I’ve admitted worse on here before, including that I once entered Barnes and Noble with the intention of getting the OBCR of Stephen Sondheim’s Passion and walked out with Bombay Dreams instead. But this time I’m admitting I’ve never seen the movie White Christmas. It’s not that I haven’t intended to, but December is always so busy. I do sometimes see a copy of it at the library, but June 18 is such a bad time to check out White Christmas.
I did see a portion of the movie on television once a number of years ago and remember thinking that I needed to rent it. I liked it. But that’s not a surprise because I usually enjoy musical movies from that era. Not only do they have charming storytelling, if not the most engaging integration of songs into the story, but they exude class, sophistication, and humor.
Several years ago, I had the great fortune of seeing Singin’ in the Rain on the big screen. I had rented it while I was in high school and had seen it at least once since, but getting to experience it on the original canvas, a movie screen before an audience filled with people, was another experience entirely. It is a hilarious movie. It was a romantic comedy with music, much like a romantic comedy people see today, except funny (and with music). I mean, people were constantly laughing.
I’ve since been able to see two other great old musicals on the big screen—one of my favorites, Meet Me in St. Louis (which featured a post-show discussion with Margaret O’Brien) and one I had not been a particular fan of, The Harvey Girls. Interestingly enough, while I had really disliked The Harvey Girls on DVD, watching it in a theater filled with people brought out so much I had missed at home, namely the great humor and charm in what is essentially a very light romantic comedy that, in our time, takes on the burden of being a classic and minor epic because of the presence of Judy Garland and the added aura of it being a musical.
To us, a movie musical is an event—Chicago, Hairspray, The Phantom of the Opera—an expensive, costume-heavy movie promoted to high-heaven. To movie-goers in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, they were often breezy evenings at the movies and while they were hard for the talented artists involved in making them, studios were popping out many every year like machine-work. Musicals like The Harvey Girls and White Christmas were not the epics we associate with movie musicals of today. They were simple, popular entertainment intended to be viewed once and then locked away in a movie vault somewhere.
Back to White Christmas.
This Christmas, not much changed. I still need to see White Christmas the movie, but now I can say that I’ve seen it on stage. It was the very last performance of a regional run, a performance which fell on a very un-Christmasy post-New Years Saturday.
Though I have nothing to compare it to (except my knowledge of movie musicals from that era), I guess it doesn’t take a genius to form an opinion and then analyze it to death.
It’s not that I didn’t enjoy White Christmas so much as it didn’t thrill me, didn’t leave me with much of anything I’ll fondly remember in a year. It was, I suppose, nothing in particular. It wasn’t particularly funny. It wasn’t particularly romantic. The characters weren’t particularly rich or memorable. The choreography was energetic and fun but not particularly striking. I don’t think I’ll ever stop and reflect on what a great evening it was or go out of my way to find the original cast recording. In a year, I may have no specific memories of it (except maybe the final ice-skating dance, which was pretty clever and beautifully costumed).
Because I know one or two people who rave about the stage show (telling me that the movie is a must-see Christmas tradition) and because I know that it is a show that is gaining popularity around the country (evidenced by its run on Broadway this past Christmas), I assumed that it would be a remarkable show. But after seeing it for myself, I find it interesting that I’ve now met a number of people who either echo my sentiment or who respond, “Yeah, I’ve heard that.”
I think part of the problem is the book. It feels like a movie pulled onto the stage, and the characters still feel largely bound to the screen. The four lead characters feel very much like the type of characters found in musical movies of that era (as opposed to the fun, theatrical characters found in stage shows of that era). It didn’t help that in the production I saw the male leads were well-sung but not particularly thrilling in the parts, but I can’t help but wonder if, in the bigger picture, that doesn’t have more to do with the material. Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye automatically bring a certain charm and air to their film roles that stage actors don’t have access to.
Musical movies of this era were known for having thin plots bloated by show within a show numbers. I admired the stage White Christmas for almost not over-doing the show within a show numbers (a problem I had with the 42nd Street revival), but the plot isn’t any more thrilling or compelling because of it. Again, I can’t comment on what may have been added or dropped from the movie, but the folksy “Let’s Put on a Show to Save ____________” where Broadway hoofers start coming out of the cracks and take up eight minutes of stage time to sing a song disconnected from the plot doesn’t make for a satisfying evening at the theatre.
The show definitely has impressive production values, with sets and costumes that made the tour of Grease I had recently seen look like a community theatre production, and there is an attempt to make the show something special, but the material just doesn’t hold up.
