Are you a fan of musicals? I definitely am. There is just something about musicals that make me smile, make me happy. Musicals have been a big deal for decades, although they have changed over time in accordance with the changing audience. Today I will be talking about 5 musicals throughout the different decades and discuss how the genre of musicals has changed over the decades.
Singing in the Rain (1952)
Singing in the Rain is a musical showing the change from silent films to the new “talkies.” It stars Gene Kelly as “Don” and Debbie Reynolds as “Kathy.” Don is a famous actor and Kathy is a young up and coming actress. The story revolves around these two as they work to make a movie together and fall in love. This musical is high energy and has huge musical numbers dispersed throughout the movie. It is almost like a musical from the theater has jumped onto your tv screen. It also focuses more on the big productions than the story in my opinion.
The Sound of Music (1965)
The Sound of Music is about a young nun-to-be who is sent by her convent to be a governess named “Maria” played by Julie Andrews, to a Austrian family with seven children. There she meets their father “Captain Von Trapp” played by Christopher Plummer, and eventually falls in love with him and his family. She brings music back into this house that was missing it. This family eventually is forced to flee Austria because of World War II. This movie is based on the real life true story of the singing group the Von Trapps who were well known during the era of World War II. This musical focuses more on the story than the previous musical mentioned and the musical numbers are much more toned down and authentic. The movie is a beautiful, inspirational film.
Grease (1978)
Grease is a film based in the 60s around this high school called Rydell High and these 2 groups of students called the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds. It stars Olivia Newton-John as “Sandy” a young Australian who moves to Rydell after having had a summer romance with “Danny” played by John Travolta. She discovers that Danny is the head of the T-Birds at Rydell High. The film follows them as they wrestle with maintaining their image to their school and friends, while also wanting to be together. In the end they change for each other and through that discover they just had to be themselves. This brings us back to big musical numbers and high action numbers, but it does a better job of focusing on the story than Singing in the Rain. This film also introduces riskier topics like bad language and inappropriate themes, but encapsulates the era it is based in perfectly.
The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Skipping forward a few decades to 2004, we see the Phantom of the Opera. This is a story of a young ballerina, “Christine” played by Emily Rossum who dreams of being a star of a opera. She has grown up in the theater and has been trained over the years by the “Angel of Music” played by Gerard Butler otherwise known as The Phantom. He controls the theater and helps Christine land the lead role. There are murders and a mystery of the theater. Christine falls in love and the theater burns down after much drama. This is a very different musical from the previous ones described as it is much more elaborate and theatrical. It focuses on being a dramatic theatrical musical with big numbers that are entwined with the story.
La La Land (2016)
La La Land is about the characters Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) who are drawn together by their common desire to do what they love. Mia wants to be an actress, Sebastian wants to open a jazz club. But as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other cause them to be pulled apart from each other. This movie is a very subtle musical, with a very calming yet theatrical vibe. It is made to appear like the musicals from the era of Singing in the Rain and it does a good job of doing that but with a modern story and design.
Conclusion
Musicals are the same at the core as they were 7 decades ago, although the execution, design, and story has much changed. Click here to buy these movies.
Georgia's Movie Mind 