FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO

“Whether we like it or not, it is the movies that mold, more than any other single force, the opinions, the taste, the language, the dress, the behavior, and even the physical appearance of a public comprising more than 60 percent of the population of the earth.  If all the serious lyrical poets, composers, painters, and sculptors were forced by law to stop their activities, a rather small fraction of the general public would become aware of the fact and a still smaller fraction would seriously regret it.  If the same thing were to happen with the movies the social consequences would be catastrophic.”

RICK’S FLICKS:  Them was the days.

Rick’s Flicks is reacting to Erwin Panofsky’s iconic essay fist published in 1936 when movies had not even reached their war-years’ peak as to attendance, popularity and role-modelling.  Your correspondent Rick remembers when most people had seen most movies.  You could bring up a recent film in conversation and be almost certain that your acquaintance had seen it or at least knew about it or knew someone who had seen it.

What would Panofsky think of movies and us today?  What would Eisenstein or Selznick think?   James Agee?  Fred and Ginger?

What do YOU think?

(Erwin Panofsky, Three Essays on Style, edited by Irving Lavin. MIT, 1995. The volume also contains the essays “What is Baroque?” and “The Ideological Antecedents of the Rolls-Royce Radiator.”)

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An author speaks

Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark, author of the celebrated novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, writes in her autobiography:  “When I first saw the film of The Prime my immediate reaction was that it was too brightly coloured for a true depiction of the Edinburgh scene.”  (Curriculum Vitae by Muriel Spark.  Houghton Mifflin, 1992)

 

NEXT FRIDAY POST  July 3

Until then,
ENJOY a movie,
Rick

THE HOLLYWOOD MUSICAL!

MOVIES ARE EVERYWHERE

. . . including in a big novel, SMALL TOWN, by Lawrence Block, one of our best mystery/thriller writers.  But what is wrong with this Block picture?

(The terrorist hides out in movie theaters during the day so that he can get some sleep.)  “The best seats, from [his] point of view, were on either side against the wall, and at the rear of the theater.  This did not put you all that far from the screen.  In the old days, when screens were much larger and movie houses cavernous, it was a different matter.  But you were as far away as you could get. . . Because screens had gotten smaller along with the theaters, you might not be able to see too well from where you were. . . ”

What’s wrong?

Screens were smaller in those cavernous theaters.

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THE MOVIE MUSICAL!

. . . is the title of a book by Jeanine Basigner published last year by Knopf.

It is a thorough biography of the great American genre from The Jazz Singer through La La Land (which, by the way, gets a panning).    Basinger writes well and makes every page an entertainment.

There have been some French musicals and quite a few British ones (i.e, of our type, the Hollywood kind); and she briefly mentions some of them.  There have been millions of Indian musicals, and she states that she will not be covering them.  Her concern is the Hollywood invention,and she is sure of her chosen ground.

The Great Rita, with Fred

I checked for my personal favorites and found them all;  the Andrews Sisters, Roy Rogers, the western musical Red Garters  — and there is even a picture of Martha Raye singing “Pig Foot Pete” in Keep ‘Em Flying.  And Rita Hayworth.  She has a fine appreciation of the dancing of the great Rita.

Judy Garland’s song The Man That Got Away (by Arlen and Gershwin) has its own entry in the index and gets three pages of revealing analysis.  Four versions of the song  were shot, all shot as single takes.  Garland is dressed in two different outfits and has three different hairdos.  And there was serious disagreement between the singer and Ralph Martin, the film’s music director.  He wanted soft and sweet.  Judy Garland wanted loud and brassy.  She was and  —  as always the case with Judy Garland and a song  —  she is right.

This is as authoritative a study of the Hollywood musical as we are likely to get.  Check out Basinger’s discussion of Alice Faye’s performance of “Now It Can Be Told” in Alexander’s Ragtime Band and what it means for the use of songs in storytelling in the history of the American musical film.  Look at her take on Marilyn Monroe’s lack of musical talent and how it was cleverly concealed and managed in There’s No Business Like Show Business.

A good book.  A solid survey.  A fun read.

NEXT FRIDAY POST June 18

Until then.
Hoping to see you AT the movies soon,
Rick