ah, old musicals
Dec. 17th, 2004 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjpepperso I watched Guys and Dolls and West Side Story last night... *happy wiggle*
There is something about the marriage of movies and musicals that just works. Not that they don't work on stage - goodness knows that I've seen quite a few on stage and they were awesome - but there is something about film, the way to visually tell a story, the suspension of disbelief that compliments a musical so beautifully. Once you get past the obvious reality check that people don't randomly burst into song whenever they get wonderful feelings about something (and look, an orchestra will follow you around at the ready for when you do!) and conflict really can't be solved by stunning jerome robbins choreography. Of course, really the requirement that movies have to be authentic and "real" all the time is just silly.
Of course there are bits of the stage version that I wish could have been included in both of these movies. Guys and Dolls is missing three musical numbers, one of which is my favorite ("My Time of Day"), one of which is rather signature to the musical ("A Bushel and a Peck" - "Pet Me, Poppa" just doesn't hold a candle to it), and one is just uproariously funny ("Marry the Man Today"). Of course the film added "A Woman in Love" and that ... almost made up for it. Almost. Granted I like the movie mostly because it's Marlon Brando. SINGING. WTF.
West Side Story is just fun for me. Mostly this movie is awesome... my main nitpics were that a lot of the song lyrics has to be rewritten to pass censors (why is it that you can get away with a lot more that is "obscene" in print or on stage than you can on film?) and sometimes the dubbing is way obvious. They didn't HAVE to dub Natalie Wood, if you watch the making of feature, her voice was quite passable. And yeah, the one song they dubbed for Rita Moreno does feel wrong. Other than that... no complaints. I actually like the way they rewrote "America" to be a biting racial commentary and that they switched the order of "Cool" and "Gee Officer Krupke"
I also devoured the first few bits of Amadeus and all of its special features last night, but didn't really watch it. There's a gorgeous movie. But I'll watch that later, as well as Streetcar and we might watch Amelie when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sydneycat comes over later, just cause that movie packs more cute in one film than a warehouse full of Hello Kitty products, and she hasn't seen it.
I also was up hella late chatting withbeatgoddess, kinda catching up with each other because both of us have been stressed out/crabby/out of the house a lot over the past couple of weeks and we just haven't seen all that much of each other. And it just felt really good to sit down and shoot the shit over knitting, laptops and sugar until well into the night.
*kitty go stretchy* right. need to go to work in a bit.
There is something about the marriage of movies and musicals that just works. Not that they don't work on stage - goodness knows that I've seen quite a few on stage and they were awesome - but there is something about film, the way to visually tell a story, the suspension of disbelief that compliments a musical so beautifully. Once you get past the obvious reality check that people don't randomly burst into song whenever they get wonderful feelings about something (and look, an orchestra will follow you around at the ready for when you do!) and conflict really can't be solved by stunning jerome robbins choreography. Of course, really the requirement that movies have to be authentic and "real" all the time is just silly.
Of course there are bits of the stage version that I wish could have been included in both of these movies. Guys and Dolls is missing three musical numbers, one of which is my favorite ("My Time of Day"), one of which is rather signature to the musical ("A Bushel and a Peck" - "Pet Me, Poppa" just doesn't hold a candle to it), and one is just uproariously funny ("Marry the Man Today"). Of course the film added "A Woman in Love" and that ... almost made up for it. Almost. Granted I like the movie mostly because it's Marlon Brando. SINGING. WTF.
West Side Story is just fun for me. Mostly this movie is awesome... my main nitpics were that a lot of the song lyrics has to be rewritten to pass censors (why is it that you can get away with a lot more that is "obscene" in print or on stage than you can on film?) and sometimes the dubbing is way obvious. They didn't HAVE to dub Natalie Wood, if you watch the making of feature, her voice was quite passable. And yeah, the one song they dubbed for Rita Moreno does feel wrong. Other than that... no complaints. I actually like the way they rewrote "America" to be a biting racial commentary and that they switched the order of "Cool" and "Gee Officer Krupke"
I also devoured the first few bits of Amadeus and all of its special features last night, but didn't really watch it. There's a gorgeous movie. But I'll watch that later, as well as Streetcar and we might watch Amelie when
sydneycat comes over later, just cause that movie packs more cute in one film than a warehouse full of Hello Kitty products, and she hasn't seen it. I also was up hella late chatting with
beatgoddess, kinda catching up with each other because both of us have been stressed out/crabby/out of the house a lot over the past couple of weeks and we just haven't seen all that much of each other. And it just felt really good to sit down and shoot the shit over knitting, laptops and sugar until well into the night.*kitty go stretchy* right. need to go to work in a bit.
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Date: 2004-12-17 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-17 07:35 pm (UTC)the documentary on the making of was quite excellent and pleasingly long, at just about an hour. :)
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Date: 2004-12-17 09:15 pm (UTC)I did, however, finallyfinally see The Music Man, surprising as I'm a Robert Preston fan. That man had an amazing voice.
I'm not much of a fan of the 50's musicals, where the plot pretty much solely revolves around this 1 guy and 1 girl getting together and lots of costumed people do numbers really unrelated to the plot. Sondheim rox.
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Date: 2004-12-18 01:19 am (UTC)Oh, my god. That is the absolute best description I have ever heard of that movie.
*tries to remember where her copy is* *remembers it was