Curator’s Statement

Movie musicals in the Western tradition are defined by more than a mere presence of music. The music itself must perform a strict storytelling function. Often they are surreal in nature, with bizarre happenings that would never occur in the real world, such as background characters “spontaneously” breaking into perfectly choreographed dance routines. In fact, once upon a time, musicals weren’t defined by the presence of music at all.

In Hollywood, musicals and the silver screen have been constant companions since the silent era. Admittedly, it wasn’t always the perfect marriage. Certianly they weren’t as effective as the stage verisons they were adapted from. The most audiences could hope for in these early iterations was lyrics on screen, and if they were lucky (and the theatre pianist felt so inclined) they might hear melodies from the show sprinkled into the musical accompaniment. (Vogel, 2003)

With the release of the musical The Jazz Singer in 1927,  onscreen characters could suddenly sing and talk. Released by Warner Borthers, it was the first feature length film to synchronise dialogue to picture. One year earlier, the same studio and director had released Don Juan (Crosland, 1926), setting the stage by synchronising music and sound for the first time in a feature film. (Young, 2011)

This marked a major turning point in Hollywood, one documented a few decades later in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s fictional musical comedy Singin’ in the Rain (Donen, Kelly, 1952). The tension of this story is around a silent film, which, after the release of The Jazz Singer, is forced to pivot mid-production to become a “talkie” and a musical. The studio scrambles to keep up with this tectonic change to the entertainment industry, and comical pandemonium ensues.

To specify that any musical from the 1950s is a comedy is perhaps a little redundant. In Hollywood’s studio era, the 1930s through 1950s, musicals were inexorably jovial. The form became synonymous with exuberant dance numbers, loveable characters, and the inescapable happy ending. This became particularly true during the 1930s depression (Vogel, 2003) and 1940s wartime. (Woll, 1983) The escapism and optimism of these films gave them a broad appeal.

So, too, were musicals beloved by the critics. In only the second year of the Academy Awards, two musicals were nominated for best picture, with the musical melodrama Broadway Melody ultimately triumphant over its more Vaudevillian musical counterpart The Hollywood Revue of 1929. The accolades continued, so that by the time Disney’s animated The Beauty and the Beast was nominated for best picture in 1991, it was the thirty-eighth musical to receive the honour. Of that thirty-eight, ten were from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and five from Warner Brothers. (Vogel, 2003) These two studios were undeniable powerhouses of the studio era musical, but with different approaches to the form.

Warner Brothers had long been known as the “studio with a social conscience” who “grabbed plots from the headlines of the daily papers.” (Woll, 1983, pg 42) By the 1930s, tight budgets and shrinking profits meant fewer musicals were being made at Warner. In 1940, none were made at all. But as (future president, then actor) Ronald Reagan’s character states in Warner Brothers’ 1943 Irving Berlin musical This is The Army, “a new war needs a new show.” (Curtiz, Blatt) So when the United States entered the Second World War after the events at Pearl Harbour in 1941, Warner Brothers promptly released two new musicals: Navy Blues and You’re in the Army Now. (Woll, 1983)

If Warner Brothers was the uncle with his nose in the newspaper, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the aunt who stubbornly wore a sparkly blouse to breakfast. MGM was more known for its extravagance than its socio-political relevance. Think Gene Kelly tap dancing in roller skates (Donen, Kelly, 1955) or Fred Astaire dancing upside down on the ceiling. (Donen, 1951) Their characters still went to war in the 1940s, but with a different tone. Below we can see Gene Kelly almost taking the Mickey (well, Jerry) in Anchors Aweigh as his character recounts “how I got my medal.” (Sidney, 1945)

Yet, even with their ten Oscars for best picture, “the MGM musical is today considered an outdated, niche commodity.” (Cohan, 2005, pg 1) So how does a filmic form with such huge success amongst the masses and the critics die? The answer, as if so often the case when questioning social change in the 21st Century, is the 1960s.

The Hollywood studio era had ended, and a new audience was forming. The baby boomers, once the first generation of teenagers, were growing up and entering colleges and the workforce. Those innocent days of drive-in cinemas and ice cream parlours were behind them, the Vietnam War and the threat of communism their new reality.

