The Musical

Setting the Stage

In Singin' in the Rain (1952),when silent film star Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly)tries to tell Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) how he feels about her, he is ata loss for words. Confessing that he is such a "ham" and needs "the propersetting," he takes her from a bright, sunlit exterior into a dark interior-adeserted motion picture stage. With the flick of a light switch, he paints "abeautiful sunset." Turning on a fog machine, he adds "mist from the distantmountains." With a bank of red lights, he conjures up "colored lights in thegarden." Positioning his Juliet on a step ladder, he tells Kathy she is "standingon her balcony." Using a single floor lamp, he floods her with moonlight, then

~~~]~~~~H~~~~~~~I "[~~i)~,~n md mac~~"a

soft summer breeze"-and he has the proper setting to speak (or rather sing) toher. The number is "You Were Meant for Me."

What Lockwood does here is what most musicals attempt in order to makea smooth transition from narrative action to musical number: they transformthe setting or space from one that grounds the action from the more or lessrealistic world of the story (its fictional reality) into a different register. In thisnew world, new laws take hold; the characters are momentarily freed from thefictional reality of the narrative and surrender themselves to the fantasy of songand dance. In other words, the conventions of classic realist narration, in whichcharacters do not normally break into song and dance, suddenly yield to theconventions of the musical number, in which they do.

The heart of the musical (what makes it a musical and not another kind offilm) lies in its music and the characters who sing and dance to it. Charactersin nonmusicals often sing, but their singing tends to be narratively motivated(and not very good). Cary Grant and Myrna Loy are connected as a couple inMr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)when they both sing "Home on theRange" in the shower. It's not unusual to sing in the shower: everyone does it. Itis perfectly natural for a liberal politician such as Jay Bulworth (Warren Beatty)to try his hand at rapping in Bulworth (1998);it shows that he wants to be hip.And it is okay for Legal Eagles (1986) attorney Tom Logan (Robert Redford)to tap dance in an attempt to cure his insomnia. These are all believable idio-syncratic practices; that is, they function as an extension of character.

Narrative Reality

The term" classic realist narration" should not be understood as meaning simplerealism. It refers to a narrative world that is consistent and coherent; that worldobeys a stated or unstated set of rules that give it credibility. That world maycontain unrealistic elements, such as aliens (Men in Black, 1997)or portals intothe brain of John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich, 1999), but as long as thecharacters in these films obey the laws of those worlds, audiences will summonthe necessary willing suspension of disbelief to grant those characters and theirworld a certain verisimilitude; in effect, these films produce their own reality-a reality that is whatever those films want that reality to be-and, by adheringto that reality's laws, make it credible.

Musical Reality

Musicals, however, differ from classic realist narrations in that they have (atleast) two sets of books. They operate according to two different laws-and theyalternate back and forth between them. As Martin Rubin has written, musicalsrupture the fabric of traditional narrative verisimilitude by suddenly shiftingfrom narrative to musical spectacle-to song and dance-that the narrativefiction is unable to naturalize. This is precisely what makes a musical such asSingin' in the Rain, Moulin Rouge (2001), Chicago (2002), or Dreamgirls (2006)different from a film with music, such as In the Line of Fire (1993,Clint Eastwoodplaying the piano) or 8 Mile (2002, Eminem playing an aspiring rapper). In

In Singin'in the Rain DonLockwood (Gene Kelly) needs the

proper setting-a studio sound

stage-before he can tell Kathy

Seldon (Debbie Reynolds) that

"You Were Meant for Me."

a musical, there's a shift from one level of reality to another that involves arupture or break; in a film with music, the music is part of the narrative, awindow that opens iI).tothe psychology of the character.

In the musical, this shift is what produces the lift or experience of ecstaticpleasure that we associate with most musical numbers; this lift involves amovement out of and away from the laws that govern the mundane worldof the fiction. Musical sequences interrupt the linear flow of necessity-thenarrative-and release the actors from their duties and responsibilities as

[~.~n[~~~~[~[HIt~~~~ I !~n II~II to

display their exceptional talents as singers and dancers. We suddenly shift toa world of pure spectacle: in this fantasy world, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and

others drop the pretense, for a moment, that they are playing characters andperform for us simply as Astaire and Kelly.

Shifts in Register

Musicals operate on two different dramatic registers-that of the narrativeand that of the spectacle. Their movement can be charted according tothe shifts they make from one register to the other, that is, from narrativeto song and back again. This movement is perhaps most obvious in whatis considered to be Hollywood's first film musical, The Jazz Singer (1927),where the shifts from narrative to musical number are marked by shifts fromsilent footage (with orchestral accompaniment) to sound footage in whichAl Jolson sings.