Had I paid $70-100 for the ticket, I would have been greatly disappointed (which, by comparison, I didn’t feel after paying $76 to see Grease), and I can’t help but wish the thousands of people who see White Christmas around the country every Christmas hadn’t had a chance to be thrilled by The Drowsy Chaperone, The Color Purple, or Hairspray instead. On stage, White Christmas may bring back fond memories, but it doesn’t manage to form any new ones.
the Broadway Mouth
January 12, 2009
Showing posts with label modernizing movie musicals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label modernizing movie musicals. Show all posts
Monday, January 12, 2009
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Modernizing Movie Musicals: Epilogue
In my series on how to modernize movie musicals to overcome some of the typical criticisms of the genre, I looked at ways of better meshing the stage influences found in early musicals with modern audience expectations, to take the “break into song” cliché and essentially erase it.
The thing is, while I can diagnose, I can’t control audiences. Interestingly enough, the worst of all worst perpetrators of these hated and cursed techniques happens to be the most successful—Kenny Ortega’s High School Musical franchise.
Honestly, look at any clip of the movies, and you’ll see all my suggestions gone to waste. You have actors singing and dancing directly into the camera, pretty much acknowledging the audience that isn’t there during the dialogue scenes. Some of the kids are very talented singers, while others try their best. And while the musical staging doesn’t seem to come from a different performance style from the book scenes, a number of those kids graduated too quickly from the Nickelodeon School of Acting.
What’s most odd about it all is that it is helmed by Kenny Ortega, who did such a brilliant job on all fronts with Newsies. Whatever rules he worked with in that musical, he boldly threw away for the High School Musical series.
Recently on Nightline, Ortega spoke about learning to make film musicals from the master himself, Gene Kelly. Interesting, you can, indeed, see those old school influences in the HSM movies.
The Broadway Mouth
October 23, 2008
The thing is, while I can diagnose, I can’t control audiences. Interestingly enough, the worst of all worst perpetrators of these hated and cursed techniques happens to be the most successful—Kenny Ortega’s High School Musical franchise.
Honestly, look at any clip of the movies, and you’ll see all my suggestions gone to waste. You have actors singing and dancing directly into the camera, pretty much acknowledging the audience that isn’t there during the dialogue scenes. Some of the kids are very talented singers, while others try their best. And while the musical staging doesn’t seem to come from a different performance style from the book scenes, a number of those kids graduated too quickly from the Nickelodeon School of Acting.
What’s most odd about it all is that it is helmed by Kenny Ortega, who did such a brilliant job on all fronts with Newsies. Whatever rules he worked with in that musical, he boldly threw away for the High School Musical series.
Recently on Nightline, Ortega spoke about learning to make film musicals from the master himself, Gene Kelly. Interesting, you can, indeed, see those old school influences in the HSM movies.
The Broadway Mouth
October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Modernizing Movie Musicals: Chapter 4 (Musical Staging)
On stage, performances must be big enough to fill a theatre. Acting for the stage is a very different experience than acting for a movie. If acting for a stage is somewhat exaggerated, acting for the screen is minimized. If you watch a movie and really consider how the actors are acting, it can almost be hilarious because it is so reserved. When you watch the snippets of acting performances on the Academy Awards, you can get a good feel for how unrealistic acting really is (the goal of which, just as it is with writing, is to create the illusion of reality and not to actually recreate reality).
In many classic stage movie musicals, the filmic style gets tossed out the door when choreography or musical staging is brought into the picture. For example, according to choreographer Michael Kidd, the opening street scene of the Guys and Dolls movie was taken directly from the stage. If you watch that scene, it’s so stylized, it’s doesn’t feel like it fits in a movie. Actions are exaggerated, movement almost pantomimed, and for modern audiences, that simply doesn’t work because it breaks the reality of the world created elsewhere in the movie. Because movies require a reserved performing style, histrionic choreography or movement feels painfully out of place. It looks corny, and breaks the bridge between the dialogue and the music. When people complain that in musicals people just break out into song, my theory is that they are thinking of the classic musicals where there was one style of acting for the book scenes and another for the song and dance numbers.
In Mamma Mia!, there was an unintentionally hilarious moment because of this. I think it is during “Mamma Mia” that Streep leans against the wall and bumps her hips back and forth to the music. She is given a huge motion that doesn’t fit with the preceding scenes. It was a classic movie musical moment which announced THIS IS NOW A MUSICAL!!!!!!!. It was just one of such scenes that earned a chuckle from audience members at a packed screening I attended.
