films that reference the audiovisual techniques of film musicals but juxtapose these elements with other stylistic means. The two case studies are Sally ...
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This chapter discusses recent independent films that reference the audiovisual techniques of film musicals but juxtapose these elements with other stylistic means. The two case studies are Sally Potter's Yes (2004) and Tsai Ming-Liang's The Wayward Cloud (2005). Potter uses an audiovisual language that falls between cinematic realism and the fantasy of the musical number to suggest a mode of “becoming” that imparts a reparative message (Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick). The dominant modality in Tsai's film is more deconstructive of existing genres; namely the film musical and hardcore pornography. Theoretically, the chapter addresses the affective nature of audiovisual flow and the consequences of its interruption through theories of performativity and camp aesthetics. Flow is theorized as well with reference to Deleuzean aesthetics, Raymond Williams's idea of media flow, Csikszentmihaly's idea of psychological flow, research on musical repetition, and surrealist theory on “automatic writing.”Less
This chapter discusses recent independent films that reference the audiovisual techniques of film musicals but juxtapose these elements with other stylistic means. The two case studies are Sally Potter's Yes (2004) and Tsai Ming-Liang's The Wayward Cloud (2005). Potter uses an audiovisual language that falls between cinematic realism and the fantasy of the musical number to suggest a mode of “becoming” that imparts a reparative message (Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick). The dominant modality in Tsai's film is more deconstructive of existing genres; namely the film musical and hardcore pornography. Theoretically, the chapter addresses the affective nature of audiovisual flow and the consequences of its interruption through theories of performativity and camp aesthetics. Flow is theorized as well with reference to Deleuzean aesthetics, Raymond Williams's idea of media flow, Csikszentmihaly's idea of psychological flow, research on musical repetition, and surrealist theory on “automatic writing.”
Ron Rodman
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195340242
- eISBN:
- 9780199863778
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340242.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, American
Besides its role as a narrative agent, music has been featured in television to pleasure its audience, creating what Carolyn Abbate would call a “drastic” experience. However, the pleasures of ...
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Besides its role as a narrative agent, music has been featured in television to pleasure its audience, creating what Carolyn Abbate would call a “drastic” experience. However, the pleasures of television music are often highly mediated and restrained, permitting the audience to derive culturally based pleasure (what Barthes would call plaisir) from the music but not a more visceral, primordial pleasure (jouissance). This chapter surveys the musical variety show and situation comedies that employ music. While musical variety shows have served as promotional vehicles for artists whom TV audiences find amenable (Perry Como, Dinah Shore, Andy Williams), throughout television's history many situation comedies have been presented as mini‐musicals in which the narrative action of the program is interrupted by a musical presentation on‐screen. Programs produced by Desilu Studios in the 1950s and 1960s, such as I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Andy Griffith Show, often imitated the Hollywood film musical by featuring musical presentations of a show‐within‐a‐show to showcase musical talent. Such scenes would interrupt the narrative flow of the episode, and so some narrative pretense would be made to accommodate the musical interruption.Less
Besides its role as a narrative agent, music has been featured in television to pleasure its audience, creating what Carolyn Abbate would call a “drastic” experience. However, the pleasures of television music are often highly mediated and restrained, permitting the audience to derive culturally based pleasure (what Barthes would call plaisir) from the music but not a more visceral, primordial pleasure (jouissance). This chapter surveys the musical variety show and situation comedies that employ music. While musical variety shows have served as promotional vehicles for artists whom TV audiences find amenable (Perry Como, Dinah Shore, Andy Williams), throughout television's history many situation comedies have been presented as mini‐musicals in which the narrative action of the program is interrupted by a musical presentation on‐screen. Programs produced by Desilu Studios in the 1950s and 1960s, such as I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Andy Griffith Show, often imitated the Hollywood film musical by featuring musical presentations of a show‐within‐a‐show to showcase musical talent. Such scenes would interrupt the narrative flow of the episode, and so some narrative pretense would be made to accommodate the musical interruption.
Erin Brannigan
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195367232
- eISBN:
- 9780199894178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195367232.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Examining the points where dance and film meet both historically and aesthetically leads to an analysis of the moment where the everyday body moves into dance in the film musical. While the musical ...
