MeccaGrace Allen Dance in Film II Critical Essay: Singin’ in the Rain June 10, 2015 Gene Kelly Dancin’ and Singin’ in the Rain In many of his films, Gene Kelly was not only in front of the camera acting, dancing and singing, but he was behind the camera also, co-staging/directing the musical numbers as well as co-directing the film with Stanley Donen. When working on a film Kelly could be seen as a bit tyrannical at times but his controlling need to make his works perfect pays off in the end and although he was a bit tough to work with at times actors says that the time they spent working with him was one of the best experiences of their lives. In the film Singin’ in the Rain Kelly along with partner Donen worked with Arthur Freed as well as …show more content…
screenwriters Adolph Green and Betty Comden. Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown wrote a number of songs in the 1920’s to the 1930’s. Freed gathered Green and Comden and told them to write a story using his songs. The film Singin’ in the Rain is comedy about the struggle of the transition from silent film to talking pictures combined with a love story between a famous actor and an aspiring actress. There are many fun musical numbers in Singin’ in the Rain such as “Fit as a Fiddle” where the viewers are introduced to the lead character Don Lockwood played by Gene Kelly and pal Cosmo Brown played by Donald O’Connor where viewers learn the irony of the term “dignity, always dignity”, “All I Do is Dream of You” where Don and Kathy Seldon meet again after she scorns him, “Make ‘Em Laugh” where viewers see the acrobatic comedy talent of O’Connor, “Beautiful Girl” showcasing different women’s attire in the 1920’s which leads to Don finding Kathy again after searching everywhere for her, “Moses Supposes” a very fun number in where Don is supposed to be taking diction lessons to which him and Cosmo is playing around, “Good Morning” where Cosmo, Don and Kathy all stay up trying to find a way to save the Dueling Caviler, “Singin’ in the Rain” the most known musical number where Don is dancing and singing down a rainy street because he is in love and happy. I find it to be curious that one of my favorite scenes from Singin’ in the Rain is Moses Supposes the one number not written by Arthur Freed. Arthur Freed wrote the lyrics for most of the songs in Singin’ in the Rain.
Freed wrote the song “Fit as a Fiddle” with Al Hoffman and Al Goodhart which was originally from the 1932 stage revue “George White’s Music Hall Varieties”. Freed then wrote a number of songs with Nacio Herb Brown some of them which made an appearance in Singin’ in the Rain: “All I Do Is Dream of You” originally from Sadie McKee in 1934, “I’ve Got a Feelin’ You’re Foolin’” and “You Are My Lucky Star” originally from Broadway Melody of 1936 in 1935, “The Wedding of the Painted Doll” and “Broadway Rhythm Ballet” and “You Were Meant For Me” originally from The Broadway Melody in 1929, “Should I?” originally from Lord Byron of Broadway in 1930, “Beautiful Girl” originally from Stage Mother in 1933, “Good Morning” originally from Babes in Arms in 1939, “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Singin’ in the Rain” (in A-Flat) originally from The Hollywood Revue of 1929 in 1929, “Would You” originally from San Francisco in 1936. The song “Make ‘em Laugh” was written by Freed and Brown in 1948. The song “Moses Supposes” was written by Roger Edens with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green in …show more content…
1952. The 1929 version of “Singin’ in the Rain” from The Hollywood Revue of 1929 performed by Ukulele Ike also known as Cliff Edwards starts off on a stage with a large staircase and a set drawn tree.
