Showing posts with label Minnelli. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minnelli. Show all posts
Sunday, December 25, 2011
A Melancholy Christmas
A good Christmas movie really needs a bit of angst. Think about the Grinch, or Rudolph in exile, or Charlie Brown and his tree. There may be nothing to beat It's a Wonderful Life in terms of sheer desperation, but is there a more melancholy Christmas movie than Meet Me In St. Louis? I could add, of course, is there a more beautiful Christmas film - but it's Minelli, so that is a given. But if you don't go down, you can't come up (it's not a solstice holiday for nothing) - so have yourself a Merry Little Christmas!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Band Wagon
I'd never get away with Joseph B.'s periodic post - What's in the Netflix Queue? - these days, I'd be lucky to get a post a year out of that. I've been sitting on a couple films for months - like The Band Wagon, sitting on a shelf since - the new year? maybe. Ouch...
Anyway - Band Wagon is an interesting case. Story is - Fred Astaire as Tony Hunter, who like Fred in the early fifties, used to be a star and is now washed up. He comes to NY where some friends have a script - they pitch it to the resident Broadway genius (Jack Buchanon channeling Oscar Jaffe, and apparently Vincente Minnelli) who sees it as an updated musical Faust. They bring in Cyd Charisse to dance with Fred and off they go - but the serious pyrotechnic Faust bombs, so they rework it into the original light review in the script. We see this as a series of numbers, culminating in a murder mystery ballet. Hooray! The world is a stage, the stage is a world of entertainment!
It's an interesting case because, while presented as a musical comedy, it feels more like a melodrama - it's one of those stories that struggles to force a kind of happy go lucky frame around notably dark material. It plays like Two Weeks in Another Town, with a happy ending, and more hoofing - Tony Hunter's desperation, confusion, sense of being left behind by the world, the arts, the fear of failure - permeates it. The cheerful musical seems grafted on. Certainly, the musical that emerges on "stage" in the film feels desperate and hokey, and rather tedious. I think I'd rather see the musical Faust they were making fun of.... It's not a ridiculous idea, really - it's anticipating where musicals were about to go in the 50s - a musical Faust, combining popular and classical dancing, comedy and tragedy, set in contemporary New York - it's not more unlikely than a musical version of Romeo and Juliet in the modern age, mixing popular, ballet, and avant garde dance, right?
The film, I think, is definitely closer to that idea than it is to the happy story in the plot. Personally, I think Minnelli is better at melodrama than musicals - or maybe I should say, his musicals (the three I've seen anyway - it's not one of my strong suits) seem to work best through a kind of darkness. Meet Me In St. Louis is a notably melancholy musical, with moments of fairly genuine pain. There's an ache there - the fear of growing up, leaving home, fear of change, the deeper themes of entering the modern world - all part of that film. (For that matter, wasn't Cabin in the Sky a bit of a Faust tale?) It's the same here - a man facing his own mortality, or maybe worse, his obsolescence - and in general, the fear of failure for the whole company. It does very well at capturing that anxiety - but it let's everyone off, shifting gears and orchestrating a happy ending.... Though the very ending - might be the most haunted, mournful declaration of love I have ever seen - the words are romantic; the look - is melodrama...
Oh well. That aside, it's impeccably directed, shot, staged, dressed (people and sets), written, acted, full of jokes and lines and bits of business, and that pervasive undercurrent of desperation... And it has it's showstoppers - the utterly gorgeous Girl Hunt ballet; the "Dancing in the Dark" dance where Fred and Cyd learn to dance with one another; and the delicious "shine on your Shoes" - great stuff. In what has the makings of a great film, but I am inclined to think tries too hard to hide it's essentially melodramatic nature. I do think Minnelli's melodramas are his best films - Some Came Running or Home from the Hill or The Bad and the Beautiful - those are his masterpieces... Band Wagon plays like it would rather be that, but has to be a comedy...
Anyway - Band Wagon is an interesting case. Story is - Fred Astaire as Tony Hunter, who like Fred in the early fifties, used to be a star and is now washed up. He comes to NY where some friends have a script - they pitch it to the resident Broadway genius (Jack Buchanon channeling Oscar Jaffe, and apparently Vincente Minnelli) who sees it as an updated musical Faust. They bring in Cyd Charisse to dance with Fred and off they go - but the serious pyrotechnic Faust bombs, so they rework it into the original light review in the script. We see this as a series of numbers, culminating in a murder mystery ballet. Hooray! The world is a stage, the stage is a world of entertainment!