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Examining the points where dance and film meet both historically and aesthetically leads to an analysis of the moment where the everyday body moves into dance in the film musical. While the musical number is traditionally seen as an interruption within the fiction film narrative, the musical star is refigured in this chapter as the unifying element, holding together shaky plotlines and outrageous scenarios with pure corporeal force. Through the body of the dancer, the movements of everyday life and dance spill into and across each other, challenging the centrality of the linear drive in these classical fiction films. So here as elsewhere, Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image brings together avant‐garde and popular dancefilm traditions by identifying strategies common to both. Furthermore, in a move to redress the dominance of male dancers in discussions about film musicals, the book focuses on female stars such as Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, and Liza Minnelli and the kinds of moves they made.Less
Examining the points where dance and film meet both historically and aesthetically leads to an analysis of the moment where the everyday body moves into dance in the film musical. While the musical number is traditionally seen as an interruption within the fiction film narrative, the musical star is refigured in this chapter as the unifying element, holding together shaky plotlines and outrageous scenarios with pure corporeal force. Through the body of the dancer, the movements of everyday life and dance spill into and across each other, challenging the centrality of the linear drive in these classical fiction films. So here as elsewhere, Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image brings together avant‐garde and popular dancefilm traditions by identifying strategies common to both. Furthermore, in a move to redress the dominance of male dancers in discussions about film musicals, the book focuses on female stars such as Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, and Liza Minnelli and the kinds of moves they made.
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/9780195377347.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The book starts by placing the musical film and its audience into an overall historical/social context, setting forth the prime importance of the first musicals. It proposes the ways to reclaim these ...
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The book starts by placing the musical film and its audience into an overall historical/social context, setting forth the prime importance of the first musicals. It proposes the ways to reclaim these films from years of cultural/historical neglect through historical data as well as the use of reception theory to view the films within their proper context. The parameters of the book — time lines, genres, premises — are all established, as is the book's distinctive tone and style. The main vantage points are threefold: (1) Background and history; (2) A viewer's changing perceptions; (3) These works' precarious relationship with their audience.Less
The book starts by placing the musical film and its audience into an overall historical/social context, setting forth the prime importance of the first musicals. It proposes the ways to reclaim these films from years of cultural/historical neglect through historical data as well as the use of reception theory to view the films within their proper context. The parameters of the book — time lines, genres, premises — are all established, as is the book's distinctive tone and style. The main vantage points are threefold: (1) Background and history; (2) A viewer's changing perceptions; (3) These works' precarious relationship with their audience.
Estella Tincknell and Ian Conrich
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748623440
- eISBN:
- 9780748651115
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748623440.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book is about musical performance on film, the use of music within film and film musicals: a triple focus that articulates the complex relationship that exists between music and the cinematic ...
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This book is about musical performance on film, the use of music within film and film musicals: a triple focus that articulates the complex relationship that exists between music and the cinematic text. While the film musical has always been seen as the main vehicle for cinematic musical performance, it is by no means the only place where singing, dancing, jazz bands or even on-screen orchestras are featured. Indeed, the sheer range of musical performances or what we call ‘musical moments’ that have appeared throughout cinema history, together with the extraordinary procession of featured stars and performers is remarkable.Less
This book is about musical performance on film, the use of music within film and film musicals: a triple focus that articulates the complex relationship that exists between music and the cinematic text. While the film musical has always been seen as the main vehicle for cinematic musical performance, it is by no means the only place where singing, dancing, jazz bands or even on-screen orchestras are featured. Indeed, the sheer range of musical performances or what we call ‘musical moments’ that have appeared throughout cinema history, together with the extraordinary procession of featured stars and performers is remarkable.
Todd Decker
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199759378
- eISBN:
- 9780199979554
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199759378.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Popular
Drawing on archival research and including much new information, this book reveals how Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern created the Broadway musical Show Boat in the crucible of the Jazz Age to ...