The example cited earlier from Singin' in the Rain deliberately foregroundsthis shift in register, laying bare the dynamics of the musical itself. The factthat it takes place on a film stage and involves the machinery used to makefilms (lights; fog and wind machines) underscores its self-reflexive play withthe essentially illusory foundations of the musical number.

The transition from one register to another need not be slow or gradual. In afilm such as Chicago (2002),a single cut will often serve to shift us back and forthfrom the real world to the musical number. As Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger)listens in the holding pen of the Cook County jail to BigMama Morton (QueenLatifa) giving her the instructions for new inmates, the lesson is intercut with anonstage musical number, "When You're Good to Mama," sung by BigMama toa well-dressed audience in a crowded, fancy nightclub. Chicago opposes reality(the prison) and fantasy (the nightclub) through abrupt juxtapositions, but theediting also fuses the two worlds together. It is as if the prisoners somehow hadaccess to the musical number through the cutaways. Other numbers in the film,such as "Funny Honey" and "Razzle Dazzle," play with a similar confusionbetween registers. In both these and other numbers, the film employs a varietyof editing matches (eyeline matches, graphic matches, matches on action) toconnect the narrative action to the musical number. Even when connectedinto an apparently seamless continuity, the narrative and the musical numberdepend on their essential difference from one another to produce the sense ofecstasy associated with the musical. "Ecstasy" (from the Greek word ekstasis)literally means "standing outside of oneself," and it depends on the sensationof displacement that is exactly the sense that Chicago's staging of musicalnumbers attempts to achieve. Characters are there in their narrative bodiesyet simultaneously outside of themselves singing and dancing in the samecomposite scene. Even when blurred, the distinction between registers remainsperceptible, and our awareness of that distinction becomes the basis of themusical number's power to transport audiences.

Fantasy becomes reality for Roxie (Renee Zellweger, right> and Velma (Catherine Zeta-Jones) in the

final number of Chicago (2002).

The basic pattern for the musical numbers in Chicago involves analternation between reality and fantasy within the numbers themselves. Thistension is resolved in the final number ("I Move On"), when fantasy becomesreality. Roxie and Velma (Catherine Zeta-Jones) realize their individual dreamsthrough a unique partnership: their collective notoriety is turned into the mainattraction at a big downtown Chicago theater, where they dance and sing forthousands of spectators. For the first time in the film, there are no cutawaysto narrative action occurring elsewhere; the narrative action is here, on stage,in the performance of the number. The fundamental pattern of alternationbetween narrative and number that structures most musicals frequently movestoward an ecstatic resolution in the final musical number, but Chicago makesthat pattern and process more explicit than do other works of the genre.

NARRATIVE AND MUSICAL NUMBER:DEGREES OF INTEGRATION

As Martin Rubin points out, the history of the theatrical and film musical hastraditionally been written in terms of this essential duality of the genre, in

terms of the opposition between narrative and spectacle. Critics argue that, asa form, the musical evolves from disintegration to integration, from formatssuch as the revue to that of the book musical. The revue, which places self-contained musical numbers back to back with little or no narrative to connectthem, enjoyed great popularity on stage in the Ziegfeld Follies of the 1920sandon film in all-star vehicles such as Paramount on Parade (1930),which featuredtwenty different numbers (seven of them in Technicolor) and boasted thirteendifferent songwriters and eleven different directors. The book musical (socalled because of the prominence of the story or book) attempts to integratenarrative and musical sequences, culminating in the supposedly seamlessintegration of story and music in stage musicals such as Show Boat (1927)andOklahoma! (1943).

Rubinpoints out that thevarious forms ofthe musical (therevue, the operetta,the book musical) did not replace one another but continued to exist alongsideeach other. He argues that the movement toward integration, though clearly adominant trend in the musical's evolution, had its limits. Total integration ofstory and number threatened to destroy the crucial gap that gives the musicalnumber its affective power to enthrall audiences. Once the distinction betweennarrative and musical spectacle is erased, the energy that drives the musical willdisappear, because there will be no lift,no ecstasy or movement out of one modeand into another, which is the musical's reason for being.

Every musical, then, exists in the tension between its narrative and its musicalnumbers. This tension is most strongly felt during the moments of transitionfrom narrative to musical number. For the integrated musical, the musical thattries to cohere narrative and music, musical numbers emerge as something ofa problem, which the narrative must somehow solve. Screenwriters attemptto solve these problems by providing motivation for the numbers or byconstructing bridges from nonmusical to musical sections. The shifts can bemotivated in a variety of ways. One way to naturalize song and dance withinthe realism of the narrative is to incorporate performance into the plot. Thefilm's characters are identified as professional or amateur performers whosenormal activity involves singing and dancing. In fact, one of the staples ofthe musical and one of its major subgemes is the backstage musical, in whichvarious characters are brought together to put on a show. The film thenbecomes about the milieu of the theater, about performance; and the rehearsalsand performances within it have a solid justification as necessary activities inthis particular world.

