Epilogue

From The Broadway Melody all the way to La La Land, musicals have taken audiences on quite the extravagant ride. This journey has encompassed periods of adventurous experimentation, exhilarating popularity, artistic daring, decadence and oversaturation, and indifferent silence. Because of musicals, audiences were thrilled to see and hear a new art form, cheered during periods of financial hardship, inspired and diverted during times of war, and exasperated when there seemed to be little justification for such work to exist. Given their intimate relationship with viewers, it’s hardly surprising that these films elicit fierce affection on the one hand and, often enough, condescension and aversion on the other. Through it all, amid all the changes of style, technique, and attitude, they somehow persist, managing to come back in one form or another both in movie theaters and on home screens. The memorable and older titles are replayed for fresh and often adoring viewers, and sometimes there will be a new entrant into that pantheon where the authentically great ones reside.

The Band Wagaon “Girl Hunt”: Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse

It would be wonderful to assert that musicals are consistent in their desire and ability to entertain and captivate, but it’s an unavoidable fact that sometimes they forget themselves, their goals, the reasons for their existence. When this occurs, they become unnecessary and beside the point. Fortunately, those that are derivative and mediocre will evaporate, while the must-see classics will stand the test of time and endure. That latter group, those in this book, are comparatively small in number, and were made by artists who best understand how a musical must connect with its public. Such a connection can never be done with phone-it-in expedience, nor with greed or cynicism. It takes respect and sincerity as well as artistry, as has been proved over and over with The Broadway Melody, Love Me Tonight, An American in Paris, Cabaret and the others. In all of them, gifted and adventurous people can find the proper way to make musicals that are good, grand, or even great, and with luck will find the audience that deserves them.

One of the happiest propensities of musicals is their eternal willingness to look back at and deploy their own history. By noting their prior achievements, they find ways to move into the future, which is partly why Singin’ in the Rain remains so special, Chicago so successful, and La La Land so gratifying. There would be nothing, of course, without forebears, and any musical—or person, for that matter—who believes that the past doesn’t matter is being both self-deceiving and incompetent. It’s not imitation, it’s inspiration. Thus, as this book comes to its close, it can be noted that director Damien Chazelle cited a principal source for some of the ideas that went into creating that explosive freeway song-and-dance with which La La Land begins. It was, Chazelle said, Rouben Mamoulian’s opening scene of Love Me Tonight, with its intoxicating collage of sounds and images. In that decision can be seen a truly stirring and heartening dynamic: by learning from its roots and acknowledging its past, one must-see musical can pay tribute to another. And, happily, the show goes on.