Musicals continued to receive critical acclaim. In 1968 the Charles Dickens adaptation Oliver! received eleven Oscars, including Best Picture. (Vogel, 2003) The Sound of Music (Wise, 1965) was another standout of the decade in terms of cultural impact. But audience reception had shifted. Whilst musicals willing to deal with darker Dickensian themes or depict Nazi occupied Austria succeeded, appetite for lighted-hearted frivolity had wained. Unlike previous generations, this new audience seemed less inclined to tackle the hardships of the decade with surrealistic optimistic escapism. Vogel observed in the 1990s that “movie-musical fans gave the last of their periodic goodbyes to the genre in the late sixties, and that one seems to be sticking. Musicals continue to reappear, but on what seems to be a trial basis.” (2003, pg 4-5)

Today, the same seems true. The occasional box office success such as La La Land (Chazelle, 2016) or The Greatest Showman (Gracey, 2017) brings renewed interest, but never lasting change. Broadway productions such as Hamilton have done much for the modern stage musical, but the movie musical often remains to be seen as shallow, silly, simple.

But a new phenomena is emerging, musicals that aren’t musicals. After all, a musical is defined by more than a mere presence of music. Yes, the characters sing and dance, but they do so in worlds steeped in realism, where the songs perform very different storytelling functions. These are films that explore the use of music in movies in a new way, and for a new audience. Often they are stories more concerned with the stop-start awkwardness of songwriting, than with the dramatic flair of an MGM musical. These modern non-musicals have a certain rebellious candidness about them, and they invariably end up being about musicians.

These ideas are nothing new, however. Even during the Hollywood studio era, some filmmakers struggled with the form. The established language of surrealism in musicals made for a certain level of creative license, “yet, despite this freedom to break into song and dance, the Astaire and Rogers films were always hindered by excessive plot devices that attempted to rationalise such acts. Fred was invariably cast as a dancer or a bandleader.” (Woll, 1983, pg 25) Mark Sandrich, who directed five Astaire and Rogers films for RKO Radio Pictures, was known for his personal vendetta against unmotivated dance numbers. He preferred instead to explain away mellifluous behaviour with clear story-driven reason, (Woll, 1983) something that had been present in The Jazz Singer but subsequently lost to the art form, as studios got swept up in the allure of technological developments, and the bigger and better musical numbers that this afforded.

Hollywood musicals continued to be inconsistent with which beliefs they were asking audiences to suspend. In The Sound of Music, (Wise, 1965) “Do Re Mi” is a musical number with which Maria teaches the Von Trapp children how to sing, a simple plot device for the climax of the film, when the newly formed Von Trapp Family Singers sing at a local concert as part of their scheme to flee Austria. In Rogers & Hammerstein’s original stage version, the children don’t sing until they’ve been taught how. In the film, however, the order of songs is changed, such that eldest child Liesl sings a duet with romantic interest Rolf before “Do Re Mi.” It would seem in-story logic mattered less to Hollywood than to Broadway.

Across the pond, though, a handful of filmmakers were trialling different solutions to the complexities of surrealism. All Night Long (Dearden, 1962) was a modern retelling of Othello, set in the London jazz scene. Starring Richard Attenborough, it co-starred several of the most prominent jazz musicians of the time, such as Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus. Their musical performances are the diegetic soundtrack to the Shakespearean drama, taking centre stage for much of the movie. The film has all but faded into obscurity, but is proof of an early attempt at musical realism and a more dramatic subject matter.

When it came time to make the first Beatles movie in the 1960s, in the tradition of the Elvis jukebox musicals of the 1950s, director Richard Lester took a similarly thoughtful approach. A Hard Day’s Night (Lester, 1964) is an absurdist comedy grounded in the reality of daily life for The Beatles, who play themselves in the film. Despite the absurd comedy, Lester made a conscious effort to establish a film language in which spontaneous outbursts of song were not disingenuous with the satirical world The Beatles inhabit in the film; in the opening scene, the fab four are suddenly and inexplicably running alongside a train they were just on. The logic here is clear, nothing in the script is impervious to the mysterious forces that let musical characters sing unprovoked. By making the surrealism consistent, Lester somehow achieves a contrapuntal sense of realism.

This push and pull between surrealism and in-story musical performance, between audience expectations and filmmaker frustrations, between form and function, is the heritage that this curation of films is born out of. In them we see glimpses of the social conscience of Warner, the in-story motivation of Sandrich, and the pioneering heart of The Jazz Singer. They’re just, well, not musicals.

Programmer Notes

 

The starting point for this list was simple, what have I already seen? Other films had been on my watch list for a while (or been recommended to me by the almighty streaming algorithms), which I duly went ahead and watched to see if they fit the tee. There were a few rules, to help narrow down this selection down to films that truly represented the rebellious candid spirit of these non-musical musicals.

