Musical Unusual

About this course:

Contemporary audiences often find the narrative conventions of classic Hollywood musicals challenging to accept. Understandably, a character unexpectedly bursting into song or dance, or the impossible interactions between a character's voice and its non-diegetic orchestral accompaniment may appear unmotivated and alienating. However, if you think that nothing can get more bizarre than Julie Andrews' singing nuns and flying nannies—or more surreal than Judy Garland crooning to her dog Toto some vague directions to an undisclosed location–you've never seen Cold War musicals like New Year's Punch (1960), where Soviet chemical plant engineers do the splits while discussing productivity quotas with their coworkers. Framed between a precursor of the genre (Ernst Lubitsch's hilarious film-operetta The Love Parade, 1929) and an irreverent parody such as The Meaning of Life (1983), this class explores unconventional and rarely seen musicals made outside of Hollywood's golden era—films that left an indelible trace, whether by creating new standards (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964), experimenting with film language (Francis Ford Coppola's One From the Heart, 1981) or by giving a reboot to subgenres like the jukebox musical (Moulin Rouge!, 2001).