The song and dance movie emerged in Hollywood in the late 1920s. Born almost simultaneously with the talkies, the first talkie, The King of Jazz, in 1927, marked the birth of the burlesque film, but due to the lack of this aspect of sound, it was MGM's Broadway Melody in 1929 that is regarded as the first true burlesque film.
The song-and-dance film began to flourish in the 1930s and became a popular fad in the 1930s and 1940s, with a series of classic song-and-dance films, such as the familiar Wizard of Oz (1939) and Forty-Second Street, etc. In the 1950s and 1960s it reached a brilliant level, with the classics An American in Paris, West Side Story and The Sound of Music, and then began to shrink in the 1970s, and after the 1990s it began to decline. then began to shrink, and after the 90s, presented in another new form. The world of light and shadow, the world is floating, when science fiction, action movies, disaster movies and horror movies, etc., the old "song and dance" era has faded away.
But the song and dance movie in India is still beautiful. India, as one of the world's largest song and dance movie film producers, with an annual audience of 3.6 billion people around the world, in its market, Hollywood films accounted for only 6% of the share. South Hollywood, centered in Mumbai, has provided the world with unique Brazilian song-and-dance films in the tradition of "no song-and-dance film". From "My Love History", which was popular in China in the 50s, to "Once Upon a Time in India", which has become a global hit in the new century, although it has gone through more than half a century of vicissitudes, Indian movies are still a dreamlike world of songs and dances. Today and yesterday's song and dance movie is to get rid of the previous model, push the new "Once Upon a Time in India", "Wild Rose" and so on, are popular business cards. Today's Indian song and dance films in India under the leadership of new filmmakers, showing new modern features.
China's song-and-dance films have been around for a long time, but they are simple in form, without the luxury of Hollywood's lineup or the national character of Brazil's song-and-dance films, and their development is not mature enough, coupled with a small number of films that are not on a large scale, so the audience naturally does not have a good understanding of China's song-and-dance films.
The 1931 film "Song Maiden Red Peony" was born, and it was China's first talkie, which is technically a singing film. In the 1930s and 1940s, singing films became a major form of entertainment in Shanghai. For example, the first movie to have a musical interlude, Wild Grass and Idle Flowers, featured Ruan Lingyu and Jin Yan singing the refreshing and touching song, while Singing in the Middle of the Night, directed by Ma Xu Weibang and based on the American Broadway opera The Phantom of the Opera, had a record 34 consecutive days of full houses in Shanghai, with three interludes written by Tian Han, composed by Xian Xinghai, and sung by Jinshan, to which the movie owes a lot. Although it cannot be regarded as a song and dance movie in the strict sense, the charm of song and dance has begun to shine in the movie. The most famous of these is "The Angel of the Road". In the 1950s and 1960s, colorful song and dance films were popular in Hong Kong, especially Shaw's "Flora and Fauna" and "A Thousand Charms", whose lavish song and dance scenes were spectacular, and which emulated the Hollywood style of glitter and glamour, rivaling the Hollywood song and dance films of the same period.
China's modern song-and-dance movie is more influential Hong Kong director Chen Kexin's "If Love". Chen Kexin with "China's first real musical movie in 50 years", "3 years to the most grand Chinese song and dance film" ideal, so that "if love" finally in the end of 2005, a luxury song and dance feast suddenly showed in the audience's eyes.
Throughout the year, the movie has been a great success.
Throughout the history of the development of the world's song and dance film, the United States and Brazilian song and dance film from the simple stage play on the screen to the production of commercial song and dance blockbusters with the song and dance film, indicating that they have entered a fairly mature stage; and China's song and dance film after years of stagnation, and is now attempting to improve the injection of new vitality. Is it a coincidence, or is there a reason for it? The following is a comparison of the artistic and creative characteristics of the three films, Moulin Rouge, Once Upon a Time in Brazil and If Love, which are representative of the Hollywood, Brazilian and Chinese cabaret films of the new century, to explore the new characteristics of the new century's cabarets as well as to seek for the essential elements of a successful contemporary cabaret film. Moulin Rouge does not show anything new in terms of narrative. The movie tells the story of a traditional Hollywood "backstage cabaret". The plot can be said to be nothing new, simple and clichéd plot has become a "roadblock" for it to be recorded in the history of burlesque movie. The movie firstly lays out the decadent, extravagant and obscene carnival scenes in the Moulin Rouge in front of the audience as much as it can, creating a utopian atmosphere; immediately afterward, Satine (played by Nick Kidman) and Christian (played by Ewan McGregor) mistakenly fall in love with each other, and then weave a utopian promise of love. The appearance of the Duke signals that the couple's newfound love will have to make a difficult choice between social reality and their ideals. Satine drives Christian away so that Christian will not be killed. In the end, Christian returns and the opera is a success, but Satine dies of consumption. All the plots are laid out according to the typical backstage burlesque formula, with no innovation at all. The so-called "backstage burlesque" refers to a burlesque show performed on a real stage, with a backstage love story as the filler. In the 1930's cabaret, "backstage love" was a common narrative design, providing a framework for the situation and mood of the cabaret performance. During this period, Hollywood cabaret's treatment of the narrative and theme was still mainly a companion to the frontstage performance. In this mode, even if the ending turns out to be that the lovers will never grow old together, the storyline of Moulin Rouge is no longer attractive.
