Third Essay: ET 13

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers | Gene Kelly & Debbie Reynolds

Normally musical comedy comes with romances. For romantic scenes in musical, unlike the others, singing and dancing of the characters took place. Through those singing and dancing scenes, we have enjoyed so many breathtaking love stories, and they have became classics. Top Hat and Singin' in the Rain are two of the examples.

First of all, in Top Hat, Isn't This A Lovely Day is a delightful and playful song. Fred Astaire interpreted it amusingly. Before they start dancing, Fred Astaire (as Jerry Travers) told Ginger Rogers (as Dale Tremont) a story about thunders and clouds. It was like Astaire courting Rogers by telling her a cute story with the singing of the song Isn't This a Lovely Day (to be caught in the rain). Astaire led Rogers into the mood of dancing. For me, their dancing scene was like a process of a girl and a boy getting to know each other, their connection getting closer. The dance forms was very interesting, because it was like the combination of tap dancing, jive and waltz. Their dance steps were lively and briskly, and flawlessly performed. The lyrics of the song somehow was like convincing or persuading the girl to accept the boy's love. Astaire did pleases Rogers with his singing, because we can see the way Rogers acted was from disliking him to befriended him. We can also see this through Rogers started mimicking Astaire's dance steps at the beginning of the dance, and the hand-shaking with him at the end of the dance. So the whole dancing represented the communication of two of them. Lovely.

Moving on to the costumes, although both of them were wearing suits, but I have to admit that Rogers' horse riding pants really grasped my attention. I could never forget those cute pants of hers.

I believe these pants were popular at that time. Rogers looked so charming with it.

Compared to Astaire's baggy pants, Rogers' was wearing a narrow-legged pants, i think this contrast made their dance even more hilarious and entertaining. We audience can easily differentiate them in the dance.

Another interesting thing was I noticed their dancing shoes were in black, both of them, and the dance floor was paled. I think in black and white movies, color contrast is a very important issue, the reason they wore black instead of nicely colored shoes was giving the audience a clearer vision of the whole dance scene, like the dance-steps.

In order to show the whole dancing scene, the camera movements was panning, full shots, zoom-in and zoom-out. It doesn't really use many movements. The setting was in the woods, but i believe it actually took place in a wood-setting studio with artificial thunder and rain. To conclude this, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers has performed it in a very cute way, well for me, it was a really cute number.

Secondly, in Singin' in the Rain, the performing of You Were Meant For Me by Gene Kelly (as Don Lockwood) and Debbie Reynolds (as Kathy Selden) was way more romantic. At first, Kelly was praising how beautiful Reynolds was, as the scene goes on, Kelly started singing softly to Reynolds. The music was very soothing and soft, it was like a man whispers to a woman he loved, telling her how she meant for him through the lyrics. Kelly looked at her fondly throughout the whole singing, watching the way Reynolds acted, I believe every woman would have melted before Kelly's gaze.

Once they started dancing, the chemistry between them were amazing. The dance forms was spinning, tap dancing, and waltzing. Kelly/Reynolds dance was more romantic compared to Astaire/Rogers lively dance. They fell deeper for each other as the dance goes on. Through their dancing, I could feel they were really happy to be together, like they were so right for each other.

Unlike Astaire and Rogers both wearing masculine suits, Reynolds was wearing an elegant purple dress, and Kelly was wearing a v-collar sleeveless cardigan outside, and a white shirt inside, with white pants, he looked smart and gorgeous. Besides those nice clothing, the setting was romantic too, it was a purplish sunset. With all those filming tools and instruments, the whole setting seemed a little different from Isn't This a Lovely Day's setting's cleanliness, it seemed a bit messy, in my opinion. But I must say, the atmosphere of this number was better, maybe it was a color movie, made the frames looked better indeed. I love color movies.

Next, the camera movements of this number were more, there was close-ups, high angle shots, low angle shots, full shots, zooming. There was a close-up of Reynolds which was my favorite scene. It was shown above, the way they shot, the way she gazed, it was so wonderful by just looking at her lovely eyes.

Last but not least, the similarities between the two dances was the singing and dancing style. Both songs were sang by the male lead, and both dances contained tap dancing. The major difference between them was the feelings and emotional changes among the characters. The situation of Astaire and Rogers was like in the very beginning of a relationship, the courtship, meaning the girl still doesn't like the boy very much yet, at first; after dancing with each other, the girl changed her attitude towards the boy, she somewhat liked him in the end. In the contrary, Kelly and Reynolds was two lovebirds, they had already fall for each other, the dance was just stronger their relationship. However, no matter how are they alike or different, each number represented different state of relationships, we can watch them and still think of our own experiences, still touched by those marvelous acting and dances.

