A Look at The "Make Em' Laugh" Scene & The Hollywood Musical



 

The Hollywood musical attempts to create a bridge between live performance and the industrial film productions of Hollywood. The sense of engineering in film is masked with bricolage and crafted communities within productions. The churning out of films is made to look more human and folk rather than products removed from the audience. 

With these points in mind, I want to look at one particular scene in Singing in The Rain. The "Make 'Em Laugh" number features Cosmo goofily (and incredibly athletically) dancing through a set that is in the middle of being put together. The scene is sparked by a somewhat gloomy Don Lockwood getting cheered up by Cosmo. It is a friend who sees Lockwood and in turn acts to change that--showing human connection. I think that in a way, this gets at that sense of crafted community that the Hollywood musical aimed to create. The fact that Lockwood is an actor is highlighted in this moment but he still shows that he encountered trouble in life. So I think that this may sort of humanize him. Seeing him feeling down while also being marked as an actor helps bridge him into the world of theatre actors where the humanness of the actor is not so far away. 


                                                "Make 'Em Laugh" Scene

This scene also features people creating a set--and a very energetic Cosmo. The act of construction is featured, but it is not like the highly industrialized Hollywood productions. The undertaking of construction is moved away from the industrial and into a more human realm. It is people who are moving about and transporting materials--and the goofy cosmo who bumps into them. As he dances through the set, he makes mistakes and falls (but somehow gracefully). The creating of the set is given faces and threaded through with Cosmo's attempt to "make 'em laugh". Production is not a faceless industrialized act in this scene. 




Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 22, 2020 at 8:55 PM

    I really enjoyed the athleticism in these scenes as well. I admire the ability to be doing something so athletic while also being humorous and engaging to the audience. I really like the way that you said the musical crafted communities within the production these scenes felt like a large community and I hadn't thought of that.

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