Musicals: A movie genre that is becoming extinct (1 Viewer)

[Chad R]

You can argue the sematics of whether 'Evita' is an opera, rock-opera or classic muscial all you want. But if we're going to discuss why more movie musicals aren't being made, we have to remember that the money guys at studios aren't going to make that distinction. All they know is that a movie which cost a pretty penny that had actors singing in it didn't make money. Therefore, they will be reluctant to spend more money on any movie where actors sing. Remember studio types are little brained people.
Moulin Rouge, Love's Labour's Lost, et al have not been big enough successes (some have lost money) to warrant a return to the prominence musicals once had on american film screens.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

An opera, on the other hand, is a theatrical presentation in which a dramatic performance is set to music. (no dialogue).

So, by your definition, The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg is an opera?

~Edwin

 

[Greg_M]

Musical films costs more to make than the average film, and unless the film is a blockbuster like "Grease" or "The Sound of Music" the studio's don't make back their investment. International markets aren't interested in musicals films either. On top of that few directors know how to film a musical. Robert Wise was successful with "West Side Story" & "The Sound of Music" but his film "Star" with Julie Andrews bombed big time at the box office. Many Broadway musicals were badly transferred to the screen with huge budgets - the screen rights alone could cover the cost of an average film. There have also been few musicals because the majority of the movie going public since the late seventies consists of men between 18 through 25 - the least likely audience for a musical. Musicals were made for the family market, today the "family market" means animation and Disney (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Evita, Everyone Says I Love You)
Maybe the Broadway stage will provide better material in the future. I look forward to film adaptions of Broadway shows (Musical or Opera) of "RENT" "Chicago" and "Les Miserable"

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Modern* musicals that I like:
Fame
The Blues Brothers
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Rocky Horror Picture Show
That Thing You Do!
A Chorus Line
Bery Rigby, You're a Fool
Popeye
Moulin Rouge
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
Little Shop of Horrors
Topsy-Turvy
American Pop
The Doors
Annie
Earth Girls are Easy
Dancer in the Dark
Modern musicals I didn't like:
Grease 2
The Jazz Singer
Newsies
Everyone Says I Love You
The Fantasticks
Purple Rain
Blues Brothers 2000
Evita
Xanadu
Love's Labour's Lost
Spice World
(Haven't seen Hedwig yet.)
And as far as "classic" musicals being extinct, that's just the way it goes. We live in cynical times these days. If The Music Man were produced today, it would have to include transvestites, swans and midgets to keep the corn from smothering people.
They don't make horror movies like the original Dracula anymore either. Know why? 'Cuz it's 75 years later!
But in general, I still dig musicals, new and freaky ones and the old corball ones too.
(* I consider "modern" to be anything released from 1980 to present. Don't ask why 'cuz I don't really know.)
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Scott
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[Brook K]

Thank you Dale, many of Gene Kelly's films, Singin, An American In Paris, Anchors Aweigh, On The Town etc. used covers of existing hits. I think you'll find that the majority of original movie musicals, that is not from a pre-existing stage show, lacked completely original scores. Take a great one like Yankee Doodle Dandy, most of those songs were 15+ years old when the movie came out and this is certainly a "classic". The Broadway Melody's and Golddigger's series of the 30's recycled as well.
Moulin Rouge is very much in the Hollywood tradition. That's one of the reasons it worked so well for me.
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[Brian Lawrence]

I guess the thing with EVITA is the it's all music and singing with barely any regular spoken dialog that makes more operatic. Where I feel people tend to think of Musicals as being films with normal spoken dialog for about half of the film and song and dance in the other half. Like people have a conversation that suddenly bursts out into song. That doesn't really happen in Evita as virtually all of the dialog a sung. It's more like a 2+ hour concept music video than a typical musical like Singing in the Rain.

 

[Greg_M]

It seems the musical film was popular during times of war. Since the mid 70's the United States hasn't been involved in a major war. It seems movie goers just wanted to escape the horrors of war and musicals probably offered the most escapism. After watching the news the past two days I know I needed a relief. I rented a comedy - "Meet the Parents" just to get my mind off the horrible acts of violence and take a little break before turning the news back on. The last thing I would want to watch would be a film like "Independence Day" which network TV is pulling from the Sunday night schedule because of the scenes of destruction in New York and the Nation's Capital.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I think that musicals will never go away, but rather will just become better and sparser. Look at Moulin Rouge. Many people thought it was an excellent film, yet there hasn't been a musical made recently besides it. Some other genres have been more sparse, such as mysteries, but have been getting better (Memento counts as a mystery, doesn't it?).

 

[Seth Paxton]

The events of Tuesday are just the sort of thing that deeply effects what audiances want to see, and therefore what gets made in H'wood.
I don't think you are even close to being alone in wanting to see "lighter" films at this point. Musicals and light comedies will probably do rather well in the coming months/years.
Also, people will most likely flock more than ever to true escapist fare like Harry Potter and Fellowship. Fellowship will have a special appeal because of the innocents battle against a pure evil. People are going to need to live out those fantasy versions of good over evil. They aren't going to want images that remind them of the real life events.

 

[Tom Meyer]

Edwin said:
quote:
So, by your definition, The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg is an opera?
[/quote]
I would say that it is, in fact, more of an opera. There's no spoken dialog, only libretto and there are no big "song and dance" numbers. The only thing that distinguishes it from a traditional opera is that there are no big arias to focus on.
[Edited last by Tom Meyer on September 14, 2001 at 12:40 PM]

 

[teapot2001]

I consider The Umbrellas of Cherbourg to be closer to an opera too.
~T

 

[Scott Littlefield]

My copy of Evita claims it's a Rock Opera....

 

[Hendrik]

Tom Meyer: ...so, if it's not 'all-singing' it's not an opera? And if there are 'big dance numbers' it's a musical? I know Bizet's Carmen didn't start out life as an opera but as a play-with-music. And by your definition Beethoven's Fidelio is a musical (at least 50% of that opus consists of spoken dialogue)? And as for 'big dance numbers' - in opera terms these are called 'ballets' - but they're still big dance numbers...
. . .

. . .

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Tom - thanks for answering that. I had never heard of that one, and it is a foreign film.
As I said before the U.S. got so rudely interrupted, an opera is all singing. There would be NO spoken parts, but I can see that the first word or two here and there might sound like they were spoken.
In a musical, the story is stopped for the songs. As in West Side Story, when he followed her home she told him to be quiet or her father wouldn't like it, and then he breaks out in a song. (When I first saw this, I thought he was looking for a death wish!) Flashdance would not qualify, because the dance/song numbers was part of the plot.
As for ballets, they just don't have any words at all. The music and the performers say it all. I know that these are crude explanations, but they do work.
Ok, at least for me!
Glenn