Spectacular transformations:

bathing beauties form themselves

into a kaleidoscopic circle in the

"By a Waterfall" number from

Footlight Parade.

Busby Berkeley Musicals

Some of the more representative examples of the backstage musical can befound in a cycle of Warner Bros. films from the early 1930s,such as 42nd Streetand Footlight Parade (both 1933)and the Gold Digger films (1933,1935,1936),inwhich musical shows are cast, rehearsed, and finally staged in a succession ofelaborate production numbers.

If the motivation for the numbers is realistic, the numbers themselvesoften defy conventional notions of realism. Busby Berkeley's most famousproduction numbers-such as "42nd Street" (42nd Street), "By a Waterfall" and"Shanghai Lil" (Footlight Parade, 1933),"Remember My Forgotten Man" (GoldDiggers of 1933,1933),and "I Only Have Eyes for You" (Dames, 1934)-are allintroduced as stage numbers being presented to a theater audience. But thenumbers quickly modulate from the theatrical to the cinematic. The theaterproscenium disappears, and the spectator becomes a transcendent eye sweptalong by a series of spectacular transformations that explode the original spaceof the theater stage into a fantasy space that is constantly reinventing itself inwhat Rubin describes as a seemingly endless succession of shifts of "scales,perspectives, locations, and dimensions." Berkeley's transformations rangefrom simple shifts in perspective from eye-level to overhead shots-revealinggeometrical compositions, in numbers such as "Young and Healthy" (42ndStreet)-to complex shifts in location from stage to street to subway car to an

@~~~[[JI~~~~m~~[~~[I~[~l~~~Imlmlm~~!~M~~"IrJ rEyes for You" (Dames). Clearly, Berkeley's realistic anchor in the backstagemusical becomes the launching pad for the most unrealistic flights of fantasy.

Christian (Ewan McGregor) and

Satine (Nicole Kidman) from the

"Elephant Love Medley" number

in Moulin Rouge.

Moulin RougeIn 42nd Street, every number is motivated as either a rehearsal or a performanceon opening night. But not every backstage musical is quite as realistic in itsmotivation. Moulin Rouge (2002),for example, exhibits some of the basic plotelements of the typical backstage musical. Its narrative traces the developmentof the show from the writing of the script, to the search for a financial backer,to preparing/rebuilding the theater, to rehearsals and the opening nightperformance. But many of its musical numbers have no realistic motivation.In the "Elephant Love Medley," when Christian (Ewan McGregor) and Satine(Nicole Kidman) sing love duets borrowed from popular songs by John Lennon("All You Need Is Love"), Paul McCartney ("Silly Love Songs"), Dolly Parton("I Will Always Love You"), and others, they are neither rehearsing norperforming in front of an audience. They are driven into song by a melodramaticintensification of feeling. The songs are deftly integrated into the dramaticaction, but they also lift the lovers into a mutual rapture that slips them loosefrom all narrative bonds. The number celebrates an explosion of feeling, and itis this sort of pyrotechnics that lies at the heart of the musical.

Showpeople

Even if the central action around which the plot hinges is not the puttingon of a show, the profession of the central character can often be that of aperformer, thus motivating the presence of musical numbers. This is the casein a number of Astaire films, ranging from Top Hat (1935),Swing Time (1936),Shall We Dance (1937),and Holiday Inn (1942)to Royal Wedding (1951).Storiesabout professional entertainers can be based on famous personalities playedby actors with unremarkable musical talents, as in The Buddy Holly Story (1978),with Gary Busey as Holly; Coal Miner's Daughter (1980),in which Sissy Spacekis country singer Loretta Lynn; and La Bamba (1987),in which Lou DiamondPhillips plays Ritchie Valens. Or they can be based on fictional performersplayed by exceptional talents-Frank Sinatra in Pal Joey (1957),Liza Minnelli inNew York, New York (1977),or Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria (1982).

Amateurs can also put on a show, as is the case for a number of MickeyRooney /Judy Garland musicals, such as Babes in Arms (1939),Strike Up the Band(1940),and Babes on Broadway (1942).And amateurs can be elevpted to the statusof professionals in films such as Dirty Dancing (1987),in which Johnny Castle(Patrick Swayze) trains Baby Houseman (Jennifer Grey) to do a lift, to rhumba,and to lambada like a pro.

TRANSFORMATION OF SPACE:PERFORMER, PROPS, AUDIENCE

There was a time when song and dance were integral features of our culture'slived experience, and the presence of musical numbers (in films set in thatera) was motivated by that experience. A century ago, before the inventionof radio or television, people entertained themselves at home. In Meet Me inSt. Louis (1944),set in 1903,Esther (Judy Garland) and Tootie (Margaret O'Brien)

Tootie (Margaret O'Brien) and big sister Esther Uudy Garland) into a showstopping musical number

in Meet Me in St. Louis.

entertain party guests by performing a cakewalk together while singing"Under the Bamboo Tree"; later, their parents (Leon Ames and Mary Astor)sit at the upright piano and sing "You and I," a song that draws a divided anddespondent family back together again.