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Drawing on archival research and including much new information, this book reveals how Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern created the Broadway musical Show Boat in the crucible of the Jazz Age to fit the talents of the show's original 1927 cast. After showing how major figures such as Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan defined the content of the show, the book goes on to detail how Show Boat was altered by later directors, choreographers, and performers to the end of the twentieth century. All the major New York productions are covered, plus five important London productions and four Hollywood versions. Again and again, the story of Show Boat circles back to the power of performers to remake the show. From its beginnings, Show Boat juxtaposed the talents of black and white performers and mixed the conventions of white-cast operetta and the black-cast musical. Bringing black and white onto the same stage—revealing the mixed-race roots of musical comedy—Show Boat stimulated creative artists and performers to renegotiate the color line as expressed in the American musical and, more broadly, with popular music and dance on the national stage during a century of profound social transformations.Less
Drawing on archival research and including much new information, this book reveals how Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern created the Broadway musical Show Boat in the crucible of the Jazz Age to fit the talents of the show's original 1927 cast. After showing how major figures such as Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan defined the content of the show, the book goes on to detail how Show Boat was altered by later directors, choreographers, and performers to the end of the twentieth century. All the major New York productions are covered, plus five important London productions and four Hollywood versions. Again and again, the story of Show Boat circles back to the power of performers to remake the show. From its beginnings, Show Boat juxtaposed the talents of black and white performers and mixed the conventions of white-cast operetta and the black-cast musical. Bringing black and white onto the same stage—revealing the mixed-race roots of musical comedy—Show Boat stimulated creative artists and performers to renegotiate the color line as expressed in the American musical and, more broadly, with popular music and dance on the national stage during a century of profound social transformations.
G. Andrew Stuckey
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9789888390816
- eISBN:
- 9789888455133
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888390816.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Peter Chan’s 2005, Perhaps Love, depicts the filming of a musical film, and serves as a prime example of mise-en-abîme metacinema, or in other words, the metacinema of production. Close reading of ...
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Peter Chan’s 2005, Perhaps Love, depicts the filming of a musical film, and serves as a prime example of mise-en-abîme metacinema, or in other words, the metacinema of production. Close reading of the film reveals the circulation of musical genre conventions from Bollywood to Hollywood to Hong Kong and China. Key among these conventions are the display of spectacular images of singing and dancing in combination with dazzling editing speeds reflecting the influence, particularly, of Baz Lurhmann’s Moulin Rouge! Gender relations, always an important focus in musical film, here point to postcolonial formations linking (and distinguishing) mainland China, Hong Kong, and Hollywood, and which, in the end, abandon the female lead.Less
Peter Chan’s 2005, Perhaps Love, depicts the filming of a musical film, and serves as a prime example of mise-en-abîme metacinema, or in other words, the metacinema of production. Close reading of the film reveals the circulation of musical genre conventions from Bollywood to Hollywood to Hong Kong and China. Key among these conventions are the display of spectacular images of singing and dancing in combination with dazzling editing speeds reflecting the influence, particularly, of Baz Lurhmann’s Moulin Rouge! Gender relations, always an important focus in musical film, here point to postcolonial formations linking (and distinguishing) mainland China, Hong Kong, and Hollywood, and which, in the end, abandon the female lead.
Katherine Spring
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199842216
- eISBN:
- 9780199369584
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199842216.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, Western
The Introduction posits the book's guiding question: How did popular songs influence the industrial organization and narrative form of Hollywood cinema during the conversion to sound, from 1927 ...
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The Introduction posits the book's guiding question: How did popular songs influence the industrial organization and narrative form of Hollywood cinema during the conversion to sound, from 1927 through 1931? A case is presented for studying the use of songs in non-musical films, a loose category of genre consisting of films that tended to showcase, motivate, and integrate songs in ways that could not always be explained by appealing to the conventions of Broadway musical genres. Over the course of the transition to sound, the status of the popular song performance in non-musical films shifted from modular attraction to integrated narrative device. A study of this shift and its industrial context illuminates a rich period of heterogeneity of film form and style. The Introduction closes with brief summaries of the book's five chapters.Less
The Introduction posits the book's guiding question: How did popular songs influence the industrial organization and narrative form of Hollywood cinema during the conversion to sound, from 1927 through 1931? A case is presented for studying the use of songs in non-musical films, a loose category of genre consisting of films that tended to showcase, motivate, and integrate songs in ways that could not always be explained by appealing to the conventions of Broadway musical genres. Over the course of the transition to sound, the status of the popular song performance in non-musical films shifted from modular attraction to integrated narrative device. A study of this shift and its industrial context illuminates a rich period of heterogeneity of film form and style. The Introduction closes with brief summaries of the book's five chapters.
Andrea Rinke
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748623440
- eISBN:
- 9780748651115
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748623440.003.0014
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The nationalised DEFA (Deutsche Filmaktiengesellschaft) was East Germany's only film company. As in other areas of industrial production in the GDR, the annual output of films was planned many years ...