Similarly, "If I Love" is not free from clichés in its overall plot. Director Chen Kexin uses the "play within a play" model to tell two identical love triangles inside and outside the same movie. But the most prominent difference between it and "Moulin Rouge" is that the ending of "If You Love" is open-ended, Sun Na loves Lin Jian Dong, also loves Nie Wen, but her final choice is unknown, the end of the film does not explain, perhaps even she does not know, which makes the plot enriched, free, will not be like the classic Hollywood model, will be set up into a set of plots, to see the end of the end of everyone can guess the ending. If Love" leaves Sun Na with a choice and the audience with a space to think. This is a breakthrough in the song-and-dance genre, as the delicate emotional entanglement is fully integrated into the plot, leaving the choice to time, the emotions to the audience, and the thoughts to the reality. As early as in the 1940s, during the "golden age" of the song-and-dance film, MGM's Kingdom of Dreams transformed music into a universal worldview, an audio-visual expression of an "attitude", which was essentially the belief that "the world is a wonderful and romantic place". a wonderful and romantic place, permeated with the rhythm and grace of music." This attitude has existed since the earliest days of "The King of Jazz," but it was only after "Fusion Follies," in which plot and song and dance were blended together, that the "style" of Follies became clear. However, the development of the song and dance film to the contemporary era, began to turn to a variety and ambiguity: "Chicago" combined the elements of "film noir", the use of shadows and low-tone light, in contrast to the bright scenes of song and dance films with high-tone lighting, the camera turned to the streets, prisons, courtrooms and other places, to express the classic theme of "film noir" - the "film noir". "The film uses shadows and low-tone lighting, in contrast to the brightly lit scenes of the song-and-dance movie. The most famous passage, "Prison Sextet," introduces feminist colors, which is a breakthrough in the theme of song-and-dance films. Moulin Rouge, which has been labeled "postmodern passionism," is a game of collage and fragmentation, which is in line with the narrative characteristics of the "postmodern" genre. The accumulation of saturated color blocks, caricatured performances, and freely changing camera points of view all reflect the postmodern carnivalesque credo of "building nothing", while the use of counterpoint in song and dance itself is a mockery and deconstruction of the classics. Song and dance is no longer a standard or stereotype of performance, but a caricatured and playful sideshow.
In contrast, the images in "If You Love" are of a different style. Two renowned Chinese cinematographers, Bao Dexi and Du Kefeng, share the camera work. Bao Dexi was in charge of shooting the song and dance scenes from a passionate and romantic point of view. But this time, the director and cinematographer did not bring visual surprises to the audience. The filming and editing of the song and dance parts were moderate, focusing on ensuring the smoothness of the images and the lyricism of the narrative. The use of scenery was limited according to the mood of the songs and dances.
Taking "Forget Who I Am" as an example, the song describes the first time the hero and the amnesiac protagonist meet at the circus. Since the focus is on the dialog between the two, the scene is centered on a medium shot, with transitions above the waist of the two. Taking "Life Montage" as an example, this song is the opening song and dance of the whole movie, and the scene focuses on the warm and joyful atmosphere, so it was shot with a swinging arm camera in the streets of old Shanghai. The scenes are all panoramic, including front panorama, side panorama and overhead panorama. One of the more striking aspects of the film is the use of color. There are three different styles of cinematography in this film. The opera part of the picture presents a warm orange-red tone: the color is strong and rich, the scene is grand and enthusiastic, focusing on the creation of visual spectacle of the magnificent style; memories of the part of the protagonist Sun Na's clothing selection of orange, purple and other relatively full of color, the overall presentation of a blue-gray cold tones, this "fading" sense of the screen This "faded" sense of the picture closely follows the theme of "memories", coupled with the use of the snow scene, so that the picture has a kind of pure and lyrical aestheticization of the color; the reality of the part of the life of the photographic style, in the use of lighting and hues close to nature.
