An aesthetic appreciation of film is often of secondary concern to the dominant theoretical strains running through the discipline. How the filmic elements of sound and image combine to engender a narrative that is comprehensible to the audience is frequently a guiding question that runs through academic works. What happens, however, when we make aesthetics the very object of study, when we explore the elements of film language not in the service of another goal but in their own right? The short answer is that a form of impasse is reached with the traditional and dominant theoretical methodologies no longer providing the tools necessary. Cognitivism, semiotics and narratology no longer suitably serve our purposes, for they all encourage a contextual reading of aesthetics that lead back to story and the role aesthetics play in constructing it. My desire to explore aesthetics in isolation comes down to an essential belief in the Gestalt rules of perception; that a form of perception happens before cognition and that this perception can involve an (un)conscious appreciation of aesthetics. When we watch a film we understand it on more than a narrative level, we simultaneously experience it on an aesthetic level. How we understand this aesthetic engagement is my primary concern.
The purpose of this book, whilst multifaceted, essentially comes down to a desire to explore a new methodological approach to the study of film aesthetics, or, as I shall also call them, âabstract aestheticsâ, as they are removed from their narrative context. Discerning what such a methodology should look like took a considerable amount of time and many false starts. Eventually it became clear that in order to explore the relationship between the different elements of film language a spatial approach was needed, for it enabled an understanding of the negotiated interactions between sound and image on a complex level. Space, and the different ways of reading its representation and changes, is the essential focus of this book and I argue that a spatial reading is best understood through the senses.
My desire to explore this new spatial methodology on a holistic level, paying attention to sound, image and their interactions, encouraged me to take the musical as the bookâs case study in order to demonstrate how such an approach might be applied at the level of genre. It quickly became apparent that attempting to formulate a spatial reading of films through the senses without restricting my corpus of films, would quickly become unwieldly. A generic case study, as a lens through which to explore this new methodology, would enable me the ability to highlight variations and important considerations in its construction. The choice of the musical is severalfold, but essentially comes down to my desire to demonstrate two things. Firstly, that the musical genreâs aural focus provides us with exaggerated examples of the audio-visual relationship to explore (such as the long-standing debates regarding diegetic sound), and secondly, that the musical, often excluded from generic theorising, is not as dissimilar to other genres as at first it might appear; what I discuss in terms of the musical can, to either a greater or lesser extent, be applied to other genres.
As result of this I did not want to follow a traditional book structure of each chapter exploring specific filmic case studies, but rather each chapter studies the theoretical approaches and implications of spatial readings before providing brief analysis in order to demonstrate how such theories can be applied to different song sequences from the musical. As such, they are not meant to be complete examples of analysis, but rather suggestions of how it might be performed given different foci. At this point it is essential to restate that, whilst the musical as a genre has been taken as a case study, a spatial methodology should not be seen as unique to the genre. Though any genreâs idiosyncrasies will have an effect on the methodologyâs nuances, it can be applied to film more generally. It is my hope that other theorists will be encouraged to explore how these peculiarities and features of other genres impact on spatial readings.
In order to realise this new spatial methodology, I utilise a range of new or underused theoretical approaches; one innovative approach includes the use of virtual reconstructions to explore and analyse spatial representation. Textual analysis, whilst important for illustrating how spatial analysis can be achieved, will play a supportive role to the exploration of spatial theories more widely. Although the spatial methodology discussed can be applied widely to Film Studies, genres often contain an amalgamation of characteristics that enable them to differentiate themselves. When utilising this methodology in a thorough manner, it is therefore necessary that it should be adapted and pay attention to the peculiarities of the different genres, in our case: the musical. Consequently, it is important to consider the musicalâs generic and theoretical context.
Context
Though the innovation of this book is its ability to synthesise theories of space into a methodological approach, it does not exist in isolation. Indeed, important to any holistic approach is the pooling of a range of ideas both directly and tangentially related to the topic at hand. The musicalâs theoretical and structural concerns need to be considered in the adoption of a spatial methodology and its subsequent emphasis. On what terms we consider genre and how it is applied to the musical is therefore of importance.