In the cakewalk number, the home is transformed momentarily into a theater. Theperformers emerge through a doorway from behind a pair of drapes resemblingcurtains. The room in which they perform becomes a stage; its walls resemblethe proscenium of a theater; party guests become an audience. As illustratedhere, the successful transition from a narrative situation to a musical sequencedepends on the transformation of narrative space into performance space;ordinary settings are rearranged into a stage, lit differently, or shot differentlyto suggest this transition. In "You and I," the setting is not theatricalized withcurtains or props, but it is emotionalized, producing a sentimentalization ofspace that is just as transformative as the film's other musical numbers.

Props

Incidental props that are placed merely to create a realistic atmosphere arefrequently appropriated by the performers in their numbers. Their initial statusis transformed. What was once a mere coat rack suddenly becomes a dancingpartner for Astaire in Royal Wedding (1951).Astaire and Kelly often whip up adance in the least likely place, such as the boiler room of an ocean liner (Astairein Shall We Dance, 1937),the Museum of Natural History (Kelly in On the Town,1949),or a city street (Kellyin It's Always Fair Weather, 1955),and they incorporatethe most unlikely props into these dances, from roller skates to garbage can lids.

The classic example of this sort of number in which narrative space istransformed into musical space occurs in A Star Is Born (1954)when VickiLesterGudy Garland) attempts to re-create a production number she has filmed earlierthat day in the studio at home for her husband, Norman GamesMason). As JaneFeuer describes it, "she turns on the lamp ('lights'), positions a table ('camera')and begins the 'action.' She uses the elastic bands of a chair for a harp, a pillowfor an accordion, a lampshade for a coolie's hat, a leopard-skin rug for an Africancostume [and] salt and pepper shakers for instruments in the Brazilian section."

The shift from narrative to music takes place almost magically beforeour eyes, providing a smooth transition that disguises the radical shift fromone reality to another. But all these transformations involve the presence ofanother crucial ingredient: in addition to a performer, there must also be anaudience. Part of the transformation from one register to another involves ametamorphosis of roles. Characters rela te to one another in terms of performer(or coperformers) and audience. Passersby on the street stop, watch, and listen,acknowledging the performance. To fail to acknowledge the performance is tofail to mark the break it establishes between one register and another.

In Love Me Tonight, Maurice

<Maurice Chevalier) measures

Jeanette Ueanette MacDonald)

for a new riding habit, putting

her measurements to music in

a hummed reprise of "Isn't It

Romantic?"

Even though some musicals must have tried to pretend that no one noticedanything different going on when music and dance began, in so doing, suchmusicals undoubtedly diminished the affective power of the musical sequence.A performer needs an audience, even if it is only a horse, as in Love Me Tonight(1932) when Jeanette (Jeanette MacDonald) sings "Lover" to her horse. Bydefinition, without an audience, there is no performance. A performance isalways for someone. Of course, the performer is always performing for anunseen audience, for us; and a number of performances are directed straight atthe camera, addressing us as the audience. Again, in Love Me Tonight, Maurice(Maurice Chevalier) looks right into the camera when he sings "Mimi," breakingone of the basic laws of classical cinema by returning the camera's look. Evenso, Maurice is not just singing to us but to Jeanette as well, because she occupiesthe space of the camera in this shot.

m~m~m~[[i~~m~~mm[[I~[[rl]l[[mll[I~[[~~~~mj~r~~or a change from one style to another. In a handful of films, shifts from black-and-white to color change the gears of the film's relations with its audience.

In Broadway Melody (1929), for example, the film goes from black-and-whiteto Technicolor for one musical number-the "Wedding of the Painted Doll"sequence. In a color film, the color palette might shift in the direction of greatersaturation, as in the "You Were Meant for Me" number in Singin' in the Rain,when the action moves from a natural, sunlit exterior to the artificial, coloredlights of a sound stage. Dancer in the Dark (2000)marks its musical numbers,such as "Cvalda" and "I've Seen It All," with subtle shifts in color saturation,most clearly seen in the change in Bjork's flesh tones from pale to flushed.However, this shift in color saturation does not occur in the final number-"TheLast Song," when Bjork's character is executed; the number, which also lacksmusical accompaniment, is anything but an ecstatic escape from the narrative.

This shift in register can also be achieved through other means. In the openingof Love Me Tonight, the editing imposes a rhythmic pattern on the shots of Parisas it awakens to a new day, giving a musical ordering to the various noisesaudible in the street (the tolling of church bells, a man swinging a pickax, thesnores of a homeless man, the broom-sweeping of a concierge, the cry of ababy, the rasping of a saw, the hammering of a pair of cobblers, and so on).Editing transforms the noises of the city into music. Indeed, one definition ofmusic is "organized noise." At any rate, this city "symphony" leads smoothlyinto the film's first musical number, Maurice Chevalier singing "The Song ofParee." Bjork's first number in Dancer in the Dark, "Cvalda," draws on a similarorchestration of machine noises in a factory to create musical rhythms as aprelude to song.

