“Tale as old as time,” Mrs. Potts sings in the titular song from Beauty and the Beast (1991). It’s a statement of Biblical proportion, perhaps playing on “in the beginning was the Word” from the book of John. It’s easy to take this statement as Read More …
There’s no question in my mind that West Side Story deserves its place high on the list of the greatest film musicals of all time, both the 1961 version and the 60th anniversary re-adaptation. Both films are based on the stage musical conceived by the Read More …
For many viewers, especially those born in the second half of the twentieth century, the 1957 Merrie Melody, “What’s Opera, Doc?” remains a key entry point to opera as an art form. A parody of the work of Richard Wagner, foremost his “Ring Cycle,” the Read More …
For the broken-hearted musicians of Once, songwriting functions like a secular variant of the sacrament of confession. Here, the penitents are an Irish musician (Glen Hansard) and a Czech pianist (Markéta Irglová) who meet by chance on a darkened street in Dublin during the former’s poorly attended Read More …
Sita Sings the Blues (2008) is an astonishing tour-de-force from the animation auteur Nina Paley, who wrote, designed, directed, animated, and edited the entire feature. It weaves together images and music in many styles, while depicting two parallel stories – a very personal tale of Read More …
At the 1964 Cannes film festival a jury headed by the German master of noir, Fritz Lang, selected Jacques Demy’s vibrantly colorful and touchingly romantic musical as the winner of the palme d’or. This was the first of three musicals to win that coveted prize. Read More …
The story goes that at one production meeting the Muppet Creator Jim Henson told his senior creative staff that he wanted to “make a children’s television program that would bring peace to the world.” No surprises there, if you know Henson’s work. That’s what it did; Read More …
How many works of art participate in the plot about a wager or competition for a person’s soul? The Devil and Daniel Webster; “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”; Faust ….much like The Muppet Christmas Carol, Cabin in the Sky tweaks a familiar story, adding Read More …
“The art of making art is putting it together.” For those unfamiliar with that line, it’s a lyric from Sunday in the Park with George, which has long been my favorite musical. Musicals were the focus of this year’s Arts and Faith list, specifically movie Read More …
Loosely adapted from Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, Cabaret asks what individuals can do in a world gone wrong. A young British academic named Brian Roberts (Michael York) comes to Berlin in the waning days of the Weimar Republic. While there, he meets Sally Bowles (Liza Read More …