The thing that really impressed me about her performance was that she's very funny, but at moments there's this real edge of vulnerability--she's scared for her livelihood, her life.
Agreed. It probably took me years to notice, but she's as much of a real person as anyone else in the film, which being comedy operates on a sliding relation to reality to begin with. She has an ego that would sink the Olympic, but all that stuff about her contract means she really isn't dumb or something.
The film is sort of cruel to her (though she's cruel first, and brings it on herself); I wish the story had hadn't had her take against Kathy, so that there could have been a happier ending for her.
I don't read comprehensively in the fandom, but I believe this is one of the problems that Singin' in the Rain fic tries to work out.
(I do love this story, which is unsurprisingly Cosmo-centric. I also like this set of vids.)
I mean to respond regarding other Gene Kelly musicals—The Pirate (1948) is bonkers and I recommend it for Gene Kelly in hot pants alone. I'm not actually wild about the overall effect of An American in Paris (1951), but passages of its dancing are justly famous and Oscar Levant is epically passive-aggressive about everything. I haven't seen Brigadoon (1954) in decades, but my memories suggest the dance numbers between Kelly and Charisse are lovely and everything else is sort of evanescent saccharine. I love It's Always Fair Weather (1955), which flopped commercially because it is emotionally messy and ultimately downbeat in ways that would not become mainstays of musical theater until the '70's; it also contains the magnificent Dolores Gray and Kelly dances on roller skates. I don't seem to have very strong feelings about his other musical films or I would be able to call more of them to mind. I also like him non-musical, which is rarer.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2023-01-11 02:40 am (UTC)Agreed. It probably took me years to notice, but she's as much of a real person as anyone else in the film, which being comedy operates on a sliding relation to reality to begin with. She has an ego that would sink the Olympic, but all that stuff about her contract means she really isn't dumb or something.
The film is sort of cruel to her (though she's cruel first, and brings it on herself); I wish the story had hadn't had her take against Kathy, so that there could have been a happier ending for her.
I don't read comprehensively in the fandom, but I believe this is one of the problems that Singin' in the Rain fic tries to work out.
(I do love this story, which is unsurprisingly Cosmo-centric. I also like this set of vids.)
I mean to respond regarding other Gene Kelly musicals—The Pirate (1948) is bonkers and I recommend it for Gene Kelly in hot pants alone. I'm not actually wild about the overall effect of An American in Paris (1951), but passages of its dancing are justly famous and Oscar Levant is epically passive-aggressive about everything. I haven't seen Brigadoon (1954) in decades, but my memories suggest the dance numbers between Kelly and Charisse are lovely and everything else is sort of evanescent saccharine. I love It's Always Fair Weather (1955), which flopped commercially because it is emotionally messy and ultimately downbeat in ways that would not become mainstays of musical theater until the '70's; it also contains the magnificent Dolores Gray and Kelly dances on roller skates. I don't seem to have very strong feelings about his other musical films or I would be able to call more of them to mind. I also like him non-musical, which is rarer.