The operetta, unlike the backstage musical, makes no attempt to motivatemusical numbers realistically. Operettas tend to situate their characters inexotic nineteenth-century European settings-in the mythic land of Ruritania,for example (The Love Parade, 1929;The Smiling Lieutenant, 1931;Love Me Tonight,1932; The Merry Widow, 1934).Looking back to the works of such composersas Johann Strauss, Franz Lehar, Victor Herbert, Rudolf Friml, and SigmundRomberg, the light-opera music frequently demands classically trained voices,such as those of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy (Naughty Marietta,1935;May time, 1937), though it also accommodates the more popular style ofMaurice Chevalier, a cafe and music hall singer. The narratives of operettasborrow extensively from fairy tales and romantic melodramas. Love MeTonight, for example, reworks the Sleeping Beauty story; Walt Disney's versionof Snow White is cast in the form of an operetta. Operettas ranging from TheLove Parade (1929) to The Merry Widow (1934),like certain forms of fairy tales,

are populated with princes and princesses and kings and queens who live infaraway kingdoms where love overcomes all obstacles. Moulin Rouge, earlierdescribed as a backstage musical, is an operetta as well. The backstage story ofthe film is just as fabulous as the story of the play-within-the-play in which apenniless sitar player falls in love with a beautiful courtesan who must sacrificeherself to an evil maharajah to save her country. In fact, Christian improvisesthis story based on the situation in which he finds himself: an impoverishedwriter who has fallen in love with a music hall star (Satine) who must sellherself to the duke to further her career. Filming entirely in the interior of anAustralian studio, director Baz Luhrmann constructs a fantasy version of Pariscirca 1900 that sustains the dreamlike nature of a narrative that celebrates theromantic ideals of an artistic Bohemia. As the film's end title declares: "Thisstory is about truth, beauty, freedom. But above all ... love." As seen here inthe re-creation of a mythical Paris, the fairy tale setting in which the narrativesof operettas unfold is, by its very nature, removed from everyday reality. Inthis setting, song and dance become integral features of a different reality-that of musical fantasy.

In the operetta, the shift from narrative to musical number is often markedlinguistically by stylization of the dialogue. Characters segue into the musicalnumbers by suddenly introducing a pronounced rhythm into the delivery oftheir lines; or their prose may suddenly turn into poetry. In Love Me Tonight,the intro to the Rodgers and Hart song "Isn't It Romantic?" begins with aconversation between Maurice (Maurice Chevalier), a tailor, and a customerwho is trying on a new suit:

MAN:"Maurice, it's beautiful ... the cloth ... you make a work of art."MAURICE:"The tailor's art for your sweetheart!"MAN:"It's like poetry in a book! Oh, how beautiful I look!"MAURICE:"The love song of the needle united with a thread ... the romance

of the scissors ... "MAN:"So Claire and I could wed .... You're a magician!"MAURICE:"Isn't it romantic?"(Maurice then sings "Isn't It Romantic?")

When the dwarfs ask Snow White to tell them a story in Snow White andthe Seven Dwarfs (1937), they engage in an exchange built around rhymingquestions and answers:

SNOWWHITE:"Once there was a princess ... "DWARF:"Was the princess you?"SNOWWHITE(nodding): "And she fell in love ... "DWARF:"Was it hard to do?" ...

: ARFS: "Did he saJ he loved ["U? Did he steal a kiss?"

SNOWWHITE(singing): "He was so romantic I could not resist."(She then begins singing "Some Day My Prince Will Come.")

The operetta failed to flourish after its heyday at Paramount and M-G-M inthe 1930s,but another kind of musical (together with the backstage/performermusical) emerged as an important subgenre of the musical: the Astaire-Rogersfilms at RKO. As Rick Altman has suggested, these films might justifiablybe called "screwball musicals" in that, like screwball comedies, they featureattractive romantic leads whose sexual desire for one another is displaced-not into slapstick comedy, but into song and dance. Like the screwballcomedies, the scripts shine with verbal sophistication, wit, and urbane self-awareness like the Cole Porter lyrics the stars occasionally sing. Thoughremnants of vaudeville and the revue format surface from time to time (the"Bojangles of Harlem" number in Swing Time, 1936),for the most part, songand dance function as extensions of character and reflect stages in the couple'sevolving relationship. Narrative complications throw up obstacles that the

Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire

pick themselves up. dust

themselves off, and start to dance

all over again in Swing Time.

dance numbers easily overcome. It did not hurt that the numbers were writtenby the smartest songwriters on Broadway-Irving Berlin (Top Hat, 1935;Fol-low the Fleet, 1936; and Carefree, 1938), Cole Porter (The Gay Divorcee, 1934),George and Ira Gershwin (Shall We Dance, 1937),and Jerome Kern and Doro-thy Fields (Swing Time, 1936).These composers and lyricists engage in a verbalsparring, smart-set sophistication and sexual innuendo similar to that whichdistinguishes the work of screwball comedy's greatest screenwriters such asCharles Brackett and Billy Wilder (Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, 1938) and PrestonSturges (Easy Living, 1937).

