Destabilizing the Hollywood Musical

Destabilizing the Hollywood Musical PDF Author: K. Kessler
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230290558
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
A critical survey of Hollywood film musicals from the 1960s to the present. This book examines how, in the post-studio system era, cultural, industrial and stylistic circumstances transformed this once happy-go-lucky genre into one both fluid and cynical enough to embrace the likes of Rocky Horror and pave the way for Cannibal! and Moulin Rouge!.

Destabilizing the Hollywood Musical

Destabilizing the Hollywood Musical PDF Author: K. Kessler
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230290558
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book Here

Book Description
A critical survey of Hollywood film musicals from the 1960s to the present. This book examines how, in the post-studio system era, cultural, industrial and stylistic circumstances transformed this once happy-go-lucky genre into one both fluid and cynical enough to embrace the likes of Rocky Horror and pave the way for Cannibal! and Moulin Rouge!.

The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical

The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical PDF Author: Dominic Broomfield-McHugh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019750342X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 665

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Book Description
Since the release of Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! in 2001, the film musical has returned to popularity as one of the most important cinematic genres, a box office hit that appeals to audiences of all ages. Yet the history of the musical on film goes back over seven decades earlier than that, stretching from early examples like The Jazz Singer (1927), the first ever film with synchronized sound, through the Astaire-Rogers musicals of the 1930s, the MGM and Warner Brothers extravaganzas of the 1940s and '50s, and the roadshow era of the 1960s. The genre's renaissance with La La Land (2016) and The Greatest Showman (2017) proves that it remains as appealing as ever, capable of both high critical acclaim and widespread box office success. The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical, curated by editor Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, reflects and expands on current scholarship on the film musical in a handbook that mixes new discoveries through archival research with new perspectives on familiar titles. It addresses issues such as why audiences accept people bursting into song in musicals; how technology affects the way numbers are staged; and how writers have adapted their material to suit certain stars. It also looks at critical issues such as racism and sexism, and assesses the role and nature of the film musical in the twenty-first century. A remarkable survey at the cutting edge of the field, The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical will be a resource for students and scholars alike for years to come.

Hollywood Musicals

Hollywood Musicals PDF Author: Steven Cohan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351018728
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Hollywood Musicals offers an insightful account of a genre that was once a mainstay of twentieth-century film production and continues to draw audiences today. What is a film musical? How do musicals work, formally and culturally? Why have they endured since the introduction of sound in the late 1920s? What makes them more than glittery surfaces or escapist fare? In answering such questions, this guidebook by Steven Cohan takes new and familiar viewers on a tour of Hollywood musicals. Chapters discuss definitions of the genre, its long history, different modes of analyzing it, the great stars of the classic era, and auteur directors. Highlights include extended discussions of such celebrated musicals from the studio era as The Love Parade, Top Hat, Holiday Inn, Stormy Weather, The Gang’s All Here, Meet Me in St. Louis, Cover Girl, Mother Wore Tights, Singin’ in the Rain, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Band Wagon, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Jailhouse Rock as well as later films such as Cabaret, All that Jazz, Beauty and the Beast, and La La Land. Cohan brings in numerous other examples that amplify and extend to the present day his claims about the musical, its generic coherence and flexibility, its long and distinguished history, its special appeal, and its cultural significance. Clear and accessible, this guide provides students of film and culture with a succinct but substantial overview that provides both analysis and intersectional context to one of Hollywood’s most beloved genres.

The Politics of the Musical Theatre Screen Adaptation

The Politics of the Musical Theatre Screen Adaptation PDF Author: Dominic Broomfield-McHugh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197649394
Category : Film adaptations
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
"From Show Boat (1936) to The Sound of Music (1965) and from Grease (1978) to Chicago (2002), many of the most beloved film musicals in Hollywood history originated as Broadway shows. And in the three years since the original publication of the chapters in this volume (as The Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations, 2019) the phenomenon has persisted, with new adaptations such as Cats, In the Heights, Tick, Tick...Boom!, Dear Evan Hansen, and Spielberg's remake of West Side Story. Yet in general, the number of screen adaptations of Broadway musicals and operettas is far greater than the number that have met with success, especially both critical and commercial success (i.e., good reviews and a profit at the box office). This is all the more surprising since Hollywood tended almost (if not quite) exclusively to buy the rights to musicals that had been successful on the stage as a means of guaranteeing a profitable outcome. After all, musicals that had already enjoyed long runs and nationwide productions on the stage ought to have a readymade audience. One might also think that because the authors had puzzled over the individual challenges posed by such properties in their stage incarnations, it ought to be easier to turn them into strong film musicals. But for every West Side Story there were several Finian's Rainbows, Man of La Manchas, and Carousels: movies that simply did not do justice to the 'enchanted evenings' these works provided in their stage incarnations"--

The Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations

The Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations PDF Author: Dominic McHugh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019005154X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 690

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Book Description
Hollywood's conversion to sound in the 1920s created an early peak in the film musical, following the immense success of The Jazz Singer. The opportunity to synchronize moving pictures with a soundtrack suited the musical in particular, since the heightened experience of song and dance drew attention to the novelty of the technological development. Until the near-collapse of the genre in the 1960s, the film musical enjoyed around thirty years of development, as landmarks such as The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St Louis, Singin' in the Rain, and Gigi showed the exciting possibilities of putting musicals on the silver screen. The Oxford Handbook of Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations traces how the genre of the stage-to-screen musical has evolved, starting with screen adaptations of operettas such as The Desert Song and Rio Rita, and looks at how the Hollywood studios in the 1930s exploited the publication of sheet music as part of their income. Numerous chapters examine specific screen adaptations in depth, including not only favorites such as Annie and Kiss Me, Kate but also some of the lesser-known titles like Li'l Abner and Roberta and problematic adaptations such as Carousel and Paint Your Wagon. Together, the chapters incite lively debates about the process of adapting Broadway for the big screen and provide models for future studies.

