Musicals—19

If you’ve been following the blog the last few months you know we’re talking about film musicals with the eye toward you developing and writing your own film musical. This isn’t an easy genre to crack and in order to have a shot, you really need to know the lay of the land, and that means knowing this genre inside and out.

We began with musicals from the 20s and 30s and have now reached the 80s. This was a decade with quite a number of original musicals, and the first one was Fame [1980], by Christopher Gore, a film that tells the story of a bunch of kids at a New York High School for the Performing Arts. You may know that it’s been made into a TV series AND remade as a film in 2009.

Here’s a clip from Fame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0GOCXmmWWU. Setting the film in a performing arts high school makes it very easy for music and dance to happen. We don’t have a case of a song advancing the story all by itself, instead a song is part of the routine of the school and thus seems more natural.

If you can find a setting where singing—and in this case dancing—happens, it certainly adds more realism to the telling of your story through music. We don’t have to think about why a character suddenly burst into song, it’s just a logical part of the story.

And Fame resonated with audiences. Why? Well, even if you never were a singer or a dancer, a part of you might wish you could have been, and the film lets you live out that fantasy.

Another original film from the 80s was Pennies from Heaven [1981] by Dennis Potter. OK, this is a strange one—but also compelling. When you look at the rating the film gets on IMDB it’s not great—just a 6.5. But it’s so incredibly original I hardly know where to begin. Take a look at this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Q11jsN54A and you’ll see that people seem to be lip-syncing to songs sung by others. This happens all through the film. The story is about a married sheet music salesman who falls in love with a clerk. It’s dark, there’s not one laugh in the whole thing, and it’s moody and just incredible. Here’s a favorite moment of mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqF-dwI82gw.

You have to wonder how a film like this got made—it’s just too innovative, too different, too original to achieve mass popularity. But you know what, it’s absolutely mesmerizing. And when I think of the history of film musicals, this is one I wouldn’t leave out, because it’s just that special.

Innovation, Pennies from Heaven has it. Fame is a nice little musical and certainly resonated with audiences, but for me, there’s no comparison—it’s Pennies from Heaven that I’d want to see again.

What do we take away from this? Innovation may not sell, but it can say something artistically. It may not make you famous, but writing something innovative may satisfy your soul longer than fame ever would.

Copyright © Diane Lake

01Dec19

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