The musical numbers in Top Hat (1935) range from partially to fullyintegrated. They include the staged public performance by famed dancer JerryTravers (Astaire) at a London theater where he entertains the audience witha solo number, "Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails." But the film also containsnumbers designed to convey character and plot information related to theromantic vicissitudes of the central couple, consisting of Jerry Travers and DaleTremont (Ginger Rogers). In the "Isn't This a Lovely Day" number staged ata deserted gazebo in a park, Fred and Ginger engage in what Arlene Crocerefers to as a "challenge dance (he does a step, she copies it, he does another,she tops it, and so on)." Their interaction perfectly captures the nature of theirrelationship as it evolves from a tentative effort at courtship initiated by Fred toa mutual romantic partnership as Ginger responds.

The development of the fully integrated musical is generally attributed toArthur Freed, producer of a series of musicals at M-G-M from 1939 (The Wizardof Oz) to 1960 (Bells Are Ringing), including such classics as Meet Me in St. Louis(1944), The Pirate (1948),On the Town (1949),An American in Paris (1951),Singin'in the Rain (1952),The Band Wagon (1953),and It's Always Fair Weather (1955).What unites the Freed films is Freed's presence as producer and a small groupof collaborators with whom he regularly worked. The "Freed Unit" consistedof performers such as Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly,Oscar Levant, Kay Thompson, and Cyd Charisse; directors such as VincenteMinnelli, Stanley Donen, Charles Walter, and Rouben Mamoulian; writers suchas Betty Comden and Adolph Green; composers such as Alan Jay Lerner andAndre Previn; and musical arrangers such as Roger Edens.

The Astaire-Rogers films consist of numbers that alternate between partialand full integration. Freed's films tend toward a more fully integrated interplay

~i~H~~[~~I~r[l~~I[~rm~~~~I~[~~~H[I ~ ~Ir ~"articulat[e] the tension" between narrative and numbers "in a particularlyrich, vivid, and sophisticated manner." Narrative space opens up to incorporatemusical space; musical space invades narrative space; distinctions between

In Singin'in the Rain DonLockwood (Gene Kelly) defies the

dreary weather by singing and

dancing in the rain.

the two spaces become the subject of a sophisticated play with traditionalnotions of what is number and what is narrative. Essentially, the typical Freednumber contains shifts back and forth within the number between its status asperformance piece and narrative exposition.

Singin'in the RainThe title number of Singin ' in the Rain provides a clear example of this interaction.At the beginning and ending of the number, characters from the narrative space(the limo driver, a pedestrian, a policeman, and the man to whom Lockwoodgives his umbrella) pass by him and stare at him incredulously as he sings anddances in his musical space; the two spaces acknowledge one another; yet char-acters in the narrative space remain unable to understand why the hero is sing-ing and dancing in the rain. The number depends on this interplay for comiceffect.Here, one register interacts with the other. The number explores the bound-aries between the two and ultimately takes those boundaries as its subject.

In this interaction, it is possible to see exactly what makes the "Singin' inthe Rain" number work. Lockwood and those around him respond differentlyto the same set of conditions. The rain dampens the spirits of the passersby,whose emotional states seem governed by the harsh weather. As the lyrics ofthe song make clear, the joy that Lockwood feels surfaces in defiance of thegloomy weather. Or, from another perspective, the stormy weather serves asa foil to magnify, through contrast, Lockwood's ecstatic transcendence of it.In this particular instance, the surrounding world does not shift to anotherregister to permit song and dance; rather, the hero transforms that worldthrough his responses to it. Puddles become a source of infantile pleasurefor an overgrown kid to splash about in. Torrents of water cascading downa drainpipe drench Lockwood's head, but the water only broadens theenormous smile on his face. His spirit is reborn in the baptismal font of musicalrejuvenation, leaving him no alternative but to express his joy by singing anddancing in the rain.

In an essay entitled "Entertainment and Utopia," Richard Dyer discussesthe musical as an exemplary instance of entertainment. Like other forms ofentertainment, the musical creates a utopian space in which the problems weregularly encounter in our lived experience in the world no longer exist. Insteadof poverty, there is abundance; work-related exhaustion is replaced by limitlessenergy; the dreariness of everyday routine is exchanged for excitement andintensity; our actual isolation and alienation within mass culture is transformedinto a heightened sense of our uniqueness as individuals within a close-knitcommunity of unique individuals. For Dyer, the purpose of entertainmentssuch as the musical is to manage the basic contradictions generated by the gapsand inadequacies of capitalism by creating a utopian version of a capitalistsociety. In this world, energy and initiative is recognized and rewarded. Menfind, fall in love with, and win the women of their dreams, and women findtheir dream lovers in similar fashion.

Conservative musicals (for example, Grease, 1978) effectively managethe contradictions inherent in capitalism, producing a utopian escape froman imperfect society. In the final sequence of Grease, Rydell High School istransformed into an amusement park where formerly alienated individualsbecome part of a community of carnival celebrants. And in the final number("We Go Together"), Danny (John Travolta) and Sandy (Olivia Newton-John)ride a souped-up hot rod into heaven, leaving the trials and tribulations of typical

