Singin' in the rain
1.
Singin' in the rain 1952
Musical
comedy
Directed
by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donnen
Starring
Gene Kelly, Donald O’ Connor and Debbie Reynolds
Cinematography
by Harold Rosson
2.
Singin' in the rain tells the story of Don Lockwood a famous silent film star and how
he comes to deal with different problems that enter his life. The first is his
leading lady Lina Lamot who is convinced they are in love even though Don hates
her. The second is learning to make a talkie picture that doesn’t get laughed
out of the cinema by the audience (as the characters come to find their movie).
The third is meeting a woman whom he falls in love with (Kathy Selden) and Lina
becomes jealous and tries to sabotage their relationship and their picture the
dueling cavalier in the process.
3.
The
way in which singing in the rain relates to my text is through the section
about musicals. It follows the genre of the musical on a basic level but it
also challenges or goes beyond the genre conventions. Besides just being a
movie that includes song and dance numbers it also tells the story of silent
Hollywood and the troubles that people had with adapting to the changing
technologies and times. So this film works on two different levels just as Hugo
is not just only a kids film but it is enlightening to the story of Georges Méliès and his contributions to
cinema.
4.
The
theory that applies to this film would be genre studies in which the film is
examined and patterns are found relating it to other films that have similar
patterns and themes. Singing in the rain shares similarities with other musical
comedy films such as The Bandwagon, 42nd Street and Yankee Doodle
Dandy. Through genre conventions the audience can come to make certain
judgments about the film based on other films they have previously seen from
this genre. Genre resonates with people because of the familiarity as well as
short hand conventions these things allow people to instantly recognize what is
going on in a given situation in the film based on previous events in previous
films.
5.
The
two articles I chose to write about for singin' in the rain are a review by
Roger Ebert and More than meets the eye in Singin’ in the Rain and Day and
Night by James Card. In Roger Ebert’s
article he talks about how the film was not instantly recognized for its
greatness and it won no awards and it wasn’t until the late 50s that it was
characterized as a classic by MGM. The second article More than meets the eye
in Singin’ in the rain and Day and night analyses how the film had come to have
a profound affect on people like Francois Truffaut whom considered it a classic
which he studied every frame of it. The article also analyses how both films
have similar content in they both hold many allusions to other films such as
the jazz singer or John Gilbert’s first talkie where audiences openly laughed
when he repeated I love you, I love you.
6.
I
had heard a lot about this film but had never seen it before watching it in class.
I am also not a fan of musicals (the only other two I have seen are Chicago and
Nine) but I was simply amazed by the entire film and I found myself looking up
the dance numbers on youtube. They are technical and amazing yet also retain a
certain degree of humor and wit. Besides just being a musical it also explores
the change of Hollywood from silent to talkies and shows the problems that came
along with such monumental changes. It really enlightened the public conscious
to earlier shifting events that affect the way we view movies, especially for
people of our generation who have no recollection of such prior events.
Bibliography
Ebert D, Roger. "Singin' In The Rain ::
Rogerebert.com :: Reviews." Rogerebert.com.
18 June 1998. Web. 05 May 2012.
<http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980618/REVIEWS/806180301/1023>.
Card, James. "More Than Meets the Eye' in
Singin' in the Rain and Day for Night." Literature
Film Quarterly 12.2 (1984):
87-96. Print.
CHECKLIST FOR PLAGIARISM
7.
1) (
x ) I have not handed in this assignment for any other class.
8.
2) (
x ) If I reused any information from other papers I have written
for other classes, I clearly explain that in the paper.
9.
3) (
x ) If I used any passages word for word, I put quotations around
those words, or used indentation and citation within the text.
10. 4) ( x
) I have not padded the bibliography. I have used all sources cited in
the bibliography in the text of the paper.
11. 5) ( x
) I have cited in the bibliography only the pages I personally read.
12. 6) ( x
) I have used direct quotations only in cases where it could not be
stated in another way. I cited the source within the paper and in the
bibliography.
13. 7) ( x
) I did not so over-use direct quotations that the paper lacks
interpretation or originality.
14. 8) ( x
) I checked yes on steps 1-7 and therefore have been fully transparent
about the research and ideas used in my paper.
Name_____Matthew Larue_______________
Date___________5/5/12________________
