How Do YOU justify the singing in a movie musical?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:14pm

Back in the day, I just accepted singing in a musical because ... it's a musical. When Chicago hit, the big deal was how it was great to have the singing justfied in a musical, and that seems to be something people always go back to. I'm curious to know what other people think.

Do you think the characters in musicals know they are singing? Does the character's awareness of whether or not he is singing affect whether or not he has to have a good voice?

[robbiej]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:20pm

The problem with CHICAGO was very particular to CHICAGO. It had to be justified in some way, because most, if not all, of the musical numbers were concept numbers: vaudeville set pieces that commented quite a bit on the action. A concept was needed to really make that concept musical work on screen.

Something like SWEENEY, where the music is the action as opposed to a comment on it, you don't need a justification. It just is.

[nitsua]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:20pm

I think, in a well written musical, it's the only thing characters CAN do. They've said all they can say, and the only thing left is to sing.

I think singing well helps, but sometimes, it just isn't there character. I would've hated SWEENEY TODD if they had perfect voices.

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:22pm

Hmmm.....I don't think the character is always aware that he is singing because the songs are supposed to move the plot along so at times I look at it a dialog, just sung. In the case of Sweeney, While Lansbury can carry a tune, I didn't think she was a great singer. And I don't think either Todd or Lovett need to have spectacular voices. But they need some sort of "character" to their singing voice. This is where I had a problem with Carter in the movie. Does that make any sense?!

[Jonny boy]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:24pm

I don't think it can be justified=-)

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:26pm

Something like SWEENEY, where the music is the action as opposed to a comment on it, you don't need a justification. It just is.

I agree with everything you said about Chicago, Robbie, but that comment really stuck out at me. That's why I don't understand why Bill Condon tried so hard to justify the singing in Dreamgirls, or why Rent was so just un-musical and self-conscious even when the people were singing.

I also have no problem if the world of the movie has to be a little stylized for the singing to be more palatable. I don't need every movie I see to show me life as it is. I loved how stylized and unreal so much of Sweeney and even Hairspray looked.

I remember when I got to college and heard for the first time somoene (a professor) say "In musicals, the characters sing because the CAN'T do anything else." And yeah, I guess I get that, but like I've always said, they just sing. I get it. Just like I get it when I watch a sitcom and I don't see the fourth wall.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:30pm

Uncageg (omigod, I think just now got your screen name), I guess that's going to boil down to a matter of taste. I did think her voice had character. I figured she'd be polarizing, but I really thought she was swell.

Mamma Mia looks like it's going to be another musical that gets the heck out if its own way.

The other day someone posted a quote from Sondheim about how movie musicals don't work, blah blah blah, even West Side Story didn't and I just don't why movie musicals have to be so reviled. Maybe I really do underestimate the American movie-going public, but am I really the only one who understands that movies are not real?

[robbiej]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:30pm

DREAMGIRLS is actually tricky because the first 'book' song doesn't really hit till Cadillac Car (which they cut from the movie...which they shouldn't have...that's another story). On stage, you kind of know what you're getting...but in a movie, it becomes jarring when all of the music is performance based until a half hour in and all of a sudden people are on a VERY white stage singing about being a "family." It's like, HUH??? Had they kept the practically rap opening of Cadillac Car with Curtis explaining...and had they kept the exceedingly good intro to Steppin to the Bad Side that you can see in the special features, Family might not have stuck out like a sore thumb.

As for the singing when the emotions are too big...I find that helpful advice as a performer to another, but really...what the hell does that have to do with the audience?

