Read:
Richard Dyer’s essay in Steven Cohan’s, Hollywood Musicals, The Film Reader:
– Richard Dyer, Entertainment and Utopia. (pg 17-30)
Abstract from the second chapter of Steve Neale’s, Genre and Hollywood: Musicals (pg. 104-112)
Watch Lars Von Trier’s, Dancer in the Dark, 2000
1. Write a small piece on the movie we watched in class (Singin´ in the Rain). Use both, Steven Cohan’s Introduction and Richard Dyer’s text as a guideline. Try to address the peculiar aspects of the film, for example; how the narrative unfolds, the relationship between the dance and singing scenes with the story, etc.
2. Write a text comparing Singin’ in the Rain to Dancer in the Dark and both films relation to Utopia (based on Dyer’s text).