Do you think muscials that become movies lose their magic since there's no audience interaction?

Question

Isn't it like watching a concert on TV? The feeling isn't there as opposed to seeing them in person.

Answer 1

I don't agree entirely. There is nothing quite like being at a live musical. The atmosphere, the live orchestra and music.....
However, may great musicals have been made into movies. "Chicago" I just loved, "A Chorus Line", "Moulin Rouge" and "Les Miserables" come to mind.

Answer 2

It's possible. I feel the same way about many non-musical plays that are adapted in motion picture form. Sometimes, the adaptation works, but, more often, what they reveal is the ENORMOUS difference between a playwright's "voice," and that of a screenwriter.

A play (or a musical) is constructed with the implicit understanding that the audience will perceive ALL of the action through the "window" of the stage opening. The "world of the play" travels past the audience's view. By their very nature, movies HAVE to open things up. The camera has to move around, locations are varied, etc.

And, as you say, there's something COLD about the film experience that is the polar opposite of the live theatre experience; the performance that an audience witnesses LIVE is always unique, since every audience's energy is different.

Answer 3

I've taken my goddaughter's two children to plays since they were 4 or 5. The plays I took them to were totally inappropriate for children and I don't think they understood a word. But they were utterly captivated by the the live stage experience, and I've had to continue taking them. Now they are more discriminating (and so am I); and when they found out about musicals, they spontaneously sang along, and the actors loved it too. They're fast learners.
But then, especially with the musicals they really liked, they enjoy watching it on TV, comparing the actors and performances, and refreshing their memories of the songs. So yes, some of the magic is gone, but I wouldn't want to give up the movies.

Answer 4

Of course not! Rocky Horror Picture Show has so much audience interaction at the movies that...

Alright, it isn't quite the same thing, but when you're young and don't have a lot of money but love musicals, having a DVD to watch and sing along with your friends is a lot easier than going to Chicago or New York to see it live (assuming its a specific show you're after and not just any musical that'll have you).

Answer 5

I would agree that seeing a musical live is way better than watching it on TV-however, I think its all in the way the director brings the magic you can't see in person to the screen...that's what's cool about being able to edit and add special effects and stuff...Shoot-some of the best musicals I remember, I've never seen the 'real' version: West Side Story, Little Shop of Horrors, A Chorus Line, Chicago...the list goes on and on...

Answer 6

To a certain extent.

I think they lose the idea of being a living thing -- with most music pre-recorded and lip-synched, with a camera choosing where I should look in a dance number, and with realistic settings.

One of the exceptions to the first is Streisand's performance of "My Man" at the end of "Funny Girl." She insisted on performing it live, with the orchestra there, to maintain the intimacy of the song. Watch it when you can -- it has a quality completely unlike any other number in the show.

Over the years, directors seemed to forget how to shoot dance numbers, often showing the performers only above the waist and in close-ups that force you to lose the idea of dance!

And realistic settings work against the entire nature of a world where people's emotions become so elevated that they must sing! One of the worst offenders was the movie version of "Forum" in Roman ruins! Here's a farce, with stylized action and lyrics, being played out in decay -- so wrong. On the other hand, I admire the film version of "Hair" which completely re-imagined the show.

Part of the thrill of attending a musical, of course, is the live performance, to hear and see the effort of the performers working their a$$es off and in the controlled world of film, you get things like the movie version of "Noises Off" -- entertaining, but the danger is gone and so is half the fun.

Answer 7

Great question! And my answer, I suspect, has changed in recent weeks...

Up until last October, I would have written a lyrical, emotional rebuttal, based on how many times I've enjoyed seeing some of my favorite musicals on television. I still laugh every time I see Donald O'Connor dancing with the dummy in "Make 'Em Laugh" from "Singing in the Rain," and when our drama coach was suggesting tongue-twisters to me and my cast-mate, I couldn't help starting in on "Moses Supposes his Toeses are Roses."

But the first week of October, I had a "spare" evening in NYC (no flights home after the meeting ended on Wednesday, so I had a flight Thursday morning). And so it was only a matter of a hundred bucks or so to procure myself a seat in the very front row of the St. James Theater, where I was treated to "The Producers," live and in person.

WOW.

I was already pretty clear on the magic of live theater, and live concerts for that matter. But this was my first time on Broadway (and what a play to see, all about the magic of Broadway!)

So... I wouldn't say they lose their magic, not necessarily -- but the magic changes. Sometimes the magic is easy to understand -- watch Fred and Ginger and the magic is that Fred is just so fluid and brilliant, he makes it look effortless (when of course it's anything but), and we are truly blessed that he lived in an age when his performances could be recorded. Or watch a Busby Berkeley number where the camera shoots straight down onto a kaleidoscope of showgirls (a scene which Mel Brooks gloriously lampoons in the "Springtime For Hitler" sequence in "The Producers").

And there is magic in film -- right now I'm still all rippling with goosebumps from watching the restored-to-Welles'-vision version of "A Touch of Evil." The opening three minutes -- one long, uninterrupted take, in which we see someone set the timer on a homemade bomb and place it in the trunk of a car, then follow the car through crowds of innocent people walking on the festive streets of a border town -- made me want to jump up and down and shout "ALFRED HITCHCOCK WAS A NO-TALENT WEASEL! THIS IS HOW YOU CREATE SUSPENSE!" (I didn't, though; I *like* Hitchcock... it's just that this scene takes the conceit from "Rope" and uses it to create three of the most excruciating minutes ever put on film.)

But I'm not sure that this KIND of magic really applies to a musical. Oh, sure, you can put Julie Andrews on a meadow tiwh the fricking Alps behind her if you're making a movie -- can't do that in the Gershwin theater. But that's not why you go to the Gershwin theater... or wherever you go to see live theater.

They're two completely different things -- which is your point, I think. So I'm not going to STOP watching musicals on film (or TiVo)... but I'm not giving up my Portland Center Stage season tickets either. (Next play: "I Am My Own Wife," next week, with our own incomparable Wade McCollum playing 34 roles. See, now in a movie, they could cut, move the camera, have him in makeup...)

Answer 8

Yes I feel that way. If its filmed on the stage. If its filmed like they did Oklahoma, Seven Brides for Seven Brother ext.... I don't mind. The effects and the stage make a big difference. Like the way they filmed CATS. It makes me want to be in the audience.

Answer 9

Now for something completely different.

Aren't movies also a kind of magic?

Can't the magic of the live musical and the movie magic be connected, intertwined into one big magic show?

Answer 10

ya
DAAHHHH
but too bad i had neva seen a movie or anything or anyone in real life. the closest i had ever been was seeing a song writer
(who isnt really that important or that famous)

concerts are only cool if you see them LIVE