Could You Turn That Racket Down? I Am Trying To Iron Here: Hairspray (1988)

It was fun, fun, fun until daddy took the Tbird away, or daddy dressed as your mother, while Jerry Stiller plays your loony father figure.  This is the type of world that is set up in John Waters' vibrant and satirical dance musical that has since been remade, though with far less a sense of the scope and scale of the material in regards to social commentary.  As much as the film could be seen as a parody of a time gone by, played up to the most campy of proportions, I would contest that Hairspray is as much a love letter to an era as can possibly exist, incorporating sock hops and sixties era Motown B-sides in a way that is both earnest and forward looking.  It is no surprise that Jon Waters as a filmmaker is often lumped in with David Lynch as both seem highly concerned with looking at the space of America that is neither completely abject, or wholly advanced in their privilege.  Indeed, Hairspray while far from a 'normal' film does manage to inquire as to what happens when the intersection between a cinematic identity and the viewers of the film is far less distant and perhaps more similar than initially acknowledged.  John Waters is a rare breed of filmmaker, a provocateur of sorts, who also seems to want not to condemn those around him, but to make them reflect--often through humor--the absurd barriers they have put up around themselves and their families, showing through bodily performance that issues such as weight, gender, race and even class can become traversable when a dialogue is ignited, one that calls attention to the absurdity of such restrictions and dismissals in favor of inclusion.  Dancing to John Waters is one of a variety of expressive means to challenge a status quo, one that is dealt with in focused and layered ways, unlike more contemporary youth musicals, most notably the remake of this film, but more incoherently and problematically in works like High School Musical.  While it is quite possible that John Waters will find this work to be swept under the rug in relationship to some of his more divisive and cringe inducing films, one cannot help but find the love and passion put into this work outright endearing and more than engaging.

Hairspray focuses on the daily life of teenage girl Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) a girl who aspires to dance with Corny Collins (Shawn Thompson) on his self-titled show.  While Tracy is considered larger than the average performer on the show, her noted skills on the dance floor and unbridled sense of passion lead her to attempt to break onto the show by attending various dance hall competitions and tryouts.  While Tracy's parents are supportive of her decisions, particularly her mother Edna (Divine) they have trouble supporting her endeavors as she is constantly tied to domestic labor, while her father Wilbur (Jerry Stiller) puts in long hours at the joke shop they run from the first floor of their two story house.  Needless to say, Tracy must rely on her own drive and the help of her friend Penny Pingleton (Leslie Ann Powers) to make her name known, a task that proves successful when her dance skills are finally noticed.  Were it not enough for Tracy to break the mold of the traditional dancing teenage girl on The Corny Collins Show by her body image alone, her own outspoken opinions in regards to desegregation come to a point of conflict with one of the shows most popular dancers Amber von Tussle (Colleen Fitzpatrick) and her equally stubborn parents Franklin (Sonny Bono) and Velma (Deborah Harry).  When Tracy's large hair becomes a distraction in school, a vindictive teacher places her into the special education class at the school, where she meets up with the son of the local African-American DJ Motormouth Maybelle (Ruth Brown) thus setting into motion a plan to undermine the entire act of segregation on The Corny Collins Show while also seeking out a method to show Amber as the fraud she truly proves to be.  This involves a series of protests and even the temporary jailing of Tracy, but with the help of the entire community and the cheering on of her friends, Tracy is able to not only win the local competition for best female dancer on the show, but she too proves to help the onset of desegregation on the show, even finding herself a boyfriend in the process, her original desire for joining the show in the first place.