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The nationalised DEFA (Deutsche Filmaktiengesellschaft) was East Germany's only film company. As in other areas of industrial production in the GDR, the annual output of films was planned many years in advance by the DEFA management, the aim being to produce a balanced package covering a variety of genres including musicals and comedies. This chapter focuses on how the communist authorities in East Germany attempted to compete with Western popular culture by producing socialist musicals that celebrated factory life and farm collectives in the period between 1958 and 1968. Interestingly, as the chapter points out, the conventions of escapism and fun remained central to these films, although Western ‘decadence’ was rejected in favour of a strong emphasis on women's emancipation, especially the right to work. This chapter looks at two film musicals directed by two East German filmmakers who specialised in entertainment films – Gottfried Kolditz's Revue um Mitternacht (Midnight Revue, 1962) and Joachim Hasler's Heißer Sommer (Hot Summer, 1968) – both of which were domestic box office hits.Less
The nationalised DEFA (Deutsche Filmaktiengesellschaft) was East Germany's only film company. As in other areas of industrial production in the GDR, the annual output of films was planned many years in advance by the DEFA management, the aim being to produce a balanced package covering a variety of genres including musicals and comedies. This chapter focuses on how the communist authorities in East Germany attempted to compete with Western popular culture by producing socialist musicals that celebrated factory life and farm collectives in the period between 1958 and 1968. Interestingly, as the chapter points out, the conventions of escapism and fun remained central to these films, although Western ‘decadence’ was rejected in favour of a strong emphasis on women's emancipation, especially the right to work. This chapter looks at two film musicals directed by two East German filmmakers who specialised in entertainment films – Gottfried Kolditz's Revue um Mitternacht (Midnight Revue, 1962) and Joachim Hasler's Heißer Sommer (Hot Summer, 1968) – both of which were domestic box office hits.
David E. James
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199387595
- eISBN:
- 9780199387632
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199387595.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Rock ’n’ roll was initially regarded as a threat that combined aesthetic and social delinquency. Its energies were, however, primary to utopianism of the emerging cultural movements. Just as rock ’n’ ...
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Rock ’n’ roll was initially regarded as a threat that combined aesthetic and social delinquency. Its energies were, however, primary to utopianism of the emerging cultural movements. Just as rock ’n’ roll displaced the hegemony of the Great American Song book, the rock ’n’ roll musical both displaced and recreated the classic film musical. In developing new techniques for representing musical performance, the fans and entire cultural gestalt that the new music sustained, cinema became second only to records in the creation of a rock ’n’ roll culture. But even as cinema developed audio-visual compositions based on the music—forms of rock ’n’ roll visuality—it also had to confront the competition that rock ’n’ roll posed to itself and other components of the established culture industries.Less
Rock ’n’ roll was initially regarded as a threat that combined aesthetic and social delinquency. Its energies were, however, primary to utopianism of the emerging cultural movements. Just as rock ’n’ roll displaced the hegemony of the Great American Song book, the rock ’n’ roll musical both displaced and recreated the classic film musical. In developing new techniques for representing musical performance, the fans and entire cultural gestalt that the new music sustained, cinema became second only to records in the creation of a rock ’n’ roll culture. But even as cinema developed audio-visual compositions based on the music—forms of rock ’n’ roll visuality—it also had to confront the competition that rock ’n’ roll posed to itself and other components of the established culture industries.
Philip Furia and Laurie Patterson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195337082
- eISBN:
- 9780199852789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195337082.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Several companies producing musical films, such as Paramount, RKO, and Warner Bros., were hit by the Great Depression, although not driven to bankruptcy, and their response to this was to cut back on ...
