While I was trying to think of a theatre topic to pick for this week's blog I was cleaning my room listening to Pandora Radio (under the radio station of "Glee Cast: Holiday") and the original cast of "Rent" came on singing "Seasons of Love." As a Broadway buff, I began comparing the original cast and stage production of "Rent" to the movie and movie production of "Rent" which caused me to think of the many other musicals put to the silver screen.
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| DVD of Rent, the Musical Movie |
Musicals on film date all the way back to the 1920's, when
film was first developed. "The Jazz Singer" released by Warner Brothers Studios was actually the first feature film that was also a musical, so musicals taken from the stage and put to film is no new concept. Throughout the decades, there have been many Broadway stars and productions that have become overwhelmingly popular due to film. Many who would not have been able to see a Broadway production were introduced stars such as Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Julie Andrews, Matthew Broderick and John Travolta. As well as popular stars today bringing attention back to Broadway such as Daniel Radcliffe in "Equus",
Julia Roberts in "Three Days of Rain" and Antonio Bandaras in "Nine". Some recent musicals that have been brought to film have been "Rent", "Chicago", "Hairspray", re-releases of classics such as "Oklahoma!", "Sound Of Music", and "State Fair."
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| Entire Original Cast of Rent |
Due to the extreme differences of stage and film, musicals and plays have a different style and feel when placed on these two different media. Let's take the musical made movie "
Rent" (because I have seen it on Broadway and because I have watched it recently!). The original production was released in 1991 and was written by Jonathan Larson based on the opera "La Boheme" by Giacomo Puccini. The film was released in 1995 and was directed by Chris Columbus. The biggest difference between the two is that the Broadway production is mostly sang with very few dialog while the film kept major songs, turned others to dialog and cut out the rest. The movie however, did try to stick as close to the original production it could by having most of the original cast members star in the film. Another obvious difference the sets. The Broadway production uses a set staged and changes the atmosphere by changing parts of stage or by the lighting changes, leaving a lot of the setting up to the audience imagination. The movie was able to take it's audience to the setting of the director's vision for the film. It had a New York City set and ability to clearly show where the characters were interacting. The setting and special effects of musicals to movies will always be significantly different due to film's ability to be easily altered or re-shot.
This was only one of the many musicals put to film and I encourage all of you to take your favorite movie-musical (admit it, there is at least one) and look deeper into it. Try to see a stage production or find a stage production filmed version of it.
Other musicals you may be interested in:
Chicago
West Side Story
Hairspray
The Phantom of the Opera