The greatest film musicals got this—Meet Me in St. Louis, Mary Poppins, and The Sound of Music are just a few that pop into my mind—and they survive today among a wide audience because they got the mixture right. Some modern movie musicals have had directors who understood this—Dreamgirls and Hairspray are two key examples. For modern musicals to continue to find wide audiences (and earn big profit margins), directors and choreographers will need to continue to find the bridge between Broadway and film.
the Broadway Mouth
October 8, 2008
In many classic stage movie musicals, the filmic style gets tossed out the door when choreography or musical staging is brought into the picture. For example, according to choreographer Michael Kidd, the opening street scene of the Guys and Dolls movie was taken directly from the stage. If you watch that scene, it’s so stylized, it’s doesn’t feel like it fits in a movie. Actions are exaggerated, movement almost pantomimed, and for modern audiences, that simply doesn’t work because it breaks the reality of the world created elsewhere in the movie. Because movies require a reserved performing style, histrionic choreography or movement feels painfully out of place. It looks corny, and breaks the bridge between the dialogue and the music. When people complain that in musicals people just break out into song, my theory is that they are thinking of the classic musicals where there was one style of acting for the book scenes and another for the song and dance numbers.
In Mamma Mia!, there was an unintentionally hilarious moment because of this. I think it is during “Mamma Mia” that Streep leans against the wall and bumps her hips back and forth to the music. She is given a huge motion that doesn’t fit with the preceding scenes. It was a classic movie musical moment which announced THIS IS NOW A MUSICAL!!!!!!!. It was just one of such scenes that earned a chuckle from audience members at a packed screening I attended.
The greatest film musicals got this—Meet Me in St. Louis, Mary Poppins, and The Sound of Music are just a few that pop into my mind—and they survive today among a wide audience because they got the mixture right. Some modern movie musicals have had directors who understood this—Dreamgirls and Hairspray are two key examples. For modern musicals to continue to find wide audiences (and earn big profit margins), directors and choreographers will need to continue to find the bridge between Broadway and film.
the Broadway Mouth
October 8, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Modernizing Movie Musicals: Chapter 3 (Getting Singers to Sing)
Of the recent movie musicals, audiences have been notably put-off by musical stars who can’t sing. The first thing I heard from plenty of average non-Broadway fans about The Phantom of the Opera was “The Phantom wasn’t that great of a singer, and he had odd pronunciation.” Most reviews noted how thin Helena Bonham Carter’s voice was in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Very few reviewers commented how great Pierce Brosnan sounded in Mamma Mia!. And my personal vendetta is against Jamie Foxx who murdered “When I First Saw You” in Dreamgirls. He went on record as saying he chose not to practice his numbers too much since Curtis is not a singer, but for anyone who has heard Norm Lewis’s “When I First Saw You,” they know how Curtis is supposed to sound.
The struggle between audience-drawing names and movie stars with musical talents is as old as movie musicals. Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood, and Audrey Hepburn all sang just like Marni Nixon. Vera-Ellen was a commonly dubbed dancing star, and many great actors couldn’t pull off their own singing for roles (or weren’t given the chance)—Angela Lansbury, Debbie Reynolds, Ava Gardner, Lucille Ball, and Christopher Plummer were all dubbed at one time or another. Even in modern times, Broadway stars B.D. Wong and Matthew Broderick found themselves dubbed in Disney movies.
The modern day response to having a star who can’t sing in live-action musicals is to cast them anyway and hope for the best. With the exception of Minnie Driver’s dubbed Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera, having musical stars who can’t sing strong enough for the roles hasn’t deterred anyone from letting them sing in a movie.
The problem is that musicals require the ability to sing well in order to act well. As an actor, the only instrument you have at your disposal is your body, and your voice is part of that body. If you are vocally unable to do something with your character, then you can’t appropriately act the part, just as if you are not physically strong enough to play a football hero, you can’t appropriately play the part. In a musical, if you can’t sing well, you can’t act well.
In the old days, stars were required to be phenomenally versatile—singers, dancers, actors. They were nurtured for movies that required them to be. It’s funny to contemplate Dean Martin, who was a typical star of his day—a very versatile singer and actor.
The problem is that these days, musicals are returning, but the musical talents are not being nurtured, so that when a movie musical is in production, there are only a few natural musical film stars from which to choose.
That’s not to say that there aren’t significant musical talents out there who would be very capable of being a movie star; they just need to be developed.