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Several companies producing musical films, such as Paramount, RKO, and Warner Bros., were hit by the Great Depression, although not driven to bankruptcy, and their response to this was to cut back on the production of musicals. Instead, Warner Bros. produced films that reflected the Great Depression, such as Public Enemy and Little Caesar, which are gangster films. Darryl F. Zanuck, second-in-command to the studio head of Warner Bros., knew that they needed a tough story to revive the backstager musical. Zanuck assigned a team of screenwriters to adapt Rope's novel, which is a story that involved a homosexual love affair between a director and a leading man. To provide songs to such particular numbers, Zanuck brought Harry Warren and Al Dubin in as their new songwriting team. They were assigned to Hollywood to write new songs for a film version of the Broadway musical Spring is Here.Less
Several companies producing musical films, such as Paramount, RKO, and Warner Bros., were hit by the Great Depression, although not driven to bankruptcy, and their response to this was to cut back on the production of musicals. Instead, Warner Bros. produced films that reflected the Great Depression, such as Public Enemy and Little Caesar, which are gangster films. Darryl F. Zanuck, second-in-command to the studio head of Warner Bros., knew that they needed a tough story to revive the backstager musical. Zanuck assigned a team of screenwriters to adapt Rope's novel, which is a story that involved a homosexual love affair between a director and a leading man. To provide songs to such particular numbers, Zanuck brought Harry Warren and Al Dubin in as their new songwriting team. They were assigned to Hollywood to write new songs for a film version of the Broadway musical Spring is Here.
Heather Tyrrell and Rajinder Dudrah
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748623440
- eISBN:
- 9780748651115
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748623440.003.0015
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter analyses the highly successful Hindi film, Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (Who am I to You…!, 1994), and situates it within the context of Bollywood's emergent global importance. It argues that ...
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This chapter analyses the highly successful Hindi film, Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (Who am I to You…!, 1994), and situates it within the context of Bollywood's emergent global importance. It argues that the enormous popularity of the film can be partly ascribed to its successful combination of ingredients. All films from India incorporate music and spectacle into their narratives, although they do not necessarily integrate them in the style of the classical musical, since in Bollywood cinema music plays an ‘organic’ role that exceeds Western conventions in important ways. The appeal of Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! seemed to lie in the particular way in which it achieved this, while also addressing contemporary anxieties around the relationship between tradition and modernity in Indian culture. The traditional Western forms of the film musical no longer dominate and the diversification of the musical performance in film therefore suggests the need to expand the range of critical approaches to particular modes of popular culture.Less
This chapter analyses the highly successful Hindi film, Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! (Who am I to You…!, 1994), and situates it within the context of Bollywood's emergent global importance. It argues that the enormous popularity of the film can be partly ascribed to its successful combination of ingredients. All films from India incorporate music and spectacle into their narratives, although they do not necessarily integrate them in the style of the classical musical, since in Bollywood cinema music plays an ‘organic’ role that exceeds Western conventions in important ways. The appeal of Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! seemed to lie in the particular way in which it achieved this, while also addressing contemporary anxieties around the relationship between tradition and modernity in Indian culture. The traditional Western forms of the film musical no longer dominate and the diversification of the musical performance in film therefore suggests the need to expand the range of critical approaches to particular modes of popular culture.
Todd Decker
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520268883
- eISBN:
- 9780520950061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520268883.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
Popular music has almost always been dance music. The dance bands' primary economic role was playing for dancing, and the film musical—especially during the era of the band pix—reached out to dancers ...
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Popular music has almost always been dance music. The dance bands' primary economic role was playing for dancing, and the film musical—especially during the era of the band pix—reached out to dancers in particular. This chapter considers how Fred Astaire's films bridged the gap between dancing couples on-screen and real social dancers moving to the changing beat of popular music. This connection is easiest to see and hear in the named partner dances Astaire created and introduced across his career. Named dances embody a specific marketing strategy: create a buzz around a new dance that generates interest in a new film. In this light, named-dance songs fit into the patterns of Hollywood's standard promotional efforts. Astaire, who made his own named dances, participated directly in studio promotion efforts. The chapter looks at Astaire the maker of partner dances, and explores links between Astaire and his various partners in the idealized realm of the film musical and real-life couples in actual American ballrooms.Less
Popular music has almost always been dance music. The dance bands' primary economic role was playing for dancing, and the film musical—especially during the era of the band pix—reached out to dancers in particular. This chapter considers how Fred Astaire's films bridged the gap between dancing couples on-screen and real social dancers moving to the changing beat of popular music. This connection is easiest to see and hear in the named partner dances Astaire created and introduced across his career. Named dances embody a specific marketing strategy: create a buzz around a new dance that generates interest in a new film. In this light, named-dance songs fit into the patterns of Hollywood's standard promotional efforts. Astaire, who made his own named dances, participated directly in studio promotion efforts. The chapter looks at Astaire the maker of partner dances, and explores links between Astaire and his various partners in the idealized realm of the film musical and real-life couples in actual American ballrooms.
