👋 Hi, blog!
🎥 Today we are going to talk about Singing in the Rain. This film is a musical. There aren't too many musicals today in the 21st century, but they were all the rage in the 30s-50s. They were so common because, at the time, folk art was a big influence on films. Folk art was an extremely popular form of entertainment. One of the main reasons for its popularity was that it allowed performers to connect with their audience. For example, the audience would choose what songs the performers would sing and dance to. In order to play it safe, films followed the example of folk art by having a live audience on set, playing popular musical pieces, utilizing props, and angling the camera in such a way that a person watching it in a theater would feel like they were watching a live performance. Films didn't want to risk being too out-there just yet since it had already gone through a huge change because of the creation of synchronized sound only a few years prior.
💃 Many songs were danced and sung in this film. A few of my favorites were 'Make 'em laugh' and 'Good Morning'. The singing and dancing of the songs appeared to be spontaneous. This is one of the characteristics films borrowed from the popular folk art entertainment. By having a sense of spontaneity, viewers of this film would feel like they were watching a live performance.
💜 I really enjoyed watching this film. The music was very catchy and the choreography was very impressive. The film was quite humorous, too! I loved how they showed the struggle the actors had to go through to perfect the transatlantic accent. I loved how they mentioned The Jazz Singer and how people reacted to its synchronized sound as if it were not a game-changer.
👀 I would definitely recommend this film to anyone who loves romance films or musicals like Pitch Perfect or High School Musical.
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I also found the historical elements of the film to be fun and engaging details. The depiction of actors struggling with diction coaching and the transition into talkies could be looked at as a counterargument to Feuer's discussion of the professional vs. the amateur. Those scenes might be interpreted as a way to create sympathy for the struggles that the actors of that time period had to go through.
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about the struggling actor characters in the movie. it put into perspective what these people had to go through in order to transition from silent film to sound film in order to keep their careers and not end up losing their livelihoods.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be interesting to think of how these film musicals from the period of classic Hollywood compare to films like High School Musical or Pitch Perfect since folk performances are really not that common anymore and audiences have totally different expectations. Right now digital cultures are the biggest competitors to cinema culture. I think it would be interesting to think of how that shapes audience expectations.
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