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:33pm

I take it at face value. To me it is part of the genre. These people need to communicate themselves through song, and that's good enough for me.
I do ask for smooth transitions between song and dialogue which RENT so miserably failed at.
I do love stylized environments like SWEENEY TODD's as well. It makes it easy to "accept" the singing because they are part of a different environment.
Sometimes the material DOES need a "justification." I love the way Fosse used the songs in his version of CABARET which later informed Rob Marshall's vision of CHICAGO.
However, people forget about MOULIN ROUGE, the movie that I believe started to get people back in the theatres to see musicals. In that movie there was absolutely no justification, people just started singing because that's what they did, period. That's why I don't get the idea that you need a "device" to justify singing in a musical, same way as you don't need it on stage.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:35pm

Well, robbie, that's not exactly true about Dreamgirls. There's recicitative early on and even so, Cadillac Car still comes a LONG time before Family. It's pretty much non-stop music the whole time. I've always thought Rent and Dreamgirls were one of the two most cinematic stage shows there are and I couldn't believe how both fumbled so hard in trying to justify their existance on screen.

Not only that, but the first lines in Dreamgirls are so QUIET it drives me crazy. Project, Danny Glover, project!
Updated On: 12/28/07 at 05:35 PM

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:38pm

I should have tacked on that it was my opinion. You are correct, it is a matter of individual taste. And it bothers me because the more I think about it the more I didn't like her. But I am going to give the movie another shot. My opinion may change after a second listen/viewing.

[B3TA07]

Posted: 12/28/07 at 5:39pm

If it's cute it's cute
and if it's hot it's hot,
but if it's not it's not

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 4:28pm

Oh, uncacgeg, you're fine. I knew what you meant.

Are you a big fan of the stage version? I wonder how much that colors people's opinion of her performance. I never saw the show live, don't have a cast recording, saw the dvd with Hearn once a few years ago and thought, "eh, it was fine." I guess for me the movie was pretty much a brand new animal to me. I knew the story and I sort of knew the songs, but how it all played out was pretty much new for me. And I'm a fan of Helena Bonham Carter, so I went in with that bias, too. It was the same thing with Michelle Pfeiffer in Hairspray for me. No matter what, I knew I'd come out loving them.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 4:43pm

I don't think it ever matters... I go to the movies with the understanding that I'm supposed to be seeing Jennifer Aniston as a beleagued single mother looking for love in all the wrong places, not Jennifer Aniston. That's Mel Gibson as the tough talking no nonsense guy who seems impervious to getting blown up, not Mel Gibson.

They're movies. If they're singing, it's because they're singing to entertain you... modern audiences are just too stupid to get that. It's no different from cracking witty joke after witty joke, or gluing your hand to your crotch, or getting kissed in the rain by the romantic infatuation who you thought had left on a jet plane forever. It's all improbable.

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 5:36pm

I just accept the singing as part of the reality of the world that is being presented before me on the screen.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 5:46pm

Ronin, et al, I agree. But you can't deny that the conventional wisdom seems to be that there has to be a reason. I always did accept it, and I thought everyone did until I starting hearing all these directors talk about how they have to justify the singing.

Even with the rumored Follies movie in the works, there are those who believe that it should be based on the Chapin book, so the songs take place in the "show within the movie." As you've noted, why do people accept aliens coming to earth and comedies about mistaken identity, but won't accept a world where people just bloomin' sing?

Posted: 12/29/07 at 6:16pm

I'm with you Phyllis. I don't understand why they think they have to go to such lengths to justify singing in a movie. Hairspray worked so well because they didn't waste a moment worrying about it: In this world, people sing and that's all there is to it. Dreamgirls was, to me, one of the most awkward "Musicals" ever made for the screen. They didn't understand- You create a world, and you commit to it 100% and you go.

I doubt the creators of "When Harry Met Sally" spent any time worrying that audiences didn't wonder why no one beat Sally to death. In the world they created for that movie, for some reason, ugly, neurotic, controlling bitches are allowed to live and roam freely.