 Many films that center around desegregation become incredibly problematic in their desire to assert the presence and aid of white people in the move towards desegregation.  While there were certainly a considerable amount of people who were not of color, helping to push forward the Civil Rights movement, films like The Long Walk Home, Mississippi Burning and more recently the wildly offensive The Help all seem comfortable suggesting that such endeavors were solely the result of white help.  Hairspray almost mockingly tackles such a narrative, by purposefully making the while characters irrelevant to the shifting social change around them, merely figures in a larger narrative, even when they claim to be in favor of such engagements.  The language used by the characters in these respective and idyllic films is often lifted from a  contemporary rhetoric, one that rarely reflects the era, even for a person well intended at the time.  Waters makes such that his film, without being terribly insensitive still manages to locate the dialogue of the sixties as it would have reflected a town traversing the large barrier of emerging desegregation.  I would argue that much of this is afforded by the choice of a somewhat seemingly simple space like a dance show to consider issues of racism.  Since it was a medium of popular culture, one that was also already heavily influenced by the music of the African-American culture it resulted in a rather intriguing cultural milieu that was open to the removal of racial boundaries, because it already existed musically.  The film does allow the white characters who are in favor of desegregation a few moments of confusion, as is evidenced when Tracy and Penny contest a police officer who is refusing to allow an African-American into the The Corny Collins recording, however, where another film would have followed this with an absurd bit of grandstanding on the part of the white character, it moves onto the next sequence while the African-American characters engage in their own initial protest.  Waters film makes sure that viewers know that even if white individuals helped end desegregation, it is purely a relational endeavor and no sense of them as the savior or individual who should be solely praised emerges.

Key Scene:  The line dancing number is some rather minimalist choreography that is executed to great zeal.

This is a delightful little film that is well worth renting.

Now Don't Bullshit A Bullshitter: All That Jazz (1979)

Bob Fosse is nothing short of a visionary, this is not intended to be specific to his skills a choreographer or to limit the consideration to only his work as a filmmaker.  His musicals in all their wildly revisionist nature prove to be an entirely different fare from the conventional work, particularly as it contrasts the spectacular, but often nausea-inducing showy works of the forties and fifties.  Using whispers, snaps and pulling heavily from the sounds of the natural world, Fosse creates a type of musical that works from the ground up making the diegetic and non-diegetic necessitate one another for a fully functioning film.  This is not, however, to say that his works are somehow entirely situated within reality.  As was certainly shown in my earlier review of Cabaret, but almost exclusively a product of All That Jazz, the otherworldly, or the afterlife, is always at play within the experiences of an individual, particularly one who is fracturing and falling apart at the seams.  Furthermore, where another director would play up the loving and earnest look at a person falling into their final days and hours, Fosse chooses to go with the real, looking at the plight of a man dying and his success and failures at reconciliation.  While I have encountered other attempts at the independent filmmaking approach to the musical All That Jazz is, undoubtedly, the crowning achievement, managing to use the metacinematic in a simple, but appropriate manner and never allowing for the lavish sets necessary for certain numbers to overpower the narrative.  While it is a far cry from the composition and symmetry of the illustrious Busby Berkeley musical numbers, it is certainly no less startling or awe-inspiring.  All That Jazz works not in spite of the traditional musical film, but because of its very limitless nature in the filmic language.  Indeed, Fosse reminds viewers that perhaps next to the expansive possibilities of animated films that the non-linear and extra-diegetic structure of the musical allow for exploration of the human existence well beyond the corporeal, the final result of such an exploration is absolutely riveting in this film.