Todd Decker
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520268883
- eISBN:
- 9780520950061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520268883.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
Fred Astaire worked on a relatively small scale, trying always to stay within what he once called the “welcome limit.” Part of the task of routine making involved forging a unified, original ...
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Fred Astaire worked on a relatively small scale, trying always to stay within what he once called the “welcome limit.” Part of the task of routine making involved forging a unified, original structure that combined musical, choreographic, and cinematic choices into a satisfying whole. Astaire solved the question of cinematic unity by framing his dancing figure in its entirety, from head to toe, in a full shot and only rarely allowing cutaways from the dance. He stuck to this approach across his entire career and thereby made his routines legible, first and foremost, as dances. This chapter analyzes three idiosyncratic routines from the late 1940s—a period of aesthetic and commercial uncertainty in popular music, jazz, and the film musical alike—from three successive films: The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), Three Little Words (1950), and Let's Dance (1950). This triptych demonstrates Astaire's ability to work without the formal “net” of conventional song forms.Less
Fred Astaire worked on a relatively small scale, trying always to stay within what he once called the “welcome limit.” Part of the task of routine making involved forging a unified, original structure that combined musical, choreographic, and cinematic choices into a satisfying whole. Astaire solved the question of cinematic unity by framing his dancing figure in its entirety, from head to toe, in a full shot and only rarely allowing cutaways from the dance. He stuck to this approach across his entire career and thereby made his routines legible, first and foremost, as dances. This chapter analyzes three idiosyncratic routines from the late 1940s—a period of aesthetic and commercial uncertainty in popular music, jazz, and the film musical alike—from three successive films: The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), Three Little Words (1950), and Let's Dance (1950). This triptych demonstrates Astaire's ability to work without the formal “net” of conventional song forms.
Kimberly Monteyne
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617039225
- eISBN:
- 9781621039990
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617039225.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Early hip hop film musicals have either been expunged from cinema history or excoriated in brief passages by critics and other writers. Hip Hop on Film reclaims and reexamines productions such as ...
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Early hip hop film musicals have either been expunged from cinema history or excoriated in brief passages by critics and other writers. Hip Hop on Film reclaims and reexamines productions such as Breakin’ (1984), Beat Street (1984), and Krush Groove (1985) in order to illuminate Hollywood’s fascinating efforts to incorporate this nascent urban culture into conventional narrative forms. Such films presented musical conventions against the backdrop of graffiti-splattered trains and abandoned tenements in urban communities of color, setting the stage for radical social and political transformations. Hip hop musicals are part of the broader history of teen cinema as well, and films such as Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style (1983) are here examined alongside other contemporary youth-oriented productions such as Valley Girl (1983) and Pretty in Pink (1986).Breakdancing, a central element of hip hop musicals, is also reconsidered. It gained wide-spread acclaim at the same time that these films entered the theaters but the nation’s newly-discovered dance form was embattled—caught between a multitude of institutional entities such as the ballet academy, advertising culture, and dance publications that vied to control its meaning. As street-trained breakers were enticed to join the world of professional ballet, this newly-forged relationship was recast by dance promoters as a way to invigorate and “remasculinize” European dance. These multiple and volatile histories influenced the first wave of hip hop musical films, and even structured the sleeper hit Flashdance(1983). Monteyne places these productions within the wider context of their cultural antecedents and reconsiders the genre’s influence.Less
Early hip hop film musicals have either been expunged from cinema history or excoriated in brief passages by critics and other writers. Hip Hop on Film reclaims and reexamines productions such as Breakin’ (1984), Beat Street (1984), and Krush Groove (1985) in order to illuminate Hollywood’s fascinating efforts to incorporate this nascent urban culture into conventional narrative forms. Such films presented musical conventions against the backdrop of graffiti-splattered trains and abandoned tenements in urban communities of color, setting the stage for radical social and political transformations. Hip hop musicals are part of the broader history of teen cinema as well, and films such as Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style (1983) are here examined alongside other contemporary youth-oriented productions such as Valley Girl (1983) and Pretty in Pink (1986).Breakdancing, a central element of hip hop musicals, is also reconsidered. It gained wide-spread acclaim at the same time that these films entered the theaters but the nation’s newly-discovered dance form was embattled—caught between a multitude of institutional entities such as the ballet academy, advertising culture, and dance publications that vied to control its meaning. As street-trained breakers were enticed to join the world of professional ballet, this newly-forged relationship was recast by dance promoters as a way to invigorate and “remasculinize” European dance. These multiple and volatile histories influenced the first wave of hip hop musical films, and even structured the sleeper hit Flashdance(1983). Monteyne places these productions within the wider context of their cultural antecedents and reconsiders the genre’s influence.
