The 2nd Music-Movie Renaissance?
If you couldn’t tell from a lot of the posts I’ve liked/shared or by my entire YouTube channel, I am a giant theatre nerd. I was raised listening to the 1988 Symphonic Cast recording of Les Miserable, been a part of every school production I could since 7th grade, and (by some miracle) received Hamilton tickets for my 18th birthday.
For me, music and story just go together. They compliment one another and if both are good on their own, then something magical happens when they come together. Which is why I’m saddened at the general lack of filmed musical adaptations or original movie musicals. However, that is how the genre seems to go in the industry.
When movies first came to have sound- and even more so after they had color- musicals were all the rage. Really, from the 30s to the 50s you can put movies into one of three categories: Westerns, Noirs, and Musicals. Because musicals were ever-evolving and trying to push the envelope on stage, the ones on screen changed alongside. What if we advanced the plot through song instead of just putting in songs? What if they didn’t sing on a stage? So on and so forth.
Musical Movie production came to a visible halt in the 70s, mostly thanks to Vietnam. They were seen as too “silly” to the war-traumatized public, and the industry needed to pump out as much over-saturated filmed nationalism as they could. There was the odd attempt that would either have an eventual rise to cult-classic status (Rocky Horror, Grease) or find later life on Broadway (Newsies), and animated musicals were still cranked out on Disney clockwork, but the art of the live movie musical pretty much died.
That is, until the mid-2000s when Moulin Rouge got massive critical acclaim. Suddenly there was a rebirth to the movie musical; a renaissance if you will. Phantom of the Opera, Hairspray, Sweeney Todd... just to name a few. The life of the original movie musical, however, failed to see as high acclaim by critics (Burlesque, the HSM series, etc.) and not every adaptation was a hit. Since the last really big movie musical- Les Miserable in 2012- the cycle has dwindled back to hibernation.
The way I see it, we’re in an interesting place as far as movie musicals go. On one hand, there’s La La Land who just won mad awards and now Pasek and Paul are coming back to work their magic once again for The Greatest Showman. On the other hand, Disney is choosing to adapt their great Reniscancial classic to live action with no expense being spared. Furthermore, when Disney produced Newsies for theaters, it caught like wildfire and lead to three date extensions and a record for the most made on a live theatre broadcast (beating out the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. On a third hand miraculously growing out of your spine, Broadway now has a wider cultural impact than ever thanks to shows like Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen.
With all three of these culminating together in a perfect storm of creativity and vibratos, could we be seeing a second renaissance for the movie musicals, this time both for adaptations and originals? I think so, and pray that I am right.
What do you think? Leave a comment below!