It's an interesting case because, while presented as a musical comedy, it feels more like a melodrama - it's one of those stories that struggles to force a kind of happy go lucky frame around notably dark material. It plays like Two Weeks in Another Town, with a happy ending, and more hoofing - Tony Hunter's desperation, confusion, sense of being left behind by the world, the arts, the fear of failure - permeates it. The cheerful musical seems grafted on. Certainly, the musical that emerges on "stage" in the film feels desperate and hokey, and rather tedious. I think I'd rather see the musical Faust they were making fun of.... It's not a ridiculous idea, really - it's anticipating where musicals were about to go in the 50s - a musical Faust, combining popular and classical dancing, comedy and tragedy, set in contemporary New York - it's not more unlikely than a musical version of Romeo and Juliet in the modern age, mixing popular, ballet, and avant garde dance, right?
The film, I think, is definitely closer to that idea than it is to the happy story in the plot. Personally, I think Minnelli is better at melodrama than musicals - or maybe I should say, his musicals (the three I've seen anyway - it's not one of my strong suits) seem to work best through a kind of darkness. Meet Me In St. Louis is a notably melancholy musical, with moments of fairly genuine pain. There's an ache there - the fear of growing up, leaving home, fear of change, the deeper themes of entering the modern world - all part of that film. (For that matter, wasn't Cabin in the Sky a bit of a Faust tale?) It's the same here - a man facing his own mortality, or maybe worse, his obsolescence - and in general, the fear of failure for the whole company. It does very well at capturing that anxiety - but it let's everyone off, shifting gears and orchestrating a happy ending.... Though the very ending - might be the most haunted, mournful declaration of love I have ever seen - the words are romantic; the look - is melodrama...
Oh well. That aside, it's impeccably directed, shot, staged, dressed (people and sets), written, acted, full of jokes and lines and bits of business, and that pervasive undercurrent of desperation... And it has it's showstoppers - the utterly gorgeous Girl Hunt ballet; the "Dancing in the Dark" dance where Fred and Cyd learn to dance with one another; and the delicious "shine on your Shoes" - great stuff. In what has the makings of a great film, but I am inclined to think tries too hard to hide it's essentially melodramatic nature. I do think Minnelli's melodramas are his best films - Some Came Running or Home from the Hill or The Bad and the Beautiful - those are his masterpieces... Band Wagon plays like it would rather be that, but has to be a comedy...
Monday, October 27, 2008
A Week Later
I see the Phillies are well on the way to winning the world series. Behind one of the mainstays of my fantasy team, Mr. Cole Hamels. I could have told you he was the real deal. Though now I see it's tied and raining - happily, with the red sox home, I don't have to care!
I have not been in mourning this last week. I have been occupied, mostly here - Harvard is running a series of Minnelli's melodramas. It is confession time: before this series started, I had never seen a single film by Vincente Minnelli. I don't know how I managed it - even granting that I am not a huge fan of MGM musicals, it is hard to believe I have seen none of his. But those days are over, 6 films later, with more to come. It's interesting - it took seeing a couple to get in their rhythm - it's always interesting how films, and filmmakers, will teach you how to watch their films. It may also be that the films have gotten better as the series went on - certainly, a couple of them - Some Came Running and Home from the Hill, especially - are a cut above the rest, indisputable masterpieces. I'll have to come back, put up some thoughts when they're better formed. Though I doubt my filmgoing schedule will get much lighter next week - Harvard has Claire Denis' films - and Denis herself - starting this weekend...
I have not been in mourning this last week. I have been occupied, mostly here - Harvard is running a series of Minnelli's melodramas. It is confession time: before this series started, I had never seen a single film by Vincente Minnelli. I don't know how I managed it - even granting that I am not a huge fan of MGM musicals, it is hard to believe I have seen none of his. But those days are over, 6 films later, with more to come. It's interesting - it took seeing a couple to get in their rhythm - it's always interesting how films, and filmmakers, will teach you how to watch their films. It may also be that the films have gotten better as the series went on - certainly, a couple of them - Some Came Running and Home from the Hill, especially - are a cut above the rest, indisputable masterpieces. I'll have to come back, put up some thoughts when they're better formed. Though I doubt my filmgoing schedule will get much lighter next week - Harvard has Claire Denis' films - and Denis herself - starting this weekend...
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