All That Jazz focuses on the experiences of Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) a theatre director, choreographer and filmmaker.  While Joe has managed to establish himself as a legitimate figure in both communities, the stress of such high demands, doubled with his life of philandering have led him to become reliant on a wicked blend of smoking and anxiety reduction pills to keep awake and productive.  On the coattails o f a newly anticipated theatrical show with a tinge for the erotic, Joe proves incapable of delivering to his expectations and when negative feedback emerges both in regards to his play and his newly edited film, he collapses at work.  When in the hospital it is revealed that he has been suffering seriously from angina pectoris, a particularly troublesome heart dysfunction that is a result of his high stress job.  The doctors at the hospital insist that if Joe hopes to survive he must severely limit the amount of stress inducing endeavors he engages in, specifically anything that involves a lot of movement.  Joe is completely flippant to such requests and continues to choreograph from his bedroom, while also taking in the various criticisms of his new film.  Furthermore, the seemingly unfazed Joe keeps up with his philandering ways, both sleeping with his dancers and attempting to make advances on his day nurse.  When it becomes more clear, however, that Joe is going to die from his angina, he begins to move through the various stages of approaching death, which is narratively overlaid by his recent comedic film's narrative, as the actor in the film states the various occurrences, such as bargaining and acceptance as Joe engages in each issue.  These challenges include Joe coming to assure his love for his young daughter and aspiring dancer Michelle (Erzsébet Földi), as well as a sort of truce with his ex-wife Audrey (Leland Palmer).  In the closing moments of the film, Joe is having trouble navigating between the reality of his hospital bed and his own execution of a musical about his death, the two seem to coalesce into a feverish nightmare, one that has him singing lead, while he caries about intravenous injections, images of his pumping heart serving as the backdrop for the scene.  Although it is a grand bit of spectacle, the film ends in a very matter-of-fact kind of way, asserting that in death finality comes to even the act of dreaming.

Temporal and spatial contrast are huge in the musical, as I have mentioned earlier, the escapist nature of the genre and the necessity of advancing time considerably result in musical numbers serving as transitory spaces between one event and another.  In All That Jazz, the various performances should also serve a similar factor, but it is almost as though in this situation the music and Joe's own relationship to the songs is stuck in some sort of liminal space.  These moments are liminal in that they reflect Joe as he is lost amidst two opposing forces, that which causes him to identify as one embodiment of the self or other.  This is done most innocently, although it might not be apparent, when Joe creates the Air Erotica musical number, wherein he must learn to navigate between his own creations as an artist and his own lustful and passionate desires, the backers for his show being confused by the graphic sexual nature of the various moments, completely overlooking the ways in which such a number might suggest a sexual politics that is far more complex than they could begin to imagine.  It is perhaps least innocent at a time when it would seem so, which occurs when Joe's daughter Michelle and his girlfriend Katie (Ann Reinking) jointly perform a song and dance number in his apartment.  At this point, Joe must decide whether he wants to fully commit to being a father figure in the traditional sense, or a paternal figure in a sexual sense, both girls seeking a degree of affection that is eerily and problematically similar.  These two sequences are somewhat similar in composition, it the final sequence, which features Joe as the lead in "Bye Bye Life" that absolutely traipses the lines of liminality, especially considering that it is performed, assumedly, in Joe's mind, wherein all that he witnesses and learns is wholly an internal struggle, completely detached from the corporeal space.  However, because it is about the death of Joe it has a inherent tie to corporeality, the stage thus becoming an embodied thing, something that Joe must navigate one last time free from the reigns of temporal and spatial control.  The liminal here is expansive, because in death all the spaces and boundaries appear to become definitively destroyed.

Key Scene: The "Bye Bye Life" number is the final portion of the film and it certainly builds to it in a perfected manner.

Get this film.  It is perfect.

I Got, Rhythm!: An American In Paris (1951)

