As an all-time musical-lover, Singin’ in the Rain is perhaps the most entertaining and enjoyable film I watched so far through the semester. I remembered how in class today we discussed that one of the major approaches of musicals is pure entertainment. It is not only an escape from reality, but an exploration of what humanity could potentially look like.
However, as the film progresses, I started sensing something deep within the film, something that did not just make me laugh over–the narration over film’s development from silent to sound.
Silent Films
We could take a peek at how silent movies were screened from an establishing shot in the film. This picture is from the beginning of Singin’ in the Rain, where audiences watch The Royal Rascal casted by Don and Lina. Beneath the cinema stage, we see an ensemble instrumenting for the silent film, which is displayed on a large screen. This was a classic characteristic when silent films were popular, where the cinema’s director would hire a playlist to be played during screening that does not necessarily has to be related to the film. I suppose that its primary purpose is to block the noises generated by the projector during screening.
As film develops, there comes a special playroom for projectors, which separates its loud noises from the audience, which was also when people started realizing how sound could be incorporated in film.
In Singin’ in the Rain, we see that starting to appear when the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer, gains popularity, forcing The Duelling Cavalier to also be changed to a talking picture. Prior to that, the actors have been utilizing the privileges of a silent picture to make films.
In this scene when Don and Lina acts out The Duelling Cavalier as a silent picture, they were having an argument over Kathy Seldon, despite acting as romantic lovers. They both know that their conversation would not be in the final film version, exploiting that particular advantage. Later, we know that Don’s repeated “I love you”‘s and Lina’s odd voice pickup would make the movie to be commented as “the worst picture ever made.”
Of course, the film shows us a lot of other difficult issues encountered with talking picture productions in its beginning: voice synchronization, the balance of sound between volume of dialogue, props, and noises, as well as the training required for actors and the need for scriptwriters, etc. The birth of talking pictures allows a greater degree to approach realism, but raises the bar of work for almost every part of production.
The Satire
All this eventually makes me recall how Don and Cosmo were treated before they were discovered by Mr. Simpson, along with that Don’s repeated motto, “Dignity. Always dignity.”
Don and Cosmo had been practicing dancing, singing, and performance from a very young age. As the only true audience that are able to understand his true stories, we know that he has been ironic about his stories because of maintaining his dignity with the current trend in the film industry. He was not well-treated before being heard by Mr. Simpson. People cared less about his music performances, but more on Lina, who we know is the actual actress who doesn’t know how to sing or speak formally. Yet, when talking pictures become trending, which is also when Don has decided to turn The Dancing Cavalier into a musical, he starts to pick up what he used to do as a teen–singing and dancing to music.
I think this mirrors how the public commentaries on sound film were when it first came out. In class Professor Zinman talked about how critics challenged the integration of picture and sound, as if sound would destroy the “original” meaning of film as a newer medium at that time. However, when people started liking it, the films start to earn money, and the entire film industry would operate toward this more profitable goal, which many times contradict with our wish to really explore the bounds of film.
Before, I did only enjoy musical in a more entertaining way. But from now on, I guess I want to treat each musical film more seriously, as there would always be something in its sound that reminds me of Singin’ in the Rain, and the histories that it is trying to teach.
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