The singular director Hal Ashby with his two stars
In its continuing efforts to redefine - and endear - itself to a disturbingly disloyal public, the film musical remains ever resourceful. In one of its incarnations, it resorted to the "song score" as a way to introduce songs to a narrative. You know the drill: Instead of a film's characters themselves singing on screen, the songs are rendered by off-screen surrogates.
The result is essentially the same: We - the audience - learn what the characters feel, and are thinking, through song.
This was a popular particularly ploy in the 1970-80s and is perhaps the template for this form is Hal Ashby's unique "Harold and Maude" (1971) which had iconic Cat Stevens songs laced so enticingly throughout.
The songs of the Bee Gees drive the lovely plot of Waris Hussein's "Melody" (1971), which reunited Mark Lester and Jack Wild, the young stars of "Oliver!" (1968), in the Alan Parker-scripted tale of two best friends and the fetching girl (Tracy Hyde) who comes between them.
And Paul Simon's wonderful songs underlined the pseudo-autobiographical script he wrote for Robert M. Young's "One-Trick Pony" (1980).
There are more, I'm sure, these predecessors of the "jukebox musical," but the titles evade me. Can you suggest one? Or perhaps two?
Does "Mamma Mia" count? It's the show that caused critics to coin the phrase "jukebox musical," right?
ReplyDeleteSorry, Janice but no,it doesn't count. True, it's a jukebox musical but it's also a "book musical." Its characters actually sing the songs themselves. There's no other voice on the soundtrack doing the singing for them.
ReplyDeleteHow about Coppola's "You're a Big Boy Now"? It has a song score by John Sebastian and The Lovin' Spoonful. And it's terrific.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, Glenn. And agreed. It is terrific.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this movie is viewed in this way, but I think a case could be made for "The Graduate." The commentary may be less direct, more elliptical, but I think Simon and Garfunkle's songs are used as a way of commenting on the plot throughout the movie. (Leonard Cohen's songs perform a similar function in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," come to think of it.)
ReplyDeleteNo, wait! "The Graduate" is a great example of a song score used to advance the plot. Again, it's from a very specific era of film.
ReplyDeleteThe films by/with The Beatles. Yes?
ReplyDeleteYES!
ReplyDelete