Often times when I am encountering films it proves to be a singular scene of misguidance and ill-conceived execution that cause me to dismiss a work entirely.  This is often frustrating as it proves to come in the closing moments of a film and make everything that has occurred previously moot and irrelevant.  My most notable case of this problem occurs in Ben Affleck's The Town, an exceptionally well made film up to the point of its awful ending.  In contrast there are the occasions when the execution of a film is less than stellar, particularly in comparison to the actors and directors involved leading to a certain degree of tuning out on the part of the viewer, who is hoping for equal excitement as to their other works.  All but turned off to the film, the closing segments of the film take such a dramatic switch as to become wholly engaging and captivating in a way that only occurs with the most focused and concerted efforts.  An American In Paris absolutely falls within the latter, proving to be a work that is lesser than Vincente Minnelli's Meet Me In St. Louis, as well as not possessing the captive qualities from Gene Kelly that make Singin' In The Rain a masterpiece in cinema.  Indeed, I was quite upset with An American In Paris, not because it was bad by any stretch of the imagination, but because it had moments that pulled from the previously mentioned films, as well as attaining a few moments of choreography on par with The Red Shoes and never seemed to push to coalesce them together.  I was upset, that is, until they did move together rather brilliantly in the final section of the film an extended and thrilling dance number whose sense of scope necessitates not only an enormous soundstage, but also a movement through filmic temporal space with clever cuts and edits that make the magic of Paris come to live both in a historical understanding of the city, as well as a loving eye of the filmmaker.  In terms of Americans abroad in film, this work is quite prolific, cowering only to the likes of The Third Man and a few other significant films.  It is no Singin' In The Rain, but, to be fair, most films pale in comparison anyway.

An American In Paris centers on three artists in Paris, the first is the World War II veteran Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) who has taken to the tenement lifestyle as he struggles to make it as a painter of various Parisian landmarks.   Jerry's friends include the concert pianist Adam Cook (Oscar Levant) who has been living in the space of Paris on various artist grants for nearly half a decade, only managing to stay financially above water with the help of his friend and night club singer Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary).  After hearing from Henri about an attractive young woman, Jerry takes to the streets to attempt to sell his work, scoffing at the various American college girls abroad and their misguided attempts to overanalyze the various artwork on display, including his own.  Yet, when Jerry is approached by a wealthy woman named Milo Roberts (Nina Foch) who buys his work on the spot he becomes somewhat suspicious of her intentions.  This hesitation is verified later, when Milo admits to wanting to use the guise of helping Jerry as an artist to attain his affection, also admitting to finding him incredibly attractive.  Jerry is despondent, thinking this is far from where he wanted to be as an established artist and travels to an art show at a Parisian nightclub to sulk.  It is at this point that Jerry notices the beguiling Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron) who he takes an instant liking to, finding her absolutely stunning and attempts to pull her away from her various gentlemen.  While Lise is initially confused and a bit taken aback, she eventually falls to Jerry's charm and agrees to go on a date with him.  Jerry is given a gallery open by the still infatuated Milo, although upon her realization that he has taken a new romantic interest in Lise, she begins to recoil, only furthered by the insistence on the part of Jerry that he be afforded an opportunity to establish himself as an artist on his own.  Jerry's world is made all the more frustrating when it is revealed that he is pursuing the very same girl that Henri had spoken of at the beginning of the film.  After a series of seemingly misguided daydreams, Jerry and Lise are able to reunite, all to the perfect swell of a Gershwin composition.

I rarely approach things from a formalist standpoint, because it is a slippery slope I do not care to become heavily involved with.  Indeed, understanding how things are executed within films while incredibly important, does tend to take the magic out of the enjoyment, as is the case for Days of Heaven a film which possesses an absolutely captivating scene that has been deconstructed multiple times, leading me to hesitate actually viewing the film as I know it will invariably lack in the magic that occurs.  In the same vein, I actively avoid researching the special effects execution at play in 2001: A Space Odyssey because to do so would almost certainly assure that it loses some of its inconceivable execution, or perhaps not, because that film still manages to exist in an impossible film world regardless.  As such, I want to merely touch on some of the elements that make that final scene in An American in Paris so exception.  Primarily, it occurs as a result of the mixture between the fabricated and the real, there is a seen where Kelly and Caron flutter from one set to another, the space starting as clearly impressionist sets, to somewhat more realist sets and ultimately resting in the space of a stage where actual dancers and actors occupy the table.  The actors remain frozen though as to allow for a remaining temporal space that seems surreal, but still exists within a rather simply executed cinematic trick.  This holds true for the use of space during this sixteen minute ballet sequence, wherein it seems to extend and evolve continually never resting on a single fixed area.  Much of this is afforded through a crane that is panning and moving without cutting, therefore, moving sets and shifting dancers can be done in a small space, but still without being noticed in the diegetic space.  Of course, this is still a feat of precision and some editing does allow it to work smoothly.  Even then, there are still inconceivable scenes of cinematic magic, the most notable one being the closing of the sequence when Gene Kelly moves from being a superimposed image over a backdrop to fading into frame while the background dissolves.  It is absolutely stunning.