The entire film of Once Upon a Time in Brazil is shot with shoulder-held camera, which is kept at the same focal length as the eye, and the cinematographer does not intentionally shake the camera. This concept of filming allows the audience to see things from a more realistic and life-like perspective, to understand the inner message of the film, and to trigger the audience's deepest ****sound. Shoulder-mounted photography also implies flexible camera positions and camera scheduling. While a group of scenes filmed in a few fixed camera positions will often give people a feeling of being induced by external factors, shoulder-mounted photography, with its random camera shift and fuzzy camera position, will make the picture feel relatively objective. The first climax of the plot occurs in the 11th minute of the movie - the first encounter between the maid Alice and the foreman Dube, when Dube touched down Alice's tray, Alice squatted down to pick up something, and the two of them stared at each other, the cameraman used shoulder-mounted, sub-speed photography in one shot, completing the transition from overhead to overhead, which gave the audience a new and novel, It gives the audience a new, smooth and natural feeling. The movie is about the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, but most of the music and songs are classic pop music of the second half of the 20th century, for example, in Moulin Rouge, Kidman and McGregor give each other love songs such as "All You Need is Love" by the Beatles, "Pride" by U2, "Stupid Love Songs" by Paul McCartney, "Love Songs" by Paul McCartney and "Love Songs" by Paul McCartney. Moulin Rouge" in the crowd dancing parody of Madonna "Material Girl" MTV, while Madonna's hit song "Like a Virgin" by the "Moulin Rouge" manager Taylor parody. This confusion makes it impossible to integrate the song and dance with the narrative, but it is in keeping with the theme of postmodern passion. The song-and-dance scenes are a revival of the earlier song-and-dance films. In the early days of the song-and-dance film, gorgeous song-and-dance scenes were essential, and production companies usually spent a lot of manpower and resources to create gorgeous sets and colorful costumes, creating a flowery spectacle and presenting the audience with a dreamy scene of extravagant music and prosperity.
Moulin Rouge was a "revival" in terms of production scale and storyline, but the core of the film, the song-and-dance sequences, were full of flashy sound and color performances. In every period of the development of the song and dance film, there are its characteristics and masterpieces, and its song and dance expressions have been injected with new vitality, and there are many classic song and dance passages for future generations to enjoy. For example, in "Singin' in the Rain", the scene in which Gene Kelly happily tap-danced and sang "Singin' in the Rain" in the rain was extremely artistic and infectious, and is a classic in the history of song and dance movies. The brilliant British director Michael Powell directed the song and dance movie "Roulin Rouge", in which the famous 13-minute-long ballet scene of "Red Shoes" is just like a flowing "Sistine Fresco", glowing and beautiful. But Moulin Rouge, as an attempt to revitalize the song and dance film, in addition to the excessive noise and frenzy of the song and dance scenes, and parody of the passage, it is difficult to find a classic passage in the history of song and dance movies can be smeared with a strong one.
The narrative and the song and dance in "If I Love" are separate, and the song and dance are not involved in the narrative. The movie is based on the music rhythm editing shots, the use of parallel, cross, contrast and other narrative montage, give full play to the song and dance part of the ideological function. It is precisely because of the songs and dances that there are true feelings both inside and outside the theater. Compared to the randomness and confusion of the songs in "Red Mimic", "If Love" is pure, and the songs are newly composed pop songs sung by the actors. The participation of pop music makes people feel this aspect of song and dance movie to entertain the public and attract eyeballs. Compared to the sculpture of the music, the careful arrangement of the dance is also visible in the movie. Throughout the movie, social dances, newly created dances, circus dances, "Umbrella Dance", "Raggedy World", "Men Should Have Been Jealous" and other dances have their own characteristics. The movie cleverly uses "in-theater" dances to express the voices of the characters outside the theater, and the songs and dances fit perfectly with the plot.
The art of song and dance in "Once Upon a Time in Brazil" is integrated with life. It has to be admitted that Brazil is a country of song and dance, and the song and dance scenes at weddings are so exciting that a Brazilian movie director once said, "Brazilian cinema is both a nightclub and a church, a circus and a concert hall, a pizza and a poetry workshop." As such, Brazilian song and dance has its own qualities that allow it to be at the forefront of the world's song and dance film genre. With the traditional Brazilian song and dance film is different is the film no longer create a dream, previously seen in the Brazilian song and dance film in the gorgeous costumes, grand scenes, full of dreamy colors of song and dance is gone, in this film, you can find the Brazilian people's anxiety, their love, their life, the director with a calm and objective lens expression of life in the song and dance film is rare. Mira Nair, the director of Once Upon a Time in Brazil, once said, "Dance and song don't stop at the beautiful countryside, the luxurious mansions and the fresh nature, they should stop at the heart of the people, at every corner of their lives." He is putting his words into action.