The Pop Musical

The Pop Musical PDF Author: Alberto Mira
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231549296
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description
After Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley’s iron grip on the movie musical began to slip in the face of pop’s cultural dominance, many believed that the musical genre entered a terminal decline and finally wore itself out by the 1980s. Though the industrial model of the musical was disrupted by the emergence of pop, the Hollywood musical has not gone extinct. Many Hollywood productions from the 1960s to the present have revisited the forms and conventions of the classic musical—except instead of drawing from showtunes and jazz standards, they employ the styles and iconography of pop. Alberto Mira offers a new account of how pop music revolutionized the Hollywood musical. He shows that while the Hollywood system ceased producing large-scale traditional musicals, different pop strains—disco, rock ’n’ roll, doo-wop, glam, and hip-hop—renewed the genre, giving it a new life. While the classical musical presented a world light on conflict, defined by theatricality and where effortless talent can shine through, the introduction of pop spurred musicals to address contemporary social and political conditions. Mira traces the emergence of a new set of themes—such as the painful hard work depicted in Dirty Dancing (1987); the double-edged fandom of Velvet Goldmine (1998); and the racial politics of Dreamgirls (2006)—to explore why the Hollywood musical has found renewed relevance.

The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical

The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical PDF Author: Jessica Sternfeld
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134851855
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 715

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Book Description
The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical is dedicated to the musical’s evolving relationship to American culture in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In the past decade-and-a-half, international scholars from an ever-widening number of disciplines and specializations have been actively contributing to the interdisciplinary field of musical theater studies. Musicals have served not only to mirror the sociopolitical, economic, and cultural tenor of the times, but have helped shape and influence it, in America and across the globe: a genre that may seem, at first glance, light-hearted and escapist serves also as a bold commentary on society. Forty-four essays examine the contemporary musical as an ever-shifting product of an ever-changing culture. This volume sheds new light on the American musical as a thriving, contemporary performing arts genre, one that could have died out in the post-Tin Pan Alley era but instead has managed to remain culturally viable and influential, in part by newly embracing a series of complex contradictions. At present, the American musical is a live, localized, old-fashioned genre that has simultaneously developed into an increasingly globalized, tech-savvy, intensely mediated mass entertainment form. Similarly, as it has become increasingly international in its scope and appeal, the stage musical has also become more firmly rooted to Broadway—the idea, if not the place—and thus branded as a quintessentially American entertainment.

Broadway in the Box

Broadway in the Box PDF Author: Kelly Kessler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190674032
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
It was as if American television audiences discovered the musical in the early 21st century. In 2009 Glee took the Fox Network and American television by storm with the unexpected unification of primetime programming, awkward teens, and powerful voices spontaneously bursting into song. After raking in the highest rating for a new show in the 2009-2010 season, Glee would continue to cultivate rabid fans, tie-in soundtracks and merchandising, and a spinoff reality competition show until its conclusion in 2015. Alongside Glee, NBC and Fox would crank up musical visibility with the nighttime drama Smash and a string of live musical productions. Then came ABC's comedic fantasy musical series Galavant and the CW's surprise Golden Globe darling Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Television and the musical appeared to be a perfect match. But, as author Kelly Kessler illustrates, television had at that point been carrying on a sixty-year, symbiotic love affair with the musical. From Rodgers and Hammerstein's appearance on the first Toast of the Town telecast and Mary Martin's iconic Peter Pan airings to Barbra Streisand's 1960s CBS specials, The Carol Burnett Show, Cop Rock, Great Performances, and a string of one-off musical episodes of sitcoms, nighttime soaps, fantasy shows, and soap operas, television has always embraced the musical. Kessler shows how the form is written across the history of American television and how its various incarnations tell the stories of shifting American culture and changing television, film, and theatrical landscapes. She recounts and explores this rich, decades-long history by traversing musicals, stars, and sounds from film, Broadway, and Las Vegas to the small screen.

Musicals at the Margins

Musicals at the Margins PDF Author: Julie Lobalzo Wright
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501357093
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
But is it a musical? This question is regularly asked of films, television shows and other media objects that sit uncomfortably in the category despite evident musical connections. Musicals at the Margins argues that instead of seeking to resolve such questions, we should leave them unanswered and unsettled, proposing that there is value in examining the unstable edges of genre. This collection explores the marginal musical in a diverse range of historical and global contexts. It encompasses a range of different forms of marginality including boundary texts (films/media that are sort of/not quite musicals), musical sequences (marginalized sequences in musicals; musical sequences in non-musicals), music films, musicals of the margins (musicals produced from social, cultural, geographical, and geopolitical margins), and musicals across media (television and new media). Ultimately these essays argue that marginal genre texts tell us a great deal about the musical specifically and genre more broadly.

Gestures of Music Theater

Gestures of Music Theater PDF Author: Dominic Symonds
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199997152
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Gestures of Music Theater explores examples of Song and Dance as performative gestures that entertain and affect audiences. The chapters interact to reveal the complex energies of performativity. In experiencing these energies, music theatre is revealed as a dynamic accretion of active, complex and dialogical experiences.