Key Scene:  Refer to the paragraph above.

Bluray should be an obvious choice in this regard.

Friends Are Much Harder To Find Than Lovers: Cabaret (1972)

The perfect film is a thing I discuss ever so occasionally her on my blog, affording it a status to so few films.  Were I to be approached as little as six months ago and told that I would definitively label Cabaret as such a work, I would have scoffed off such as suggestion thinking that the elements of Bob Fosse and Liza Minnelli would be too off-putting to enjoy.  Sure I appreciate the choreography of Fosse and cannot deny the brilliance of Minnelli in the masterful ensemble that is Arrested Development, I just assumed it would be a film with a very honed in and specific audience, one that I could only tangentially appreciation.  Cabaret, however, is a stroke of cinematic perfection that manages to do so while also pushing and prodding cinematic language in a very real way.  Indeed, it uses the musical genre in a very clever manner, wherein the emotional escape of music blocks out the reality in a fantastical manner.  Cabaret begins in such a carnivalesque manner, only to have the reality become the thing in which music is appropriated while the very characters attempt to exist in states of wild delusion.  Delusional and feverish is the universe within which Cabaret orbits, finding its centrifuge within the dynamic and absolutely revelatory performance by Liza Minnelli.  Seriously, it is by far one of the best performances I have ever seen committed to screen.  I know she won the best actress nod for her turn in the film, but were they to do a centennial look back on the best film performances of the past century, it would be quite feasible to count this is the best of and perhaps even give it the award.  Between delivering lines with absolute humor only to follow with lines of devastation, Minnelli is also doing amazing work as a dancer and a singer.  The wild thing is that all of these are points of formalist consideration and I have yet to even scrape the surface on how absolutely profound the film is as a consideration of border/boundary crossing, not to mention the ways in which it works as a text on transgendered identity.  Cabaret is an absolutely perfect film in its willingness to navigate the perverse and problematic in a pointed--albeit surreal--manner.

Situated in Berlin circa 1931, the film focuses on one such cabaret that prides itself in having beautiful everything right down to its orchestra, which is comprised of buxom women, much to the elation of the aristocrats and diplomats that occupy the space.  Of course, not all is as appears on the surface, as some of the cabaret dancers, including the Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey) appear to be a bit less normative in their gender performances.  These transgendered identities aside the major point of pride within the particular cabaret is the singing and dancing of Sallly Bowles (Liza Minnelli) whose desire to make it as a film actress factors second only to her ability to belt out comedic and woeful songs at the drop of a hat.  Indeed, her performing abilities cause her to become a point of curious affection for traveling academic and Cambridge student Brian Roberts (Michael York) whose own sexual uncertainty becomes affirmed when he and Sally become lovers whilst sharing two flats in a local hotel.  Yet, their love is challenged by a variety of factors, whether it be Brian's constant desires to please his pupils of English, most notably Natalia Landauer a wealthy tailor company heiress  (Marisa Berenson) and Fritz Wendel (Fritz Wepper) a young Jewish man whose own identity becomes a point of conflict within Berlin as an increasing occupation of Nazi figures emerge adding yet another layer of woe to the relationship between Brian and Sally.  When Sally sees the possibility for advancement by engaging in a relationship with Baron Maximillian von Heune (Helmut Griem) things become considerably more complex as it is rather apparent that he favors the move away from socialism and towards fascism within the country, ignorant, if not outright flippant, of the racial and class issues at play in the particular ideology.  Furthermore, it is somewhat unclear as to whether or not Maximillian also possesses desire for Brian, whom he lingers on when hugging or forcing him to dance in a trio with himself and Sally.  Eventually, Sally becomes pregnant and the father of the child is rather uncertain.  Although, Brian agrees to be the father, Sally dreads the idea of living life as a wife in England and decides to procure and abortion.  The action leads to a parting between the two that is both deeply loving, but stifled by formality. Brian leaves for Cambridge and Sally returns to her cabaret performances, although as the closing moments of the film affirm, the crowd for such transgressive shows is dissipating quite quickly.

