Further Thoughts on Reality and Rules of Genre

I realized after writing my post that I had  not expressed my thought completely. Perhaps instead of calling it “rules of the genre” I should have called it “rules of expression.” Different art forms have different rules about how one’s thoughts and feelings are expressed. For example, in poetry there are rules about rhyme and meter. In ballet, there are rules about movement and music without words. In silent films, the rules of expression involve images, mime, and music. I think musicals simply create a different world, with different rules. Just like a fantasy creates a different world with its own rules: magic and dragons and special abilities. I guess I feel that if one can accept magic, why not song?

Though I totally understand if one is not into dance or song. If you don’t like ballet, then The Red Shoes is probably not for you. If you don’t like lots of action/fight sequences, then probably not Avengers. Do you not like gangster violence? Probably not Scarface. But that puts it down to preferences, not something inherently wrong with musicals.

 

“The Characters in Costume Blogfest” Day 3 Recap

Wow, it’s been so much fun (and so informative and thought-provoking) to read everyone’s work. Thanks so much for sharing! And thank you, Andrea, for co-hosting with me!

Tomorrow, we are going to post a master list of all the weekend’s posts, so if you get your post off late, that’s totally fine; we’ll just add your post to the top of the list.

Prince of Hollywood writes of Cinema’s First Swashbuckling Hero

Little Bits of Classics looks at “The Costume of the Little Tramp – A Moment of Inspiration or a Huge Theft?“

Literature and Lamp Posts discuses Grendal from Beowulf

The Wonderful World of Cinema talks about Irene Sharaff’s Costumes for The King and I 

The Flapper Dame writes about Grace Kelly and Edith Head

Into the Writer Lea looks at Describing a Memorable Character: Miss Havisham 

 

Liebster Award!

I want to thank The Cinematic Frontier for nominating me for the Liebster Award! I am sorry it took me so long to write my response, but I am honored by the nomination.

The rules are as follows:

1) Link back to the blog that nominated you

2) Answer the eleven questions

3) Nominate several more blogs (5-11) and ask eleven questions of your own. Make sure you contact the blogs that you have nominated.

Here are the questions from Cinematic Frontier:

1 – What is your favorite new release of 2016 so far? I confess that I have not yet seen a movie this year. I wanted to see Love and Friendship, but it’s not showing in a theater near me. 😦

2 – Do you prefer 3D or 2D? 2D, though it can be fun to occasionally see 3D.

3 – What is your favorite film from the year you were born? – The 1980s are actually a bit of a cinematic void for me. I’m not sure if I’ve seen any movies the year I was born.

4 – Star Trek or Star Wars? Star Wars! At least, the original three Star Wars films. I like to pretend the prequels, sequels and spin-offs never happened and kind of make it all up in my own head.

5 – Which Comic-Con have you most recently attended (or, if you’ve never been to one, which one do you plan or wish to attend)? I fear I’m revealing myself to be massively ignorant, but I am not very familiar with Comic-Con.

6 – Blu-ray or streaming? Blu-ray. I’m very excited about blu-ray, because I just got my first blu-ray player and new TV last week. It’s amazing how much better everything looks when you make that transition from tube to flat screen TV.

7 – Name your favorite ’80s song in a film. Unfortunately, the 1980s in music are almost as big a void for me as the movies.

Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller in Pygmalion

8 – What is your favorite film based on a book? Possibly the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, though that is really a mini-series. The 1938 Pygmalion? Though that is based on a play.

9 – What is your favorite (or least favorite) Nicholas Cage haircut? I have not seen him in many films, though I did see him in Guarding Tess and his hair seemed to fit his character well as a security guard.

10 – Which film recently made you reflect on it long after the credits were over? The Jazz Singer. It has greatly influenced my reading of late and I now have a history of blackface in America (Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture), a biography of Jolson (Jolson, the Legend Comes to Life), and a history of the transition between silent and sound films (The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930) on my reading shelf.

11 – Who is your favorite composer? That is a hard one. It really depends on my mood at the time. Rachmaninoff, Dvorak, Jerome Kern, Puccini, Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin, Bernard Herrmann, Scott Joplin, Frederick Loewe. They are all my favorite!

My nominations are:

Love Letters to Old Hollywood

Define Dancing

Vienna’s Classic Hollywood

Phyllis Loves Classic Movies

Classic Reel Girl

My questions are:

1 – Book you would most liked to have seen Alfred Hitchcock turn into a movie.

George Burns, Gracie Allen, Fred Astaire in A Damsel in Distress

2 – Book you would most like to see turned into a musical.

3 – Favorite movie musical score or soundtrack?

4 – Stars you would have liked to have seen paired in a musical.

5 – Least favorite musical.

6 – If your life was turned into a musical biopic, would you rather be played by a singer or dancer?

7 – Classic movie you would most like to see on the big screen.

8 – Movie you would most like to see remade today.

9 – Best book you’ve read in the last year.

Here are two questions that were also asked by Cinematic Frontier:

10 – “Which film recently made you reflect on it long after the credits were over?”

11 – “Who is your favorite composer?”