The Musicals List REDUX

[domino harvey]

It’s interesting to think about. My favorite number from Reefer Madness is “Little Mary Sunshine” but part of the reason it kills is that the film is more or less built up to it as a massive punchline, so is it as good considered in isolation? But to pick another number similarly hyper-edited between a “real” world and a musical one, with Chicago I’d say “We Both Reached For the Gun” does everything that film does well and is the clear choice if one thinks representationally, so I would have any qualms voting for it and the film in that list

[therewillbeblus]

What's the consensus on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? I know we've talked about it being a musical where the fight scenes essentially function as reality-breaking numbers, but there's also a lot of music in it - and sequences where the music playing functions as those 'battles'

[domino harvey]

Eligible, I included it in the initial roundup of eligibility

[therewillbeblus]

Awesome, thanks.

I'm usually not keen on including stuff like Nashville, since the musical numbers don't seem to function as breaking reality to actualize feelings and thoughts unable to be articulated or engaged with in the real world of the film.. but I suppose a case could be made for both Barbara Jean and Tom Frank allowing themselves to find a 'voice' that otherwise they can't possess outside of those performances. It's an interesting re-application of the idea that makes it work, and now I'm talking myself into voting for it.

My spotlight is Ema, which has a few musical numbers but that's not really the reason for the spotlight. Like Scott Pilgrim, it's fitting in a roundabout way: here, how the titular character shatters the norms of reality and actualizes desires and sensations other characters don't allow themselves to access, forcing them into altering perspective, that feels in step with the genre. It's hard to explain unless you've seen the film, but I'm looking forward to reading Altman's book and seeing how the principles apply here - maybe I'll write something longer later, but I've written enough about that movie in multiple threads already!

[Tom Amolad]

I'm usually not keen on including stuff like Nashville, since the musical numbers don't seem to function as breaking reality to actualize feelings and thoughts unable to be articulated or engaged with in the real world of the film.. but I suppose a case could be made for both Barbara Jean and Tom Frank allowing themselves to find a 'voice' that otherwise they can't possess outside of those performances. It's an interesting re-application of the idea that makes it work, and now I'm talking myself into voting for it.

This seems like a version of -- but not quite identical to -- the usual distinction between diegetitic and non-diegetic music. The point is that the songs in Nashville are all diegetic, that is, they're native to the world of the characters. It's often presumed that musicals, as a rule, involve nondiegetic songs -- that moment of where a character breaks out into song, accompanied by an orchestra that, within their world, doesn't actually exist but is nonetheless heard on the soundtrack.

Of course, the distinction isn't ever a clear one. Film musicals have long included diegetic numbers alongside the nondiegetic ones. Films will sometimes also trick you into initially perceiving music as nondiegetic, only for you to discover that it's indeed being performed onscreen.

The key film here is perhaps Cabaret, which took a stage musical that combined diegetic songs (those performed in the cabaret) with nondiegetic ones, and it took out all of the nondiegetic ones, as though it was embarrassed to have people break into song. Except it didn't quite take them out -- traces of them are sometimes heard in the background. (I *think* these uses are all diegetic as well -- that is, they're heard in instrumental versions on the radio, etc -- but I'd better not swear to it without checking). For some, this possibility was emancipatory, and it's how you get things like Nashville. (Though perhaps it can't be exclusively attributed to Cabaret -- it must have been in the air around then -- think of Jansco's similarly wholly diegetic musical Red Psalm, which opened less than a month after Cabaret). But for others, that embarrassment around nondiegitic singing spells the end of the musical as a genre.

I don't have a fully settled account of how this inflects what "counts" as a musical. (It would be hard not to count Cabaret; at the same time, I bristle a bit at thinking of Red Psalm or Nashville as musicals -- why? The difference in musical idiom? Perhaps -- that's important too, of course.) But it might be helpful in articulating the terms in which we're speaking.

[therewillbeblus]

That's a very insightful exploration of distinctions within the genre, and why I wanted to start the conversation to begin with! Great food for thought

[Dr Amicus]

Interesting. Any non-RH musicals in this format that you recommend? Or these the theatrical live screenings I see advertised every so often and thus unavailable after the fact?

There was an excellent Miss Saigon, which I think was released on physical media afterwards. That really felt film like in places. Otherwise the one that stands out was An American in Paris, which again I think I preferred to the Minnelli film.

[Never Cursed]

Looking forward to this, it will give me an excuse to watch something than Hammer and horror…

I’m not looking to actually vote for any, but I can say that some of the recent filmed stage productions that have become more common as cinema screenings have had more cinematic flair than some established “proper” film musicals. A production of The Kings and I from a few years ago was much more satisfying on just about every level than the film.

Interesting. Any non-RH musicals in this format that you recommend? Or these the theatrical live screenings I see advertised every so often and thus unavailable after the fact?

Thread bump led me to this and I should note that these are usually available through some kind of backchannels. There are accounts on tumblr especially that basically exist to trade proshot musicals and plays. I saw the recent revival of Angels In America with Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane through this avenue, for instance.

EDIT: This website may prove a useful resource. It informed me that at the very least the Miss Saigon production that Dr. Amicus mentioned is available as a blu-ray

[Red Screamer]

I'm usually not keen on including stuff like Nashville, since the musical numbers don't seem to function as breaking reality to actualize feelings and thoughts unable to be articulated or engaged with in the real world of the film.. but I suppose a case could be made for both Barbara Jean and Tom Frank allowing themselves to find a 'voice' that otherwise they can't possess outside of those performances. It's an interesting re-application of the idea that makes it work, and now I'm talking myself into voting for it.

