Singing A New Tune

by Muir, John Kenneth

• ISBN13: 9781557836106
• ISBN10: 1557836108
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-07-05
• Publisher: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books

Summary

Critics the world over have often loudly lamented that the movie musical is a dead art form. However, while it is true that the musical no longer occupies the cherished place of prominence in American cinema that it once did, the old razzle-dazzle has had a comeback. Author and film expert John Kenneth Muir faces the music in Singing a New Tune, a rollicking study that traces the rebirth of the film musical from the dark days of the early 1990s - when all the musical numbers were cut from the film I'll Do Anything due to preview audience hostility - to the current heyday of Moulin Rouge, Chicago (Academy Award winner for Best Picture 2002), and Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. Examining over a dozen musical films from the last decade, Muir explains how first-class artists have marshaled everything from spectacle (Evita) to humor (South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut); tragedy (Dancer in the Dark) to Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost); and even psychology and sexuality.

Table of Contents

Not your father's razzle-dazzle	p. 1
The old razzle-dazzle : a history of the movie musical through the 1980s	p. 17
The razzle-dazzle fizzles? : the early nineties	p. 79
From Evita to Moulin Rouge : 1996-2001	p. 99
From Hedwig and the Angry Inch to De-Lovely and beyond : 2001-2004	p. 183
Cathode razzle-dazzle : the musical on television	p. 269
Conventions of the movie musical, 1996-2004	p. 291
Musical credits, 1996-2004	p. 299
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.