Studios primarily look at projects on a film-by-film basis. Nobody really gets nurtured to be a star. Patrick Wilson has made it far in film by building his movie presence movie by movie, not because someone decided to nurture his talent.
If I ran a movie studio, I would start building real music talents who can do the singing and acting. I’d start by casting them in small movie roles and working them into larger roles (which is how most stars make it). That way when there came to be a big movie remake of My Fair Lady, I wouldn’t be stuck looking at whose name might draw people in, but I could find stars who had the name AND the talent.
Let’s be honest, Johnny Depp may be a highly regarded actor, but he pulled off Sweeney Todd instead of really bringing the material to life musically. The same could be said of Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!, Uma Thurman in The Producers, Amanda Bynes in Hairspray, and a number of other actors in the recent string of musicals.
There are actors are out there who can pull off musical material—Hugh Jackman, Jane Krakowski, Anne Hathaway, Patrick Wilson, Emmy Rossum, and Catherine Zeta-Jones all come to mind. But obviously, that’s not enough.
I’m curious to see this promised remake of My Fair Lady. Kiera Knightly is a very talented woman; I just hope she’s musically talented. Eliza Doolittle is not a role that can be “rocked” through, learned in three weeks of musical training, or breathed through a la Helena Bonham Carter. No one wants an Eliza Doolittle with a thin voice being blasted at you through THX. Most moviegoers didn’t know how Mrs. Lovett should sound, but Knightly won’t have that luxury with Eliza Doolittle thanks to the still-popular original movie adaptation. And after all, it’s Henry Higgins who gets to talk through his songs, not everyone else.
the Broadway Mouth
October 6, 2008
The struggle between audience-drawing names and movie stars with musical talents is as old as movie musicals. Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood, and Audrey Hepburn all sang just like Marni Nixon. Vera-Ellen was a commonly dubbed dancing star, and many great actors couldn’t pull off their own singing for roles (or weren’t given the chance)—Angela Lansbury, Debbie Reynolds, Ava Gardner, Lucille Ball, and Christopher Plummer were all dubbed at one time or another. Even in modern times, Broadway stars B.D. Wong and Matthew Broderick found themselves dubbed in Disney movies.
The modern day response to having a star who can’t sing in live-action musicals is to cast them anyway and hope for the best. With the exception of Minnie Driver’s dubbed Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera, having musical stars who can’t sing strong enough for the roles hasn’t deterred anyone from letting them sing in a movie.
The problem is that musicals require the ability to sing well in order to act well. As an actor, the only instrument you have at your disposal is your body, and your voice is part of that body. If you are vocally unable to do something with your character, then you can’t appropriately act the part, just as if you are not physically strong enough to play a football hero, you can’t appropriately play the part. In a musical, if you can’t sing well, you can’t act well.
In the old days, stars were required to be phenomenally versatile—singers, dancers, actors. They were nurtured for movies that required them to be. It’s funny to contemplate Dean Martin, who was a typical star of his day—a very versatile singer and actor.
The problem is that these days, musicals are returning, but the musical talents are not being nurtured, so that when a movie musical is in production, there are only a few natural musical film stars from which to choose.
That’s not to say that there aren’t significant musical talents out there who would be very capable of being a movie star; they just need to be developed.
Studios primarily look at projects on a film-by-film basis. Nobody really gets nurtured to be a star. Patrick Wilson has made it far in film by building his movie presence movie by movie, not because someone decided to nurture his talent.
If I ran a movie studio, I would start building real music talents who can do the singing and acting. I’d start by casting them in small movie roles and working them into larger roles (which is how most stars make it). That way when there came to be a big movie remake of My Fair Lady, I wouldn’t be stuck looking at whose name might draw people in, but I could find stars who had the name AND the talent.
Let’s be honest, Johnny Depp may be a highly regarded actor, but he pulled off Sweeney Todd instead of really bringing the material to life musically. The same could be said of Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!, Uma Thurman in The Producers, Amanda Bynes in Hairspray, and a number of other actors in the recent string of musicals.
There are actors are out there who can pull off musical material—Hugh Jackman, Jane Krakowski, Anne Hathaway, Patrick Wilson, Emmy Rossum, and Catherine Zeta-Jones all come to mind. But obviously, that’s not enough.