It opens up to Ukulele Ike in a raincoat walking left to stand under the tree. He then starts to sing the song “Singin’ in the Rain” and then a group of people in raincoats dancing on stage. They then dance off stage to come back and walk in an interwoven pattern. The (three) Brox sisters come on stage in one giant raincoat and sing “Singin’ in the Rain” while doing an elbow flapping motion that is then used in the film when Lina Lamont played by Jean Hagen “sings” “Singin’ in the Rain” in A-flat for the audience at the end of the film. The group of people come back on stage and dance again. It is hard to tell if the performance has real rain falling on the stage or if it is old footage. As the group of dancers dance for the second time there is a special effect of flickering lights, I think that is used to represent
lightning. In the song “Singin’ in the Rain” there is a difference in how the story is being told between the old version and the remade version. In the 1929 version we see the story being told in a performance way, as opposed to the 1952 version where the story is being told through realism as shown by Gene Kelly walking down a street and not on a stage. So in the Ukulele Ike version the special effects that they have to use are what they have on set whereas in the film Singin’ in the Rain Kelly uses the environment around him such as the lamppost and the sidewalk curb. With Kelly telling the story through realism he portrays the song realistically, for example when he says “come on with the rain I’ve got a smile on my face” he actually has a smile on his face and he looks happy to be singing in the rain whereas in the 1929 version Ukulele Ike does not look happy to be singing in the rain although that is what he is singing. Gene Kelly was not the only one to have a hard time while filming. O'Connor also worked himself to exhaustion on the "Make 'Em Laugh" number. He did some of the same physical humor that he did when he did vaudeville such as dancing on his knees, fixing a broken/face, pretending to fight a dummy, and running up a wall. O'Connor was a heavy smoker and had to stay in bed for days after filming the scene but then the footage had been accidentally destroyed so he had to do it all over again. Cyd Charisse stated in the Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer Documentary that “her husband says that he could always tell who [she] was working with when [she] came home at night because if [she] didn’t have a mark it was Fred Astaire and if [she] was black and blue it was Gene Kelly.” An article in the Huffington Post wrote that, “For female lead Kathy Selden, such stars as Judy Garland and June Allyson were considered, but Kelly was sold on starlet Reynolds. She was a gymnast who'd been discovered in a beauty pageant and landed a couple of small movie roles. She was also still a teenager, but Kelly was certain she had the athleticism and vocal chops the part required. Reynolds, however, wasn't so sure. She had no dance training, and she found co-director/choreographer/co-star Kelly a tyrannical taskmaster. One day, she was so despondent that she curled up beneath a piano and started to cry -- only to be found by Fred Astaire, who gave her some dance coaching. By the time she filmed the "Good Morning" number, she was able to keep up with Kelly and O'Connor, but after the 14-hour shot was done, she had to be carried to her dressing room because her feet were bleeding. Years later, she would praise Kelly as the most exciting director she'd ever worked with, while he called her "strong as an ox" and complimented her on her ability to learn complicated routines quickly. Still, she said, "The two hardest things I ever did in my life are childbirth and "Singin' in the Rain'."” A fun fact that I found out about the film Singin’ in the Rain is that for the part where they dubbed Kathy Seldon’s voice played by Debbie Reynolds for Lina Lamont played by Jean Hagen they had to use Betty Noyes’ voice for the song “Would You” and they actually used Jean Hagen’s real speaking voice for the dubbed speaking part. Also while filming the “Singin’ in the Rain” sequence they had to add milk to the water so that the rain could show up on film. They also had to dub the sounds of the tapping and splashing for the “Singin’ in the Rain” song. The original song “Singin’ in the Rain” inspired a film to be made just as Gene Kelly’s “Singin’ in the Rain” performance inspired many others after him to recreate this iconic scene. Many people, movies, and shows have paid tribute to Kelly’s “Singin’ in the Rain” scene such as the R&B artist Usher who remade the sequence for Movies Rock: A Celebration of Music and Film and the TV show Glee which did a mash up of “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Umbrella” by Rihanna. The film Singin’ in the Rain had been inspiring people for over 6o years and will continue to inspire people. Works Cited Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer. Dir. Robert Trachtenberg. Warner Bros., 2002. DVD. Genne, Beth. “Chapter 12: Dancin’ in the Rain: Gene Kelly’s Musical Films.” Envisioning Dance on Film and Video. Ed. Judith Mitoma, Elizabeth Zimmer, and Dale Ann. Stieber. New York: Routledge, 2002. 71-77. Print. "Singin' in the Rain." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 11 June 2015 Susman, Gary. "'Singin' in the Rain' 60th Anniversary: 25 Things You Didn't Know About Hollywood's Greatest Musical." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 Mar. 2012. Web. "Usher - Singing in the Rain (HQ)." YouTube. YouTube, 11 Dec. 201. Web.
