Musical (Part 2)

A journey through one of the most fascinating and popular film genres, from the early talkies of the '30s (with the stunning performances of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) through the glamorous productions of the '40s and '50s (from An American in Paris to Singin' in the rain), from the new interpretations of this genre in the '60s and '70s (from West Side Story to Saturday night fever), to the most recent innovations (from Moulin Rouge! to La-La Land). However, this Dossier also explores the stylistic development of the musical through time, the meanings it has conveyed and the social functions it has fulfilled in different historical and cultural contexts.

The third part in this journey through one of the most fascinating and popular film genres, from the early talkies of the '30s (with the stunning performances of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) through the glamorous productions of the '40s and '50s (from An American in Paris to Singin' in the rain ), from the new interpretations of this genre in the '60s and '70s (from West Side Story to Saturday night fever ), to the most recent innovations (from Moulin Rouge! to La-La Land ). A rich anthology of the movie sequences that have made the musical an unforgettable audience experience ...

Screen, 2013

The musical is generally considered to be a major Hollywood genre in ways that, with the exception of Bollywood, it is not for other national cinemas. Although the Hollywood musical has been in decline since the 1960s, it appears to have had a resurgence around the turn of the millennium, with films such as Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann, 2001), Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002), and the Bollywood crossover Bride and Prejudice (Gurinder Chadha, 2004). 1 That resurgence is also evident in the French musical, which has become an increasingly visible feature of French cinema since the 1990s, a little before the Hollywood resurgence, with films by Alain Resnais, François Ozon, Christophe Honoré, and Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau amongst others. 2 Most film histories do not recognize the musical as a typically French genre; indeed, the foremost French writer on sound and music in the cinema, Michel Chion, lamented the fact in 2002 that there is as yet no major work on the genre, something that remains true a decade later. 3 Directors who made musicals, such as René Clair and Jacques Demy, are more often than not seen as auteurs rather than as contributors to a specific genre; even books devoted to music in the French cinema focus on individuals-composers, singers, directors-rather than addressing the musical as a genre. 4 This is all the more curious given that musicals were as popular in the French cinema during the 1940s and 1950s as they were in Hollywood. The films of Tino Rossi, Luis Mariano, and Ray Ventura were amongst the best-selling films of the 1935-1955 period. This article is part of a larger project that aims to stake a claim for the French musical as a national genre. The article will focus on the films of Ray Ventura and his circle, which echo the swing and Big Band films of Hollywood, but which have a distinctively French flavour, given their links with French vaudeville and music hall traditions. The article is in three sections. The first will place the Big Band musical within the broad landscape of music in the French cinema, and outline the codes of the sub-genre 5 in its French context, with a particular emphasis on the interaction between narrative and musical numbers. The second will show how the Big Band films demonstrate a tension between the old and the new, the romantic couple and the community, and between France and the USA. The final section will focus on a single case study, the best-selling French film of 1950, Nous irons à Paris/We Will All Go to Paris. 1 See Steven Cohan, 'Introduction: How Do You Solve a Problem Like the Film Musical?', in Steven Cohan (ed.), The Sound of Musicals (London: BFI, 2010), pp. 1-5; he reports that the genre's comeback is generally seen as 'an improbable possibility' (p. 5).

The Velvet Light Trap, 2003

Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 2012

Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2001

Most histories of American musical theatre give short shriftat bestto the 'origin of the species', to use Edith Borroff's apt phrase. Despite lofty ambitions (titles that claim coverage 'from the beginning to the present'), most authors are content to offer a brief essay about the antecedents of musical comedy, usually including definitive identification of 'the first American musical' (The Black Crook, Little Johnny Jones, Evangeline, Show Boat, The Beggar's Opera, The Wizard of the Nile or any number of other works), before turning, with an almost discernible sigh of relief, to musical theatre of the twentieth century. The reasons for the brevity and for the disagreement on the 'first' musical become readily apparent as soon as one attempts to sort out the myriad different types of musical theatrical forms that materialised, metamorphosed, became popular, disappeared, re-emerged and cross-fertilised prior to the twentieth century. To put it simply, for the scholar in search of a clear lineage to the forms of the twentieth century, musical theatre in the eighteenthand even more so in the nineteenthcentury was a tangled, chaotic mess. This was not the impression at the time, of course. To the contrary, a nineteenth-century American, especially the resident of a large city like New York, found musical theatrical life during the time to be gloriously rich, varied and ever-changing; it was a world that was entertaining, interesting, exciting and innovative to an extent that should elicit a twinge of envy from the modern reader. But the job of the historian is to clarify and attempt to put into some kind of order the messiness of a bygone era. And the richness of that period makes the job both difficult and important. What follows, then, is a carefully guided and succinct tour of the American musical-theatrical world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To some readersespecially those anxious to reach the more familiar terrain of the twentieth centurythe description of musical life of the earlier eras will be a little puzzling, primarily because this essay will describe genres that have since been removed from the general category of 'musical theatre'. But the varied musical forms that Americans enjoyed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (including opera,

The new century seems to witness a rebirth of the musical with such box-office hits as “Dancer in the dark” and “Chicago” – in fact, with their dark, bitter atmosphere, far removed from the enchanted optimism of the golden era. At the same time, “Moulin Rouge!” updates the “backstage musical” (and its related love story) with dazzling special effects and a musical score made of a collage of pop and rock hits, suitable for younger audiences. And while Broadway continues to provide material for more or less successful adaptations (among which “Mamma mia” and “Hairspray”), new forms seem to emerge, like the “juke-box musicals” (“Across the universe”, “Yesterday”) and revivals of the past with a contemporary look (“La La Land”), while the evergreen biopics come back with hits like “Bohemian rhapsody” and “Rocketman”. Maybe the “swan song” of the Hollywood musical is yet to come …

The Journal of Popular Culture, 2007