George Rodosthenous
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199997152
- eISBN:
- 9780199348572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199997152.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, Dance
This chapter discusses the director’s approach of re-locating the songs and giving them a new context within the narrative of the piece. It focuses on the gender reversals that Taymor introduced in ...
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This chapter discusses the director’s approach of re-locating the songs and giving them a new context within the narrative of the piece. It focuses on the gender reversals that Taymor introduced in the performance of Beatles songs in Across the Universe (2007), and explores the performativity of songs that are remediated, re-gendered and relocated into a new dramaturgical context. The analysis is completed by considering the more spectacle-based scenes of the film, and suggesting how reading them in new meta-theatrical contexts creates a hyper-reality that contributes to the complex and textured dramaturgy of the work. Selected songs/scenes from the musical is discussed in detail to exemplify the challenge to integration of technologized dance, puppetry, liveness and constructedness.Less
This chapter discusses the director’s approach of re-locating the songs and giving them a new context within the narrative of the piece. It focuses on the gender reversals that Taymor introduced in the performance of Beatles songs in Across the Universe (2007), and explores the performativity of songs that are remediated, re-gendered and relocated into a new dramaturgical context. The analysis is completed by considering the more spectacle-based scenes of the film, and suggesting how reading them in new meta-theatrical contexts creates a hyper-reality that contributes to the complex and textured dramaturgy of the work. Selected songs/scenes from the musical is discussed in detail to exemplify the challenge to integration of technologized dance, puppetry, liveness and constructedness.
Eva Woods Peiró
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816645848
- eISBN:
- 9781452945880
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816645848.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Little has been written about the Spanish film musical, a genre usually associated with the early Franco dictatorship and dismissed by critics as reactionary, escapist fare. A timely and valuable ...
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Little has been written about the Spanish film musical, a genre usually associated with the early Franco dictatorship and dismissed by critics as reactionary, escapist fare. A timely and valuable corrective, this book shows how the Spanish folkloric musical films of the 1940s and 1950s are inextricably tied to anxious concerns about race—especially, but not only, Gypsiness. Focusing on the processes of identity formation in twentieth-century Spain—with multifaceted readings of the cinematic construction of class, gender, and sexuality—this book explores how these popular films allowed audiences to negotiate and imaginatively, at times problematically, resolve complex social contradictions. The interweaving of race and modernity is particularly evident in the book’s scrutiny of a striking popular phenomenon: how the musicals progressively whitened their stars, even as their storylines became increasingly Andalusianized and Gypsified.Less
Little has been written about the Spanish film musical, a genre usually associated with the early Franco dictatorship and dismissed by critics as reactionary, escapist fare. A timely and valuable corrective, this book shows how the Spanish folkloric musical films of the 1940s and 1950s are inextricably tied to anxious concerns about race—especially, but not only, Gypsiness. Focusing on the processes of identity formation in twentieth-century Spain—with multifaceted readings of the cinematic construction of class, gender, and sexuality—this book explores how these popular films allowed audiences to negotiate and imaginatively, at times problematically, resolve complex social contradictions. The interweaving of race and modernity is particularly evident in the book’s scrutiny of a striking popular phenomenon: how the musicals progressively whitened their stars, even as their storylines became increasingly Andalusianized and Gypsified.
Colleen T. Dunagan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190491369
- eISBN:
- 9780190491406
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190491369.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Chapter Two demonstrates how commercials employ genre-specific codes and conventions to operate as discursive assemblages. The author adopts Grossberg’s concept of cultural formations as a model for ...