When reading a book, is really hard to get the attention of the reader. Who is interested with hearing once upon a time? For me, I would eater the novel start off with something relatable then ease me into the plot. Life doesn’t always start off as a fairytale so I prefer that my novels don’t either. So while reading this novel, I was evaluating not only the author but the content and if it would live up to the hype.
There was a vocal recital on October 19th, 2017 at 7:30PM, held at the performance hall in Mountain view college. Alex Longnecker, a tenor vocalist and Imre Patkai, (pianist) played a series of homophonic textured songs, some being sung in German and others in English. The Three selected songs I will be writing about are, The Lincolnshire Poacher, The Plough Boy, and Im Wunderschonen Monat Mai. This performance played a total of 24 Pieces, composed by 4 composers, being Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ernest Chausson, Benjamin Britten, and Robert Schumann.
In Drea Knufken’s essay entitled “Help, We’re Drowning!: Please Pay Attention to Our Disaster,” the horrific Colorado flood is experienced and the reactions of worldly citizens are examined (510-512). The author’s tone for this formal essay seems to be quite reflective, shifting to a tone of frustration and even disappointment. Knufken has a reflective tone especially during the first few paragraphs of the essay. According to Drea Knufken, a freelance writer, ghostwriter and editor, “when many of my out-of-town friends, family and colleagues reacted to the flood with a torrent of indifference, I realized something. As a society, we’ve acquired an immunity to crisis. We scan through headlines without understanding how stories impact people,
This first song goes well with Holden because we see throughout the whole book, how Holden experiences loneliness. Holden says, “The first thing I did when I got off at Penn Station, I went into this phone booth. I felt like giving somebody a buzz” (Salinger 59) This is just one example of Holden’s loneliness. At this time he is just getting of the train realizing he has nobody to go to and nobody to talk to so he feeling like calling someone even if it’s just to talk to. n the song Talking To Myself, The lyrics say “Is anybody out there?/It feels like I'm talkin' to myself/No one seems to know my struggle/And everything I come from/Can anybody hear me?”(Eminem) This song by Eminem is a good example of Holden’s loneliness because throughout the song it
The interpretations of what comes after death may vary greatly across literature, but one component remains constant: there will always be movement. In her collection Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey discusses the significance, permanence and meaning of death often. The topic is intimate and personal in her life, and inescapable in the general human experience. Part I of Native Guard hosts many of the most personal poems in the collection, and those very closely related to the death of Trethewey’s mother, and the exit of her mother’s presence from her life. In “Graveyard Blues”, Trethewey examines the definition of “home” as a place of lament, in contrast to the comforting meaning in the epitaph beginning Part I, and the significance
The Wiz is a musical/movie released in 1978 that was an adaptation of the popular film “Wizard of Oz”. It included several very popular stars of the time, which were Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and Nipsey Russell. The movie set place in New York City where the main character, Dorothy, suddenly is swept by a tornado in the middle of a snowstorm. She later then found herself lost in a city she had no clue about and curious as to how she could return home. After meeting 3 other characters during her journey that share similarities, they all embarked on a trip to OZ to fix each of their problems. Throughout the movie characters apply their own soundtrack through singing songs in harmony that compliment the mood of each scene.
From the opening we see that Chopin intends to use the storm to move the
In “A Rainy Morning” by Ted Kooser, we get a lot of imagery, as well as figures of speech, specifically metaphors. This poem through the use of an extended metaphor helps us to see life and our everyday actions into a new perspective. Here we will examine the poem’s language and imagery to help understand what the theme of “A Rainy Morning” is.