The amount of transgression going on in this film would make one think that it works in line with something like a Kenneth Anger film.  While it is not quite as abrasive and heavily ironic as a work by the experimental filmmaker, it does take on the layers of narrative winding and viewer to subject relationships of looking and desiring.  Wherein, something like Scorpio Rising makes a viewer reconsider the nature of the male body on display, particularly one that is perfected and chiseled, Cabaret asks viewers to completely reconsider their understanding of gender performance.  I would almost think that this film would serve as the perfect example of performing gender in the sense that Judith Butler discusses in Gender Trouble.  Even the femininity on display is to a point of absurdity, Sally's eye make up cause here eyes to pop out in a near comedic way, her claiming it to be part of her desire to be a screen starlet, which is in its own way a hyper problematic performance of femininity to begin with.  However, it is also masculinity that is consider as a thing to be performed here, perhaps most blatantly through the Master of Ceremonies, although the figure of Brian helps to consider the moral implications of not performing the social functions of masculinity, particularly the notion that sexual prowess be a reality and only so with women.  This is only one element of performance within the film though, as it also looks and considers how one performs something like Jewishness, particularly Fritz who actively passes as not-Jewish for his own safety, whereas Natalia is able to side step such concerns by possessing a high degree of wealth and a desire to be English in presence.  Indeed, the Nazism throughout this film is also called upon for its performative qualities, the camera often lingering on the swastika armbands worn by the various members of the party, asking viewers to navigate how much of the intimidation and hesitance comes from the signifier alone, a consideration that works in a post-World War II setting.  The singing of the Nazi Youth song adds a layer of trouble to this as it notes the troubled navigation between ideology and performance, showing that in some cases the two can clash in incredibly troubling ways.

Key Scene:  The money song, is the turning point in this film.  In all its humor, it still manages to be the moment where the music traipses between escapism and pointed social critique, something that had likely not occurred since "We're in the Money" from The Golddiggers of 1933.

This film is more than worth your time.  It actually demands your time.

You Can't Fuck The Future, The Future Fucks You: Saturday Night Fever (1977)

The danger of planning a blog marathon is getting behind on posts because you realize that you have all kinds of other life events getting in the way, which means doubling down on viewings and blog posts some days in order to maintain any consistency.  Today is once such day as I earlier scrambled to piece together something on Yankee Doodle Dandy and am now writing about yet another musical, in a far different sense with Saturday Night Fever.  Aside from not being the show tune heavy films of decades earlier, Saturday Night Fever also manages to navigate a space that is distinctly different narratively than most films, far more in line with the films of a year earlier than the escapist cinema of its genre.  Indeed, where it not for the reality that the film does involve a heavy amount of disco dancing, I would be convinced that it was a direct shot-for-shot homage to Rocky, although the movie poster to the film in the main character's room does suggest a knowing borrowing.  I will admit that I was myself a bit presumptive as to what I would be given by way of Saturday Night Fever as it is most certainly attained a reputation for being that one film that heavily uses that one song by The BeeGees, unfortunately, this claim is often intended to be a degrading thing, both dismissing the genius of the Gibbs brothers and their musical while also cornering Saturday Night Fever into a genre box that is illogical and inconvenient.  The acting of John Travolta is one of many things to be fascinated with in this rather overlooked film, even if it does have a noted classic status, not to mention that it does pull from some great music of the time, The BeeGees included.  However, it has some elements about it that at their core may have been purely choices of budget and necessity, but, nonetheless, become indicative of deep considerations on viewership relations within cinema and further inquire as to what it means to be a body on display that is also in the process of objectifying while bizarrely respecting the bodies around themselves.  Saturday Night Fever works because it unconventionally deals with notedly conventional subject.