I’m curious to see this promised remake of My Fair Lady. Kiera Knightly is a very talented woman; I just hope she’s musically talented. Eliza Doolittle is not a role that can be “rocked” through, learned in three weeks of musical training, or breathed through a la Helena Bonham Carter. No one wants an Eliza Doolittle with a thin voice being blasted at you through THX. Most moviegoers didn’t know how Mrs. Lovett should sound, but Knightly won’t have that luxury with Eliza Doolittle thanks to the still-popular original movie adaptation. And after all, it’s Henry Higgins who gets to talk through his songs, not everyone else.
the Broadway Mouth
October 6, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Modernizing Movie Musicals: Chapter 2 (Giving the Actors an Audience)
One of the worst moments in musical film—or at least the one that comes to mind for the sake of illustration—is in the bad adaptation of Kiss Me, Kate, when the two gangsters, out of nowhere, turn to the camera and start singing “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”
It’s a movie. There is no audience to whom you have to cheat front.
The musical numbers of a movie musical must be filmed as if there is no Broadway audience, which means that the performers cannot randomly turn to an audience. An entire movie can’t exist within four walls, then for short bursts acknowledge the fourth wall. For modern moviegoers, that changes the rules created by the conventions of film and is awkward. That's when people say musicals are not sophisticated enough for modern audiences.
You see this handled well in many of the recent musicals. When Jack Kelly sings “Sante Fe” in Newsies, he’s not singing it to the audience. It is a reflection of his own state in life, and it is sung back to himself. It is photographed from a variety of directions, so that he is not always facing the camera. When he is filmed facing forward, his expression reverts his attention to his own contemplations. When he dances, he is not performing a number for the audience; it is the physical expression of his emotions. Because of this, “Sante Fe” is not awkward at all.
You see this done beautifully and often by Adam Shankman in Hairspray. During “Big, Blonde, and Beautiful,” the dancing is photographed facing toward Maybelle and Edna. The audience still experiences that wonderful choreography, but it is given an audience within the movie. It feels natural, rather than having it all faced out, acknowledging the existence of a fourth wall audience.
Even when Shankman uses the traditional forward-facing style, as he does in the ending of “Welcome to the 60’s,” he places the camera at an angle, so that the characters aren’t performing to the fourth wall. This gives the choreography a sense that these characters all happen to be dancing in the same direction, as opposed to performing for an audience.
A good example of how this might have changed classic musicals is “I’m Going Back” in Bells are Ringing. In the show (and movie), it is the moment when Ella has finally exhausted herself with all of her own antics and secret identities. She feels she has lost the man she loves because of her antics, and she’s ready to give up being an operator. In the movie, as in the stage show, Ella sings the song facing the fourth wall, doing her choreography, including the Jolson bit, to the audience.
To give Ella an audience within the movie, a modern director might have Ella perform the song to her switchboard. It would be a natural outlet, since all of her problems stemmed from her job at the switchboard. In essence, she would be letting out her frustration on herself because of the people whom she tried to help, represented in her mind by the switchboard where she met them all. Ella might turn away, singing to herself in a manner similar to Jack in Newsies, but the focus is still on something within the movie—herself.
Modern audiences don’t buy musicals when they push the boundaries of reality too far. We know audiences have a high tolerance for creativity and artificiality in movies—the plethora of horror, torture, action, super-hero, and romantic comedies more than proves this. But it’s the random performance to a fourth-wall audience that pops up out of nowhere that creates awkward moments in movie musicals. To resolve this, be it in singing or choreography, it is key to give the performer an audience within the movie, be it himself or herself, another character, or another object. This keeps a consistent tone and focus throughout the whole piece, just as is done in every other movie genre.
the Broadway Mouth
October 2, 2008
It’s a movie. There is no audience to whom you have to cheat front.
The musical numbers of a movie musical must be filmed as if there is no Broadway audience, which means that the performers cannot randomly turn to an audience. An entire movie can’t exist within four walls, then for short bursts acknowledge the fourth wall. For modern moviegoers, that changes the rules created by the conventions of film and is awkward. That's when people say musicals are not sophisticated enough for modern audiences.
You see this handled well in many of the recent musicals. When Jack Kelly sings “Sante Fe” in Newsies, he’s not singing it to the audience. It is a reflection of his own state in life, and it is sung back to himself. It is photographed from a variety of directions, so that he is not always facing the camera. When he is filmed facing forward, his expression reverts his attention to his own contemplations. When he dances, he is not performing a number for the audience; it is the physical expression of his emotions. Because of this, “Sante Fe” is not awkward at all.
You see this done beautifully and often by Adam Shankman in Hairspray. During “Big, Blonde, and Beautiful,” the dancing is photographed facing toward Maybelle and Edna. The audience still experiences that wonderful choreography, but it is given an audience within the movie. It feels natural, rather than having it all faced out, acknowledging the existence of a fourth wall audience.
