The first scene of Singin’ In the Rain perhaps best sums up what it is trying to say about the movie industry; in the first ten minutes of the movie, Don Lockwood portrays the showmanship and fakery of Hollywood through his wistful interpretation of his past. Don, played by the magnificent Gene Kelly, takes a listening radio audience through his rise to stardom, painting himself in only the most flattering lights when, in all actuality, Don scraped his way to stardom through saloons, minstrel shows, and dangerous stunt work. This comical montage reveals two things to us: one, it reveals Don’s history and prepares us for the ensuing story; two, it hints at one of the underlying themes of the movie, the theme that Hollywood is about putting on a show, “makin’ ‘em laugh,” and that authenticity has no hold on the film industry. Cinema isn’t about how real a story is, but rather how entertaining a story can be while still letting the audience believe that what they are watching is really happening. In a later scene in the movie, Don is trying to tell Kathy how much he loves her and decides to do it by dressing a set to give his proclamation the right mood. Rather than just be forthright and tell her he loves her, Don puts on blue-colored lights to simulate the moon, drops a sunset backdrop with rose-colored fill lights, has a fan blowing to simulate wind, puts Kathy on a ladder for that Romeo and Juliet balcony romance, and then proceeds to serenade her. The whole scene is completely contrived, yet it seems infinitely more romantic than if he were to just come out and say those three little words. Without realizing it, we—the audience—get suckered in to believing the Hollywood fables, to suspending our disbelief that these romantic songs don’t spontaneously erupt when the time is right, that sound effects don’t sound off when we run into walls, and actors cannot automatically conjure up a complicated and in-sync dance routine at the drop of a newspaper. Yet we do, movie after movie. This is what Gene Kelly, as both an actor and a director in Singin’ In the Rain, is commenting on. And what better way to comment on the superficiality of Hollywood than in a musical, the most-removed genre of them all?
Singin’ In the Rain is about the transition the film industry made from silent movies to sound. Brilliant performances are made all around, arguably the most famous performance by Jean Hagen, playing Lina Lamont, a silent movie actress with a voice that should have stayed in that era. When the talkies hit Hollywood, Don and Lina are already half-way through making a movie when the studio head decides to make it a talkie, as well. The whole movie is ridiculous and horribly produced, technically speaking, and is almost trashed. In order to save the project, Don enlists a singer, Kathy Selden (played by Debbie Reynolds) to voice over Lina’s parts. Don also adds a vaudeville scene to give the movie some innovative spectacle. The idea of voice-overs adds to the un-reality theme of Singin’ In the Rain. Audiences swear that what they’re seeing is real, that they know the inside story because they can see it happening, but they are really only being duped. Indeed, it seems that Gene Kelly really did get the better of us; in scenes where we see Kathy singing, voicing over Lina’s parts, what we are really hearing is another actress voicing Kathy voicing Lina. Debbie Reynolds was not a strong enough singer to be a voice-over actress.
The scene that was the film’s namesake was filmed in only five shots. There are long, panning shots of Don Lockwood dancing around, emphatically kicking puddles in tune to the beat that last for minutes at a time. Contrast this now to our current style of musicals, like Chicago, with its choppy, new-frame-every-other-second style. These types of shots were typical in old-fashioned musicals. For smooth, rolling shots, a dolly was used. The very last scene, where we see Lockwood walking away, we see a nice aerial crane shot that lets us see the vast, wet street Kelly was just dancing on.
Singin’ In the Rain is about the transition the film industry made from silent movies to sound. Brilliant performances are made all around, arguably the most famous performance by Jean Hagen, playing Lina Lamont, a silent movie actress with a voice that should have stayed in that era. When the talkies hit Hollywood, Don and Lina are already half-way through making a movie when the studio head decides to make it a talkie, as well. The whole movie is ridiculous and horribly produced, technically speaking, and is almost trashed. In order to save the project, Don enlists a singer, Kathy Selden (played by Debbie Reynolds) to voice over Lina’s parts. Don also adds a vaudeville scene to give the movie some innovative spectacle. The idea of voice-overs adds to the un-reality theme of Singin’ In the Rain. Audiences swear that what they’re seeing is real, that they know the inside story because they can see it happening, but they are really only being duped. Indeed, it seems that Gene Kelly really did get the better of us; in scenes where we see Kathy singing, voicing over Lina’s parts, what we are really hearing is another actress voicing Kathy voicing Lina. Debbie Reynolds was not a strong enough singer to be a voice-over actress.
The scene that was the film’s namesake was filmed in only five shots. There are long, panning shots of Don Lockwood dancing around, emphatically kicking puddles in tune to the beat that last for minutes at a time. Contrast this now to our current style of musicals, like Chicago, with its choppy, new-frame-every-other-second style. These types of shots were typical in old-fashioned musicals. For smooth, rolling shots, a dolly was used. The very last scene, where we see Lockwood walking away, we see a nice aerial crane shot that lets us see the vast, wet street Kelly was just dancing on.
Hollywood -- the Dream Factory. Wouldn't it be nice if dreams rolled off the assembly line like widgets?
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