Saturday Night Fever focuses on the experiences of Tony Manero a man who by the very way he walks can suggest to people that he is a ladies man.  At least, that seems to be what he strives for in his young life, only shooting for the money to buy the latest and greatest in polyester fashions in the hopes that it will afford him the desires of the women and the animosity of the men he encounters at his favorite disco club 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Alongside his motley crew of friends Tony manages to exists as a point of deep female desire, handfuls of women throwing themselves at him in the guise that they enjoy his dancing.  Tony while incredibly flattered by the advances seems rather clear that he is not interested in them, although deceives their hopes by agreeing to serve as their dance partners nonetheless, especially being kind to a young woman whose clearly suffering from some minor mental issues.  Yet, life is also troubling for Tony as he must navigate a home space where his family denigrates him for not being more like his brother, an established priest who the family lovingly refers to as Father Frank Jr. (Martin Shakar).  Tony hoping that by throwing all of his drive and passion into dancing he can somehow come to understand the complexities of the world around him, but when he Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) he manages to find a reason to pursue dancing even more as he immediately becomes infatuated by her ethereal charm and decidedly hard-to-get attitude. Mounting various approaches, he is finally able to convince her to get coffee a task that is juxtaposed with the falling apart of his own family life, particularly when Frank Jr. returns home and finds out that his brother has left the priesthood.  Paired with a variety of other forms of unfortunate news, Tony comes to reconsider his relationship with dancing, only to pour every last bit into a final act with Stephanie, one where they are clearly bested by a competing couple.  When it becomes clear, however, that their winning was predicated upon racial issues and not actual skill, the overly idyllic Tony awakes to the nonsense of his life and moves out of the negative world of his life in the process.

The social realist drama is quite hard to execute without becoming grandstanding or overtly detailed in a way that can be off putting to filmgoers.  I would further argue that this becomes doubly problematic when you make the realist picture within the constraints of a genre picture.  Finally, I would make an argument that it is damn near impossible to keep this a reality when you are creating a diegesis that involves music in a way indicative of a musical wherein the music, at times, manifests itself from beyond the narrative.  This would be a rare occurrence, but much to my amazement it is something that is pulled off brilliant.  More so, aside from the odd continuity error, Saturday Night Lever is a perfectly shot and edited film, one that tells a story in an intimate way without being predictable.  I say all of these things in unison, because somehow it manages to do the same things that made works like Taxi Driver and Nashville work a few years earlier, but few have sung the praises of Saturday Night Fever in the same rhetoric they afford it to the previously mentioned films.  I would argue then that the reason I for the longest held off to see the movie is that it was either implied that Saturday Night Live was nothing more than a disco film, or the alternative that the people who cling on to specific genres or constant themes invariably find the musical dismiss of any social legitimacy.  Indeed, as I work through more musicals this month I will undoubtedly watch this happen on different, but perhaps not so fatally as is the case with Saturday Night Fever.  Masked behind the assumption that it is a dance movie are some serious considerations about the role of body in looking and cinematic gaze, as well as a repetitive, but quite necessary barging against gender performance and including its more problematic final scenes, it does provide a visual into a life that is often swallowed up by other more powerful figures or entities.  If not for this one can still justify its status by the use of The BeeGees alone.  I know this is a ton of rambling, but I did only finish the film about an hour ago so my reactions are fresh and haphazard, mostly in relation to my own surprise by the film I saw as opposed to what I expected.

Key Scene: There is a scene where Tony makes a discovery about a hidden secret of another character, during which Travolta delivers a death stare for the ages.

Rental, this is that in a very real sense, but it is not terrible so purchasing it is not absurd.