Even when Shankman uses the traditional forward-facing style, as he does in the ending of “Welcome to the 60’s,” he places the camera at an angle, so that the characters aren’t performing to the fourth wall. This gives the choreography a sense that these characters all happen to be dancing in the same direction, as opposed to performing for an audience.
A good example of how this might have changed classic musicals is “I’m Going Back” in Bells are Ringing. In the show (and movie), it is the moment when Ella has finally exhausted herself with all of her own antics and secret identities. She feels she has lost the man she loves because of her antics, and she’s ready to give up being an operator. In the movie, as in the stage show, Ella sings the song facing the fourth wall, doing her choreography, including the Jolson bit, to the audience.
To give Ella an audience within the movie, a modern director might have Ella perform the song to her switchboard. It would be a natural outlet, since all of her problems stemmed from her job at the switchboard. In essence, she would be letting out her frustration on herself because of the people whom she tried to help, represented in her mind by the switchboard where she met them all. Ella might turn away, singing to herself in a manner similar to Jack in Newsies, but the focus is still on something within the movie—herself.
Modern audiences don’t buy musicals when they push the boundaries of reality too far. We know audiences have a high tolerance for creativity and artificiality in movies—the plethora of horror, torture, action, super-hero, and romantic comedies more than proves this. But it’s the random performance to a fourth-wall audience that pops up out of nowhere that creates awkward moments in movie musicals. To resolve this, be it in singing or choreography, it is key to give the performer an audience within the movie, be it himself or herself, another character, or another object. This keeps a consistent tone and focus throughout the whole piece, just as is done in every other movie genre.
the Broadway Mouth
October 2, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Modernizing Movie Musicals: Chapter 1 (Concept)
When I talked about the Hollywood adaptation of the musical Hairspray last year, I mentioned how the producers should write the book on making movie musicals. Honestly, this is something I’ve thought much about long before Hairspray last summer, and since they haven’t written a book on the subject, I’m taking it upon myself to do it for them, one chapter (or idea) at a time.
Chapter 1 is about the concept. Hollywood analysts used to say that modern audiences wouldn’t buy musicals because audiences have become too sophisticated. I said it then, and I’ll say it again—Nonsense!
Let’s face it, there’s nothing “sophisticated” about the run-of-the-mill torture movies or action flicks. It takes as much willing suspense of disbelief to watch Transformers, I Am Legend, and Iron Man as it does to watch a musical. I would believe that Judy Garland saves the day by singing in Summer Stock as much as I can believe that Edward Norton turns into a giant green man.
This is evidenced by the great successes of Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Dreamgirls, Hairspray, and Mamma Mia!, the latter of which is probably one of the corniest, most un-sophisticated musicals of them all.
The key, however, is all in how it is done. Up until Hairspray, no one ever would have thought that the traditional singing musical would work again, which explains a few of the problems with the Dreamgirls adaptation, which attempted to hide its musical roots until the characters had to inevitably sing something outside of the concert setting.
What those analysts should have said is that audiences were too sophisticated for musicals the way they were usually done in the 1930s-1950s. It’s simply a matter of updating the style, which means breaking away from the movie musical’s Broadway roots.
the Broadway Mouth
September 30, 2008
Chapter 1 is about the concept. Hollywood analysts used to say that modern audiences wouldn’t buy musicals because audiences have become too sophisticated. I said it then, and I’ll say it again—Nonsense!
Let’s face it, there’s nothing “sophisticated” about the run-of-the-mill torture movies or action flicks. It takes as much willing suspense of disbelief to watch Transformers, I Am Legend, and Iron Man as it does to watch a musical. I would believe that Judy Garland saves the day by singing in Summer Stock as much as I can believe that Edward Norton turns into a giant green man.
This is evidenced by the great successes of Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Dreamgirls, Hairspray, and Mamma Mia!, the latter of which is probably one of the corniest, most un-sophisticated musicals of them all.
The key, however, is all in how it is done. Up until Hairspray, no one ever would have thought that the traditional singing musical would work again, which explains a few of the problems with the Dreamgirls adaptation, which attempted to hide its musical roots until the characters had to inevitably sing something outside of the concert setting.
What those analysts should have said is that audiences were too sophisticated for musicals the way they were usually done in the 1930s-1950s. It’s simply a matter of updating the style, which means breaking away from the movie musical’s Broadway roots.
the Broadway Mouth
September 30, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