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 7:08pm

My feeling is that if you are going to turn a musical into a movie, all music should be intact. When I hear writers and directors say "This won't work on screen or that won't work on screen" it just gets under my skin. My 1st thought is "Then don't make the movie". I will be honest, what was done to RENT just hurts my soul. Yes, we have a movie musical of RENT that we can see any time we want. But in my opinion it was kinda butchered. If it worked for thousands or a million of people in a theater, why won't it work on screen? I don't agree with Burton's decision to exclude "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" and I am kind of shocked that Sondheim agreed to excluding it. It could have at least been sung over the ending credits. The movie has been rolling around in my head for a week now and more and more I find things I didn't like about it. It was beautifully filmed and the acting was very good. But I just don't agree with some of the changes. I am very upset over the final scene and Toby's final dialog being nowhere in sight. It was a chilling moment onstage and could have been in the movie. I was just stunned at how that scene was filmed. To the point that I almost wanted to walk out. Although, the final shot was quite chilling and stayed with me. And for Burton to say how much he loved the show, well, well...I could go on!!

But to answer your question Phyllis....yes, I saw the original production on Broadway. (I have the OBCR on vinyl!) It blew me away. I was so in awe that I sat in the theater long after the final "curtain" and had to be asked to leave. I had seen a number of shows on Broadway but it just hit me and I knew that in some way shape or form I had to be a part of the theater. Acting was my first choice but that was not meant to be. However I have been very active at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts as a chairman for years. Just stepped down a year ago....with all that said, I have seen the revival (I had to!) and when I went into the theater on Christmas Eve, I cleared my mind of the original, the revival and just how much I love this show. I kept an open mind. There were parts of the film that I loved. I am very happy that they did not back off of the blood. I will say that the movie stuck with me for a while, it was a bit hard to shake. So Burton did his job there. But all in all, it could have been a much better movie than it was. Also the exclusion of the choral parts of the show annoyed me. It really hurt "God That's Good" for me.

Just my random thoughts and opinions...for now!!!

Updated On: 2/12/08 at 07:08 PM

[elmore3003]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 7:10pm

The same way I justify it onstage.

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 7:12pm

elmore, why didn't I just type that instead of the long post above! Well put!

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 7:24pm

I do think movie and stage are different mediums... I would rather watch something cinematic than something that's just a filming of the stage show. Sweeney Todd is one of the best movie musicals I've ever seen because it's incredibly cinematic... a movie has to be a movie and a stage show a stage show.

But it doesn't matter one whit whether they're singing or speaking, it's all fantasy anyway.

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 7:32pm

They are different mediums. But, I guess, the problem is that movie makers are catering to "the moviegoer". Well moviegoers also go to the theatre. If something is sung onstage, I think it should be sung onscreen. The Ballad of Sweeney Todd worked onstage, why not onscreen? I think Burton said something to the effect that the lyrics gave things away. I would like to see a musical that is totally true to the stage version. Don't cater to but maybe push those "moviegoers". The whole thing about moviegoers not being able to handle people breaking out in song makes no sense. It is a musical!

[BDrischBDemented]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 7:54pm

But being totally true to the stage version does not a good movie make. Witness "The Producers". I'd rather have a movie that effectively captures the spirit of a stage show with some alterations than an exact copy on film.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 8:05pm

Robbie's right about Chicago. It couldn't have worked any other way, because those are Vaudeville/Burlesque stage numbers. On film, it could only happen as a fantasy in her mind. Other than that, you would have had to simply film a stage show. And that would have tanked with audiences.

But integrated singing and dancing on film is merely a cinematic device. And movies are FILLED with illogical cinematic devices today. Unfortunately, THAT one's gone out of style.

I have a bigger problem understanding why audiences today can buy a full orchestra following a car chase around... or a guy who dodges 300 bullets in 10 seconds unscathed... or the guy who gets stabbed in the arm, and then recovers completely with no blood, two minutes later... or falls off a 1,000-foot cliff and survives it...

...yet when he opens his mouth to SING or kicks up his heels to DANCE, the audience groans, "That's not believable!"

Oh, really?

[B3TA07]

Posted: 12/29/07 at 8:14pm

I don't justify it...the director does.