Second Essay: ET 3

 

Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton

Black bowler hat, curly hair, toothbrush moustache, tight coat with rumpled shirt, baggy trousers, floppy shoes, a bamboo cane……this combination will only lead you to one person—Charlie Chaplin. Charlie Chaplin was one of the greatest comic artist of the silent era, many comedians in modern day worship him, influenced by his acting, or everything; not to mention us, the audiences. I believe Charlie Chaplin’s movies basically raised a lot of people, for generations. So, what was this ‘great and mighty’ man so special about that made him so fascinating? First of all, in his comic persona, he had a lot of facial expressions, i meant A LOT. I think he had an expression for every single emotional changes, with the notable moving eyebrows and rolling eyes. Moreover, he had a funny and significant way to show the audience that he was hearing, by placing his hand beside his ear, very quickly. He did that in his movie—The tramp. And another interesting thing was, in Chaplin’s movie, he never smile, he grinned. Maybe in black and white film, plus in silent mode, you will have to exaggerate everything to make things or expressions clear enough for the audience. Chaplin did it so successfully. Moving on, the way he dressed was epic, as you can see the picture above, how could someone NOT attracted to him? I find those hats he wore was so interesting. He wasn’t always wearing hat in all of his movie, but in most of them. Most of the time he wore bowler hat, or derby hat, sometimes he wore pork pie hat, too, like in the movie The Cure. 

         

Chaplin wearing bowler hat       Chaplin in ‘The Cure’

Next, he actually walked like a clown, funny right? And with those baggy pants, big shoes, he tended to dress like a clown too. In fact, clowns normally perform in circus; comedy is created to gain laughter, and so is circus. Chaplin was performing circus in his comedy, that was why his movies was so captivating. His clown-like walking included hopping, he sometimes hopped and skipped, which made him more effeminate, which made people laughed. He was comedy. One more thing i love the most was his spinning. He spun when he had got high, panicked, or dizzied. That was hilarious! (The link below shows how Chaplin spun when he was drugged accidentally.)

Look the way he spins –clip from ‘Modern Time’

When he was in challenging situation, he would run away most of the time. For instance, in The Cure, the masseur wanted him to get in place to massage, but since Chaplin saw the abusive way of his massaging, he just slipping around the massage table flexibly like a gymnast. I was so impressed by his skills of flexibility, it was like swimming on the massage table! And finally he slipped out of the masseur. Next, Chaplin was like never showed his disappointment to the audience, because he would solved the problem immediately with revenging. Like in The Cure, when Chaplin got bullied by the big fat man, he would kick that fat man’s injured leg on purpose as a revenge, or pull away that fat man’s chair behind his back and made him fell terribly. By the way, when facing the woman he liked, he would take the initiative to introduce himself to the woman. Chaplin was very good at gaining attention, comparing to making fun of people and avenging himself, he would be a true gentleman in front of the woman he liked. A two-faced Chaplin.

Now, I will be moving on to Buster Keaton, another great comedian of all time. The comic persona of Buster Keaton was unique. Unlike Chaplin’s rich facial expression, Keaton was like NO facial expression at all! I mean he would just frown a bit, showed a bit of anger, kept blinking eyes if got confused, that was it.  He was like wearing a mask all the time, he had a simple and honest, straight, dull, and moody face, on screen.  ‘Extremely serious’ was the word to describe him. And that was the fancy thing about him.

deadpan expression and pork pie hat

Keaton wore a pork pie hat in almost every movie of him. Interesting. He even made a film about him, buying hats!

Seriously..

Besides, Keaton was a passive person. For example, in The General, first it was the girl who asked him to enlist, then only he run to the place and craving to be enlisted. When the officer refused to enlist him, he said something made me feel that he was so naive. ‘If you lose this war don’t blame me.’ Wasn’t that funny, the way he dealt with disappointment? It was like a warning, and he meant it, with his serious-looking face. See, deadpan humour could have killed someone.

Another deadpan expression was at the ending part of The General. When Keaton got his lieutenant uniform, that was supposed to be a happy moment, for what he did all the way from saving the girl to informing his soldiers about the attack, but I didn’t notice any smile on his face, it was still an emotionless face, I can only tell his excitement through his trembling hands and body while he was putting on his ‘glorious’ lieutenant uniform. Keaton might not have rich facial expression, but he had powerful, flexible and highly understandable body movements to represent his facial expression.

In conclusion, it maybe sounds like this two characters had no similarities at all, but in fact, they were pretty much alike. They both were short, and slim. They wore baggy pants as well. They both had flexible and skilful movements in their movies. Both of them were having black hair. The main difference between them was the facial expression. Charlie Chaplin was full of facial expression, Buster Keaton wasn’t. Finally, I have to say, Buster Keaton appeals to me more. Because i believe no one does stoic expression better than him. He looked serious, but he made you laughed. That is the core of comedy.