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Welcome page > FAMU > FAMU International > Ronald Bergan: The Hollywood Musical: The Golden Era (1927-1958)

Ronald Bergan: The Hollywood Musical: The Golden Era (1927-1958)

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Code Completion Credits Range Language Instruction Semester
311MHM Z 2 2/D English summer
Subject guarantor:
Ronald BERGAN
Name of lecturer(s):
Ronald BERGAN
Learning outcomes of the course unit:

By discussion and analyses of film clips, this two-day module will serve as a useful introduction and critique of the Hollywood Musical, and how it differs from musicals from other countries and other film genres. Above all, taking the cue from Roland Barthes book on literary theory, Le Plaisir du Texte, the module should provide much pleasure.

Mode of study:

Lecture

Prerequisites and co-requisites:

none

Recommended optional programme components:

None

Course contents:

The Hollywood Musical was born with the coming of sound in 1927. In fact, the first talkie, The Jazz Singer, was a musical, with an audio track including non-diegetic music and diegetic music. Thereafter, musicals became one of the most popular genres. The Broadway Melody (1929), which MGM claimed was the first ´All-Talking, All-Singing, All-Dancing´ feature

film, won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Although some of the early musicals were little more than filmed theatre, brilliant directors such as Ernst Lubitsch and Rouben Mamoulian were able to use the genre in a cinematic way. In the ´30s, the choreographer Busby Berkeley broadened the cinematic scope of the musical with his kaleidoscopic numbers that transcended and commented on the limits of theatrical space.

In contrast to Berkeley, whose imaginative production numbers focused mainly on chorus girls, the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were dominated by their incredible dancing.

During the late 1940s and into the 1950s, a production unit at MGM, headed by producer Arthur Freed, advanced the musical as an art form. The height was reached in the Technicolor musicals directed by Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, Charles Walters and George Sidney, with stars such as Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse and

Jane Powell. The films of the Freed Unit integrated numbers into the plot, in which characters would sing and dance outside the confines of a stage show.

Most of the best musicals had original screenplays, often with songs written especially for the film, whereas the majority of musicals from the´60s onwards were adaptations of Broadway shows. Perhaps the last of the great era of musicals was Minnelli´s Gigi (1958).

Among all the Hollywood genres, the musical was easier able to circumvent the restrictive Hays Code, getting away with far more eroticism, as well as being able to experiment more with narrative and style. In other words, the musical was less constricted and more avant-garde than other mainstream movies.

Recommended or required reading:

The Pleasure of the Text

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pleasure_of_the_Text

Planned learning activities and teaching methods:

Lecture with samples from films

Assessment methods and criteria:

100% attendance, attendance sheet

Course web page:
Note:

April 10 and 11, 2015

Friday and Saturday from 10 am till 5 pm with a lunch break.

Schedule for winter semester 2014/2015:
The schedule has not yet been prepared
Schedule for summer semester 2014/2015:
Date Day Time Tutor Location Notes No. of paralel
10.04.2015 10:00–17:00 BERGAN R. Učebna 2
Lažanský palác 		In English. Open for all FAMU students. paralelka 1
11.04.2015 10:00–17:00 BERGAN R. Učebna 2
Lažanský palác 		paralelka 1
The subject is a part of the following study plans:
Generated on 2015-06-16