I guess my big problem lies within musicals themselves, in essence musicals are absolutely ludacris and ridiculous to begin with. The fact that people will just randomly bust into songs, often for no real reason is weird, it's like if we were having a discussion and all of a sudden I start singing about clouds because clouds are on my mind... What?Ridiculous. Ok but we can look past that because heck if the song is good we get into it, it's fun
and your always wondering when they'll sing next. Now the next big problemo is whether the musical is trying to be serious or not... because lets be serious right now, can you take a musical seriously? Like honestly. I have a very hard time with that question because the musicals that I really enjoy are musicals that are playing with or making fun of the issue or story at hand. For example, I enjoyed Hairspray because it makes fun of how racist white people were in the 50s, and other movies like Cannibal the musical, Little Shop of Horrors, or Southpark the movie make fun of the very fact that they are singing in situations that you don't sing in....they therefore make fun of other musicals and that works for me because honestly you got to make fun of yourself in those situations. Now musicals like Fiddler on the Roof and Rent do not do anything for me... they almost subconsciously make fun of the hard issues they're trying to expose, I have heard more people make fun of Rent and singing about AIDS then I have heard people talk about how Rent exposed them to the harsh realities
of NYC. Come on did they people who made that really think that a musical was the best way to tell the public about those issues?
That's what really warped my view of this picture, yeah Singing in the Rain makes fun of Hollywood and then on top of that when they're backstage they sing and dance randomly, that's funny I will give them that. But to say that this picture is a good representation of what the biz was like back then and how actors acted off stage, it doesn't work. You can't take anything in this film seriously because the musical numbers ruin the validity of the piece. The plot in this movie isn't even good, it makes perfect sense to me after watching the movie and reading the article why that is, because the movie was basically slapped together around the songs themselves. Basically the movie studio said hey we got these popular songs and these popular actors...lets just throw them together and have a weird all over the place plot. And guess what happened the public loved it, and still loves it, I mean it's been labeled a classic, and the fact that everyone keeps egging this process of being distracted by the prettiness of the picture annoys me. I like this movie I find impossible to say this should be a classic in film history, baloney I say, baloney!
That scene that everyone seems to be freaking out over about Don and Cathy singing in the studio to each other...yeah I totally fell asleep at that part, slow songs are not my cup of tea I guess...fair enough
In conclusion what I learned from this movie is the big question everyone wants to know... what does singing in the rain have to do with this movie's story? Absolutely nothing at all.
It always interests me to hear what annoys you, probably because what you find most annoying is what I find most interesting about the things you're describing.
ReplyDeleteIt's like you're noticing all these really cool things--in this case all the ways that this movie jars, and all the things that are deliberately artificial about it. But because you're annoyed, it's like you're not letting yourself look at how those things work in complicated ways, so you're stopping just short of some really amazing ideas, and letting yourself get caught in your own emotional responses.
What would happen if you used these exact reactions--especially annoyance, as tools for analysis--continuing, rather than stopping? I think the results would be interesting.
True, I'll have to try that approach on the next film definitely.
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