~~~~~~~.~~JIII[~~I[~)[~~[,~~~[~[~the utopian nature of the musical number. Pennies From Heaven (1981) is anadaptation of Dennis Potter's BBCminiseries about Depression-era characterstrapped in unfulfilling lives who escape through the fantasy of song. But the

Arthur (Steve Martin) and Eileen <Bernadette Peters) reenact a classic Fred Astaire and Ginger

Rogers dance number in Pennies From Heaven.

film consistently qualifies the escapism of the musical numbers by making itquite clear that the performers, including Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters,are lipsynching to popular songs originally recorded by Bing Crosby, ConnieBoswell, Fred Astaire, and others. The obvious lip-synching severely limits theextent of the hero's flight into another world; he can only escape his oppressiveexistence through the popular recordings of his era. The resolution comes at theend of the film, in a fantasy sequence, when Steve Martin (as the hero, Arthur)sings the title song in his own voice. But this resolution, in which the realreplaces the false, is undercut by the quality of the performance; Steve Martin'sreal voice is just not as good as the voices that he has been lip-synching. At thesame time, his miraculous appearance, intact and alive after his supposed deathby hanging, is exposed as obvious wish fulfillment in an otherwise exceedinglygrim portrait of his noirish existence. Instead of transporting us into the never-never land of musical fantasy, the final number forces us to acknowledge ourown kinship with Martin's unexceptional ordinariness.

By the 1960s, the golden age of the American film musical had more or lesscome to a close. Big budget musicals continued to enjoy success on Broadway,and these were then turned into popular motion pictures, but a number ofthem (denoted here with *) were based on 1950s stage musicals: for example,

Flower Drum Song* (1961);West Side Story* (1961);Gypsy* (1962);The Music Man*(1962); My Fair Lady* (1964);The Sound of Music* (1965);Camelot (1967;opened onBroadway on December 3, 1960);How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying(1966); A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966);Sweet Charity(1968); Half a Sixpence (1968);and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970).

From one perspective, the 1960smarked the high point of the film musical.In the 1950s, an unprecedented two musicals (An American in Paris, 1951;Gigi,1958)had won Academy Awards for Best Picture. In the 1960s,four musicals-West Side Story (1961),My Fair Lady (1964),The Sound of Music (1965),and Oliver!(1968, a British production based on a 1960 London stage musical)-wonAcademy Awards for Best Picture. However, Oliver! was the last film musicalto win an Academy Award for Best Picture until Chicago (2002).

With the notable exception of two Julie Andrews vehicles, Mary Poppins(1964) and Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), original (that is, non-Broadway)film musicals tended to do poorly at the box office in the 1960s (Doctor Doolittle,1967; Star!, 1968;Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968),as did a number of adaptationsof Broadway shows, including My Fair Lady; Camelot; Hello, Dolly (1969), andPaint Your Wagon (1969).Traditional musicals continued to lose money in the1970s and 1980s (Darling Lili, 1970; Lost Horizon, 1973; Mame, 1974; The Wiz,1978; Xanadu, 1980;Pennies From Heaven, 1981;Victor/Victoria, 1982;The CottonClub, 1984;and A Chorus Line, 1985).