“You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams. And I know if I can make you smile by jumping over a couple of couches or running through a rainstorm, then I 'll be very glad to be a song and dance man.”, these words spoken by the legendary Gene Kelly are just one of the reasons why I have come to have a great respect for his acting and singing. Singin’ In The Rain, which was released in 1952 and directed by Kelly and Stanley Donen, wasn’t the only thing I was introduced to that Monday in class, but my attention was brought to an electrifying performer who was amazing at what he did. As I watched the film I was captivated by his dancing abilities and how graceful he moved, every movement that he made seemed to come to him so natural. He was so
There is a cut and we see a point-of-view shot in terms of Don and Cosmo to see that the audience is booing. This is the last scene before they actually get to Hollywood. Singin' in the Rain is the musical that all other musicals should be judged by. It tells a story that only others had dreamed of telling. Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds and the great Gene Kelly help give one of the greatest performances of all times in a musical.
The genre i have studied is musicals. A musical is a film which has musical performances from the actors to express their feelings. The films from this genre that i studied are 'Singin' In The Rain' (Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952), 'Grease' (Randall Kleiser, 1978) and 'Hairspray'(Adam Shankman, 2007). I studied two characteristics of the musical genre (Breaking Into Song And Dance and The Grande Finale) that are shown in the films studied. The identifying characteristics of 'Breaking Into Song And Dance' and 'The Grande Finale" are always seen in musicals. These characteristics are expected to be in a musical by the audience and ultimately make a musical what we predict it to be, a film that expresses characters feelings through song while
“With pop culture apparently suffering from a retro epidemic lately, today’s 60th anniversary of Singin’ in the Rain provides a chance to look back at a film that was ahead of its time in the way that it, too, looked back” (Bahr). Even though it wasn’t all too successful in the awards department, Singin’ in the Rain stuck with audiences because it was so far ahead of its time. It took advantage of all the latest technology while still keeping its “classic movie” feel. In addition, the film implemented both original and well-known songs into the story. This makes the film feel familiar but fresh and new to its audiences. “…Singin’ in the Rain’s jokes and light parodies of actors and Hollywood are still surprisingly insightful and effective” (Bahr). Having been the most researched musical in all of film’s history, it was probably the most correct parody of Hollywood that the industry has ever seen
Characters in movie musicals attain moments of self-expression through his/her solo performances. This is exemplified through several of Don Lockwood’s (Gene Kelly) performances throughout Singin’ in the Rain. Don’s famous “Singin’ in the Rain” number is an obvious moment where he achieves to express himself both verbally and physically as well as allowing the viewers to access the illusion of his inner life [01:05:11-01:08:20]. Don achieves to create and perform that illusion when he declares his love for Kathy (Debbie Reynolds) in the song “You were Meant for Me” [00:39:50-00:44:18].
The song that I choose to do this assignment on is Fight the Power by Public Enemy. Fight the Power was written in 1989 and quickly became a street anthem for millions of youths. It reflects with issues dealing with both the Civil Rights Movement and to remind everyone that they too have Constitutional Rights. This particular song is about empowerment but also fighting the abuse of power that is given to the law enforcement agencies. It gave citizens of the U.S a more modern outlook on the many struggles that not only the African American community is up against but the other minority groups as well. The song’s message was eventually supposed to bring people together and make the world a better place, even though some teens saw it as a way
Lessing’s work is maddening, depressing, brave, and makes us shudder and shakes us by the neck. Her most recent two novels, The Cleft (2007), and Alfred and Emily (2008), demonstrate that she is still competent of throwing bombshells every time. The Cleft imagines a prehistoric Earth populated only by females; Alfred and Emily, by placing the true story of the effect of the First World War on Lessing’s parents alongside a novella that gives them a happier life, completely debates the ethics and authority of fiction-writing, rather like Ian McEwan does in Atonement.