This seems like a version of -- but not quite identical to -- the usual distinction between diegetitic and non-diegetic music. The point is that the songs in Nashville are all diegetic, that is, they're native to the world of the characters. It's often presumed that musicals, as a rule, involve nondiegetic songs -- that moment of where a character breaks out into song, accompanied by an orchestra that, within their world, doesn't actually exist but is nonetheless heard on the soundtrack.

In agreement with Tom Amolad. I think part of what's great and innovative about Nashville as a musical is the numbers' more ambient role and texture (literally too, in the experimental recording and mixing techniques) — including the fact that the songs themselves can be bad, strange, or indifferent either in the diegesis or for the audience. In this way, the emotional and aesthetic canvas is hugely expanded. I'm not a huge Altman fan generally, but that one (and potentially Popeye) will make my list as a top example of the genre modernized.

Other modern musicals I'm definitely voting for: Magic Mike XXL, La La Land, and The Wayward Cloud or The Hole. I'll also have to spend some time considering that weird, tantalizing subgenre of the frustrated musical, whose bursting out into song and dance gets repeatedly repressed: Mélo, Haut bas fragile, Une femme est une femme. Maybe it's a French thing.

[domino harvey]

I don’t even remember any musical numbers in Melo! I maaaaaaay vote for Resnais’ On connait la chanson though

[Red Screamer]

That's part of it: musical performance is key to all of the characters' relationships (including the conventional affair consummated by a duet), but the music itself is kept at the margins, never allowed to fully transcend the "drama" part of the mélo-drama. Multiple scenes build to musical performances that fade out right after they begin. The most heartbreaking moment of the film: a husband sees his estranged wife again, and in a frenzy of desperation, he starts to sing the opening notes of the sonata that originally brought them together. The camera breaks the standard sober minimalism of the film to surge in and reframe the couple in a classical two-shot, as if they were about to break into a big song and dance, a cathartic fantasy reunion. But the wife glumly refuses, and the musical number goes unrealized.

The argument might be too theoretical, but, hey, that's what rewatches are for!

[soundchaser]

Well, if we get the musical numbers list off the ground, and depending on what shape it takes, “Sluefoot” from Daddy Long Legs will certainly be on mine. I’ve always preferred Astaire to Kelly as a dancer (I know I’m not alone in this), and this is a perfect encapsulation of why: yes, it’s a display of raw talent, but it’s also a talent that can subsume itself wholly into the number. I can’t remember if I read it here or in a book somewhere, but someone said that Astaire makes this stuff look easy; Kelly wants you to know it’s difficult. It’s easy to imagine a version of this that’s uninterested in the group dynamics and focused entirely on its star - I’m glad this one’s not. What a joyful moment.

[Never Cursed]

I just watched that yesterday. It's a great movie, but if you had to pick one number, it wouldn't be the first dream ballet?

[soundchaser]

That whole sequence is wonderful too - especially the artificial set design - but I was bowled over by the camera work in “Sluefoot.” Some of those crane shots are breathtaking.

[Never Cursed]

That's fair - though the same is true of the completely nuts choreography of the dancers and camera in the Rio segment of the second dream ballet

[domino harvey]

Love love love this one. Many great numbers to choose from. I personally love Astaire wailing on the drums as Fred Clark writhes in anguish but I think the second dream ballet is prob the best of all the dream ballets in the genre

[soundchaser]

Well, now I feel like I’m going to wreck the party, because the second dream ballet was definitely the lesser of the two for me. I get why you’d have Astaire so distant in it—and maybe that distance offers its own unique thrills—but I much preferred the more conventional pleasures of the first.

[domino harvey]

No, trust me, I wreck it by saying I think “Sluefoot” is the only dud here

[soundchaser]

We can find a mutual enemy in Clive Hirschhorn, whose otherwise valuable reference book calls both dream ballets “garish and uninspired.”

[domino harvey]

This is a movie that I’ve never seen much esteem for in any academic texts, sadly. Eggheads can’t win ‘em all

[Lowry_Sam]

Does having one musical sequence in a film qualify it to be on the list? My favorite musical number from recent films would be the Gutterballs sequence in The Big Lebowski, which made me wish that the Coens had actually made a complete musical when I first saw it in the theater. Likewise, there's the musical numbers in Mel Brooks' and Monty Python films that are more memorable than most actual musical numbers because they standout from the rest of the movie so much (Puttin' On The Ritz from Young Frankenstein, The Spanish Inquisition fron The History Of The World Part 1, Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life from Life Of Brian, Every Sperm Is Sacred & The Galaxy Song from The Meaning Of Life).

[domino harvey]

You could prob argue Meaning of Life is a musical since there are multiple numbers but clearly none of the others are. Never Cursed can weigh in but those other scenes seem better equipped for the supplemental numbers list

[Never Cursed]

Agreed that none of those besides Meaning of Life are musicals - and I kind of wanted to limit the numbers list to musicals, for winnowing-the-pack reasons if for no other, and because I’m not sure why a musicals viewing project should incentivize people to watch non-musicals.

[domino harvey]

Speaking of movies from auteurs that don’t exist, I still can’t believe we live in the timeline where Soderbergh’s jukebox Cleopatra musical with Guided by Voices songs and Catherine Zeta Jones never came to fruition. Somewhere in an alternate universe alternate me is listing it

[Never Cursed]

Now's a good time to remember that Michel Gondry made a musical and the studio made him scrap it completely. The songs were almost certainly not good, but, like, he's one of a small handful of directors that I would actually trust to pull that off. It's definitely one of those where someone should leak the workprint or whatever