Rick Altman writes that for too long the history of the musical has been discussed and written about almost without issue, when in actuality such terms as âmusicalâ and âhistoryâ are inherently problematic. 1 For Altman, the musical genre is âa fascinating multi-media celebration constituting the worldâs most complex art formâ. 2 The musical thus offers a fantastic opportunity to explore a spatial methodology that will permit the subsequent adaptation into other generic conventions. This is in large part possible due to the ambiguity of the genre. Indeed, Altman argues that there are several means of defining and creating a corpus of films that might be defined as members of the musical genre, and these vary depending upon their source: producer, consumer, and/or critic. 3 In both form and content the musical can differ widely and yet to the producer and consumer categorisation can appear straightforward. âThe musical, according to the industry, is a film with music, that is, with music that emanates from what I will call the diegesis.â 4 Such a definition illustrates the difficulties presented to the criticâone might also widen this term to our status as theoristâthat may be omitted by the industry and/or consumer, for it provides neither, as Altman states, âa method for dealing with its functioning or even justifying this particular delimitation of the genreâ. 5
Altmanâs issue with such definitions, whilst shared by other theorists of the genre, are often overlooked in theoretical discussions. Steven Cohan, despite deliberating over the genreâs peculiarities in The Sound of the Musicals, makes no attempt at definition. 6 The same is true of Bill Marshall and Robynn Stilwellâs Musicals: Hollywood and Beyond in which they concede that whilst Altman has added much to the understanding of the âlarge-scale workings of the genre, [they] are lacking markedly in the specifics which give such distinction and pleasureâ. 7 This omission of genre debates should not be seen so much as a dismissal of the inherent problems, but as an unwillingness to contend with them. My assessment of the two such approaches is that they both provide fruitful avenues of discussion as they permit a variety of foci. It is important to synthesise the two; simultaneously assessing the difficulties characteristic of the genre but not making it the primary emphasis. As such, I want to provide a methodology for reading the musical genre that considers the peculiarities through a reading of its representation of space but does not make the peculiarities the main priority; after all this is not a book on the musical, but rather on spatial methodologies that uses the musical as a test case.
There has been limited discourse on the spatial idiosyncrasies of the musical genre beyond its relationship to diverse temporal structures. In this study I want to make a case for how space is represented through the symbiotic relationship between sound and image within the specific context of the musical number, thus discussing and acknowledging the characteristics of the genre that permits such structural delineation. My main approach for achieving this is through close analysis, referred to throughout the book as âforensic analysisâ, of abstract aesthetics of the musical numbers. Academic discussion of space seen through the lens of abstract aesthetics has been unexplored in the study of the musical genre before this point.
The popularity of the film musical has been in a state of flux for more than half a century. After the success of the Hollywood musical under the studio system however, with such stars as Judy Garland, Fred Astaire and Doris Day each producing several popular musicals a year, it is, in many ways, a surprise that this should be the case. 8 It is important to concede that the musicalâs status as an all but sure box-office success in many respects declined alongside classical Hollywood. 9 Despite this, the oft-held adage of the 1980s and 1990s that the âmusical is deadâ seems to have been laid to rest. The musical genre has been experiencing a renaissance and a renewed popularity. Films such as Les MisĂ©rables (2012) and Mamma Mia! (2008) have been exemplars of a genre that is growing in box-office success, and theorists have been keen to ride this trend into academic discourse. 10 In recent years, discussions on the genre have become more wide ranging than ever before. Whereas previous theorising on the classical Hollywood musicals of old were largely restricted to topics of auteurism (c.f. work on Busby Berkeley by such theorists as Martin Rubin) and genre studies, epitomised by Rick Altmanâs Film/Genre, recent discourse on the musical has been eager to challenge established readings. 11 Such analyses promote re-readings of canonical texts through alternative theories such as camp or queer theory, an example of which would be Steven Cohanâs work on the musical as holding a sub-cultural status in the gay community. 12 It is in this re-evaluating of canonical texts that analyses of the peculiarities of the genre are frequently omitted.
Running concurrently to this resurgence has been an increase in academic interest in Film Music and Sound Studies more generally. After Claudia Gorbmanâs seminal book on music in cinema, Unheard Melodies, which provided a catalyst for the sub-area within Film Studies, more and more theorists turned towards sound and music. 13 Gorbmanâs book, however useful, took ...