1. No rock operas – Whilst these would fit in with the rest of the list in terms of musical style, this curation is more about realism than music.

2. No jukebox musicals – I wanted films that primarily showcased original songs, to show how songwriting can still be a storytelling tool, but in a new way from the traditional musical model.

3. No biopics – These could technically be considered a sub-genre of jukebox musicals, but regardless I was more interested in fiction.

4. No animation – The Disney musical is a whole other kettle of fish.

The Pitch Perfect franchise was an early consideration, until Rule 2 was decided upon. Those films aren’t musicals, but the very nature of a story about glee club singers means it’s a soundtrack of rearranged chart topping pop songs.

“Play jaja ding dong” from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story fo Fire Saga was want to pop into my head unannounced throughout this selection process. And whilst the film perfectly fulfils the criteria I set out for this list, the tone was wrong. It didn’t fit with the candidness of what I was wanting to explore. 

Once

(Carney, 2007)

Inside Llewyn Davis

(Coen, Coen, 2013)

A Beautiful Life

(Avaz, 2023)

BEGIN AGAIN

(Carney, 2013)

Purple Hearts

(Rosenbaum, 2022)

 

A Star is Born

(Cooper, 2018)

 

I Used to be Famous

(Sternberg, 2022)

 

Final Statement

 

One thing that hasn’t been explored in this curatorial is the particulars of the form as a musical genre. Typically orchestral, the genre has its own harmony, rhythms and tonalities that pre-date even the silent era of filmmaking. Whilst the music itself wasn’t relevant to the selection process, it does beg relevance s regards the audience for this list. Not all music lovers love musicals.

These films are perfect for music lovers who would rather their movies with a strong flavour of folk, rock, pop, or any combination of the three.

Reference List

Avaz, M. (Director). (2032). A Beautiful Life [Film]. Netflix

Carney, J. (Director). (2007). Once [Film]. Searchlight Pictures

Carney, J. (Director). (2014). Begin Again [Film]. The Weinstein Company

Chazelle, D. (Director). (2016). La La Land [Film]. Summit Entertainment

Coen, E., Coen, J. (Directors). (2013). Inside Llewyn Davis [Film]. StudioCanal

Cohan, S. (2005). Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical. Durham and London, UK: Duke University Press

Cooper, B. (Director). (2018). A Star is Born [Film]. Warner Brothers

Crosland, A. (Director). (1926). Don Juan [Film]. Warner Brothers

Crosland, A. (Director). (1927). The Jazz Singer [Film]. Warner Brothers

Curtiz, M., Blatt, E. (Directors). (1943). This is the Army [Film]. Warner Brothers

Dearden, B. (Director). (1962). All Night Long [Film]. Rank Organisation

Donen, S., Kelly, G. (Directors). (1952). Singin’ in the Rain [Film]. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Donen, S., Kelly, G. (Directors). (1955). It’s Always Fair Weather [Film]. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Gracey, M. (Director). (2017). The Greatest Showman [Film]. 20th Century Studios

Healy, P. (2012, June 11). ‘Once’ Basks in Glow of 8 Tony Awards. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/theater/theaterspecial/musical-once-receives-8-tony-awards.html

Lester, R. (Director). (1964). A Hard Day’s Night [Film]. United Artists

Marshall, R. (Director). (2014). Into the Woods [Film]. Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures

O’Toole, L. (2021, December). Glen Hansard: “It’s a powerful thing to lose your mother… That’s the place you came from, literally. That’s your first home, and it’s gone”. Hot Press. https://www.hotpress.com/opinion/glen-hansard-its-a-powerful-thing-to-lose-your-mother-22888808

Oscars. (2008, February 29). Falling Slowly winning Best Original Song Oscar [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8yLvb0gZM

Rosenbaum, E. (Director). (2022). Purple Hearts [Film]. Netflix

Sidney, G. (Director). (1945). Anchors Aweigh [Film]. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Sternberg, E. (Director). (2022). I Used to be Famous [Film]. Forty Foot Pictures

Vogel, F. (2003). Hollywood Musicals Nominated for Best Picture. North Carolina, USA: McFarland & Company Inc.

Well, A. (1983). The Hollywood Musical Goes to War. Chicago, USA: Nelson-Hall Inc.

Wise, R. (Director). (1965). The Sound of Music [Film]. 20th Century Fox studios

Young, P. (2011). Synchronised Sound Comes to Cinema. The Wiley-Blackwell History of American Film, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470671153.wbhaf019