However, a new generation of musicals appeared to address a new generationof audiences. Rock and roll was here to stay, seen in the success of a seriesof films starring Elvis Presley (Love Me Tender, 1956), two films featuring theBeatles (A Hard Day's Night, 1964, and Help!, 1965), Woodstock (1970),and twoof the topgrossing musicals of all time-both starring John Travolta-SaturdayNight Fever (1977)and Grease (1978),which was also a Broadway success beforebeing made into a film.

More recently, the film musical has begun to stage a comeback. An evennewer-and younger-genera ton of audiences for the film musical wasregularly being weaned on animated features as children, instilling in them adesire for more grown-up fare (South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, 1999)as theygot older. Thus, The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991),Aladdin(1992), The Lion King (1994),Pocahontas (1995),and Toy Story (1995)-as well asdecades of MTV-may very well have set the stage for the revival of the filmmusical in the new millennium with Moulin Rouge (2001)and Chicago (2002).

Both Moulin Rouge and Chicago engage in musical nostalgia, with the

l~f~lf~f~Jj~~~~~~~~~ff[U~~r~~~1~~~H~[Jr~~~~~1980s and the latter based on the hit 1975 Broadway musical. A number ofsubsequent musicals have attempted to capitalize on baby boomer nostalgia for

the music of their youth. Dreamgirls (2006),based on a 1981Broadway musical,re-creates the 1960sMotown sound of the Supremes in a fictionalized versionof their early years as a group before Diana Ross went solo. Constructing afictional narrative out of the Beatles' songbook, Julie Taymor's Across theUniverse (2007)revisits the 1960s in the form of artists' communes, pot, LSD,protests of the Vietnam War, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, theColumbia University strike, and Weather Underground bombings-completewith reference to SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), Ken Kesey, TomWolfe, and Timothy Leary. Todd Haynes's I'm Not There (2007)performs asimilar but perhaps more interesting number with the Bob Dylan songbook,constructing multiple narratives and multiple Dylans, using aliases such as"Woody Guthrie" (Marcus Carl Franklin), "JackRollins" (Christian Bale),"JudeQuinn" (Cate Blanchett), "Arthur Rimbaud" (Ben Whishaw), "Robbie Clark"(Heath Ledger), and "Billy the Kid" (Richard Gere). Hairspray (2007),basedon the 2002Broadway musical that in turn is based on the 1988John Watersfilm, simulates the musical styles of 1960srock and roll as popularized on theafternoon television show American Bandstand. At the other end of the musicalspectrum stands Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street(2007),starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Another nostalgicmusical, this dark, bloody, and eerily moving film is an adaptation of a 1979musical, written by Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim.

Whatever the reason may be for the return of the film musical, films suchas Moulin Rouge and Chicago clearly pay homage to the traditions of the geme,evoking its most celebrated forms and dedicating themselves to its originalsocial mission. Both films attempt to construct utopian solutions to real needscreated by real social inadequacies within contemporary society. Their musicalnumbers lift us into a world of abundance, energy, intensity, and community.They satisfy our needs by managing our desires. In short, they entertain us.

• •• SELECT FILMOGRAPHY

Love Me Tonight (1932)42nd Street (1933)Top Hat (1935)Show Boat (1936)Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)An American in Paris (1951)Singin' in the Rain (1952)The Band Wagon (1953)Cabaret (1972)Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Grease (1978)All That Jazz (1979)Pennies From Heaven (1981)Dirty Dancing (1987)Everyone Says I Love You (1996)Moulin Rouge (2001)Chicago (2002)Dreamgirls (2006)Across the Universe (2007)I'm Not There (2007)

American Comedy

Comedy, Repression, and Cultural Dreamwork

For Sigmund Freud, jokes function, on an individual level, as a form of liberation;they provide those who laugh at them with a necessary, therapeutic releasefrom the serious worries and cares that oppress the average human being. As amass form, the genre of comedy works to release that which society as a wholetries to hold in check. In short, whatever a society represses frequently returnsin the form of comedy to taunt it. This often occurs quite literally in the figureof the Shakespearean fool who tells a truth that others dare not utter. Only ina comedy does one seriously entertain the idea of throwing Mama from the

II~~,IU~[~~~U[~~~l~~~~[~~[~~~mn, jr[~~~m~lfeelings about family clearly lie beneath the surface of the modern Americanpsyche, waiting to find expression in the form of comedy.