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Chapter Two demonstrates how commercials employ genre-specific codes and conventions to operate as discursive assemblages. The author adopts Grossberg’s concept of cultural formations as a model for analyzing dance in advertising. Through close readings of several commercials created for US companies produced between 1948 and 2012, the chapter offers an historicized reading of the strategic intersections between dance, television, film, and advertising within commercials to produce a form of marketing that simultaneously reinforces and destabilizes disciplinary boundaries. Several concepts central to the larger project are introduced here, including liveness, advertising positioning strategies, direct address and hailing, montage, and film musical conventions. While the study focuses on an analysis of the history and conventions of dance-in-advertising in the United States during the mid-to-late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, it also includes examples of commercials created to advertise US products in foreign markets.Less
Chapter Two demonstrates how commercials employ genre-specific codes and conventions to operate as discursive assemblages. The author adopts Grossberg’s concept of cultural formations as a model for analyzing dance in advertising. Through close readings of several commercials created for US companies produced between 1948 and 2012, the chapter offers an historicized reading of the strategic intersections between dance, television, film, and advertising within commercials to produce a form of marketing that simultaneously reinforces and destabilizes disciplinary boundaries. Several concepts central to the larger project are introduced here, including liveness, advertising positioning strategies, direct address and hailing, montage, and film musical conventions. While the study focuses on an analysis of the history and conventions of dance-in-advertising in the United States during the mid-to-late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, it also includes examples of commercials created to advertise US products in foreign markets.
Richard Barrios
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199973842
- eISBN:
- 9780199370115
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199973842.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter describes the creators—or authors—of musical film, from directors to producers and choreographers. These include old-pro movie professionals like Michael Curtiz and those totally ...
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This chapter describes the creators—or authors—of musical film, from directors to producers and choreographers. These include old-pro movie professionals like Michael Curtiz and those totally unsuited such as Cecil B. DeMille and producer David O. Selznick, and even the stage professional Joshua Logan. More successful stage newcomers include Rouben Mamoulian, Vincente Minnelli, Rob Marshall, and the daring choreographer Jack Cole. Producers Arthur Freed and (especially) Joe Pasternak made a specialty of musicals, to greater and lesser effect. The chapter ends by looking at the various audacities of Busby Berkeley and Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!), and creator/stars Gene Kelly (Invitation to the Dance) and John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch).Less
This chapter describes the creators—or authors—of musical film, from directors to producers and choreographers. These include old-pro movie professionals like Michael Curtiz and those totally unsuited such as Cecil B. DeMille and producer David O. Selznick, and even the stage professional Joshua Logan. More successful stage newcomers include Rouben Mamoulian, Vincente Minnelli, Rob Marshall, and the daring choreographer Jack Cole. Producers Arthur Freed and (especially) Joe Pasternak made a specialty of musicals, to greater and lesser effect. The chapter ends by looking at the various audacities of Busby Berkeley and Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!), and creator/stars Gene Kelly (Invitation to the Dance) and John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch).
Todd Decker
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520268883
- eISBN:
- 9780520950061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520268883.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
The production of musical films brought together two normally separate studio departments: writers in the writing department conceived of the story and wrote the dialogue; composers, lyricists, dance ...
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The production of musical films brought together two normally separate studio departments: writers in the writing department conceived of the story and wrote the dialogue; composers, lyricists, dance directors, arrangers, and orchestrators loosely allied in an expanded music department created the musical numbers. Scripts were the blueprints for the studio system production process. Beyond the final shooting script, draft scripts, outlines, and treatments afford glimpses of the writing and filmmaking process. Archival evidence from the music departments comes in two types: a variety of lists (such as rundowns of musical numbers made for budgeting purposes, recording session schedules, and lists of musical cues and songs used) and musical scores (mostly arrangers' full scores and conductors' short scores). This chapter shows how the musical content of Fred Astaire's routines was understood by the creative figures charged with describing films in words before the cameras started rolling. Along the way, the word choices of several of Astaire's lyricists also come into play.Less
The production of musical films brought together two normally separate studio departments: writers in the writing department conceived of the story and wrote the dialogue; composers, lyricists, dance directors, arrangers, and orchestrators loosely allied in an expanded music department created the musical numbers. Scripts were the blueprints for the studio system production process. Beyond the final shooting script, draft scripts, outlines, and treatments afford glimpses of the writing and filmmaking process. Archival evidence from the music departments comes in two types: a variety of lists (such as rundowns of musical numbers made for budgeting purposes, recording session schedules, and lists of musical cues and songs used) and musical scores (mostly arrangers' full scores and conductors' short scores). This chapter shows how the musical content of Fred Astaire's routines was understood by the creative figures charged with describing films in words before the cameras started rolling. Along the way, the word choices of several of Astaire's lyricists also come into play.
