Category Archives: the musical

The musical and it’s narrative

the musical

According to Dyer there are three kinds of musicals:

1. Those that keep the narrative and the musical numbers clearly separated: (mostly where the numbers appear to be part of a show like Cabaret)
2. Those that retain the division between narrative as problems and musical numbers as escape (where one more or less can tell when the musical number will appear as it tends to be cued – The Wizard of Oz)
3. Those which try to dissolve the distinction between narrative and numbers, thus implying that the world in which the narrative takes place is also utopian. (Moulin Rouge – utopic world of artists and performers being more sensitive – yet one can argue that MR combines all three)

singing_in_the_rain.jpg

Assignments for August 12

assignments, the musical

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).