Movie Musical
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The film in which characters break into song and dance as a primary storytelling mode, staged for the camera with the full resources of a studio: playback recording, lip-synced numbers, big orchestras, tap and ballet choreography, and Technicolor spectacle. Numbers range from intimate solo ballads to wall-to-wall production set-pieces, with singing that runs from operetta-trained legit voices to jazzy character crooning. The mood is heightened and emotionally direct, and the signature craft is integration — songs that advance plot and reveal character rather than merely interrupt it. Editing, camera movement and dance are choreographed together so the musical number becomes cinema rather than a filmed stage act.
History
The form was born with sound itself: The Jazz Singer (1927) and the all-singing Broadway Melody (1929) launched a craze, and by the 1930s Busby Berkeley's kaleidoscopic Warner Bros. numbers and the RKO Astaire-Rogers cycle had established two poles of spectacle and elegance. MGM's Arthur Freed Unit became the genre's creative summit in the 1940s-50s, producing Meet Me in St. Louis, An American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain and Gigi with talents like Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Stanley Donen and Vincente Minnelli. The roadshow era brought blockbuster adaptations (The Sound of Music, 1965; Funny Girl, 1968) before the genre contracted in the 1970s, then revived intermittently through Cabaret, Chicago and the 21st-century wave; its DNA underlies every screen musical that followed.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Singin' in the Rain(1952) — Gene KellySpotifyYouTube
- Over the Rainbow(1939) — Judy GarlandSpotifyYouTube
- Cheek to Cheek(1935) — Fred AstaireSpotifyYouTube
- White Christmas(1942) — Bing CrosbySpotifyYouTube
- Secret Love(1953) — Doris DaySpotifyYouTube
- Don't Rain on My Parade(1968) — Barbra StreisandSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Rick Altman, The American Film Musical (Indiana University Press, 1987)
- Jane Feuer, The Hollywood Musical (1993)
- Ethan Mordden, The Hollywood Musical (1981)