Musical films

[Roger Macy]

Lorenzo,
Didn't anyone give this a twirl?
One or two thoughts to try and get someone else on the floor, in case anyone feels like dancing in the streets tomorrow -

Firstly, wouldn't you need to compare the position with other non-American cinemas?
For many countries, their tradition of couple dancing a la Hollywood is the watching of Hollywood films, and you'd need to look at the data on imports.  The absence (if true) of a pre-war tradition in Japan could be explained in the early thirties by the slowness to install adequate sound equipment in cinemas and, later on, when the spiritist ideology got going, by simply being anglo-american.  Any home-made film of extrovert couple-dancing would need similarly-styled occidental music which simply would not have been available.
But there certainly developed a strong tradition in Japan for competitive ballroom dancing, which 'Shall we dansu?' tapped into.  Surely that must have been started by some Hollywood films?

I note your careful delineation of 'couple dancing', but there was usually a range of numbers in any musical that went from couples to ensembles in the same movie.  And many of these had an orientalising layer, at least.  Of course, it's perfectly possible to self-orientalise (as some examples in Jasper's copiously resourced new book seem to demonstrate).  At least two of the essays in 'Visions of the East: Orientalism in Film' address dance - those by Gaylyn Studlar and Adrienne McLean.

And there's also Aaron's chapter in his 'Kitano Takeshi' on Zatoichi, where assorted dance traditions are brought into the cinema. None of them, so far as I recall, were by couples, although he certainly had his Taisho(?) villagers stepping out on the boards.
And, come to think about it, doesn't the no-period 'Sakuran' self-orientalise, particularly during song and dance numbers ?  Given earlier periods' sensitivity to orientalising (not so called) in some productions of 'Madame Butterfly' etc. and in film exports, I can't imagine anything in earlier periods being both commercial and acceptable to mainstream sensibilities, particularly if there were any risk of it being exported.
Exiting left,
Roger

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Lorenzo Javier Torres Hortelano 
  To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu 
  Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 5:24 PM
  Subject: Musical films


  These days I belong to a PhD dissertation committee. The dissertation is about couple dancing in the Classical Hollywood Cinema. One question comes to my mind: What is the reason Japanese cinema didn't have a similar tradition?

   

   

  Lorenzo J. Torres Hortelano

  Profesor Titular

  Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

  Fac. Ciencias de la Comunicación

  Camino del Molino s/n

  28943 Fuenlabrada (Madrid)

  Despacho 244b

  914888445

   

   

   

   

   
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