Talk:Musical film

mimic is BAD
Movies that include singing/dancing in relatively realistic settings, such as stories about musicians are generally not considered musicals. Generally, the music must be a fantastical event to qualify. See IMDB's rules on the subject. http://akas.imdb.com/updates/guide/genres I prose a new Music film article. Ace of Sevens 13:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately IMDB's classification is a real mess. For example, they classify The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, Three Little Words, and Till the Clouds Roll By as musical films although each one is a biography (of Vernon and Irene Castle, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, and Jerome Kern respectively). They classify The Glenn Miller Story as a film biography (not a music film) and The Fabulous Dorseys as a biography and music film. So you see they are completely inconsistent. Please give concrete examples of films you would consider to be "Music Films" and not musical films. A more practical approach might be to use Musical Film Biography as a sub-genre to classify musicals based on real life composers, musicians, singers or entertainers. And let's not forget, most of the musical film biographies made by Hollywood were substantially fictionalised treatments anyway.Dermot 12:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)Dermot

Dermot...agreed! Besides there will always be movies that defy attempts to classify them as proposed above by the Ace. Look at the recent De-Lovely which is a bio of Cole Porter and has both perfectly realistic musical numbers, and also fantasy numbers. I doubt that Louis B. Mayer ever broke out into song and dance with Cole Porter while walking around the studio lot!

Tex 15:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with Ace of Sevens. Most film and musical scholars would include all of the above under musical, although I agree with the use of subgenres to classify them further. "Fantastical event" is not a precise definition; does this mean diegetic music with no visible diegetic source? But that occurs in many musical biographies as well those with a "fantastical" plotline. And where does that put musical realism vs. the backstage musical vs. completely fantastic premise (e.g. Finian's Rainbow')? IMDB is a mess and should not be used as a model!

Why not adopt the inclusive approach of one of the several fine encyclopedias on the topic, for instance Thomas Hischak's Film It With Music: An Encyclopedic Guide to the American Movie Musical (Greewood Press, 2001)? Hischak admits that the inclusion process was difficult, but states that "films with plenty of dance but little song . . . and movies with their scores heard more than seen performed . . . must be considered because that is what the movies musical evolved into in the late 1970s." (x)

The film Cabaret (film) is generally classified as a musical. I would not say that the songs are fantastical events, as they are part of the films night club setting. They are however a large part of the narrative. --87.127.117.246 11:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I've had a discussion/argument with a Musical Director as to what constitutes a musical: The controversial (between us, anyway) examples i'm shooting for here are The Nightmare Before Christmas, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and Moulin Rouge!. They have musical numbers, they are based on fantastical events, they have soundtracks, dance routines, and had scores were written for each (even if they are not publicly available). But do they count as 'proper' musicals? They have no stage production, and they are not split into acts! I would expand it to includes musical episodes of Scrubs and the like, but that would just be silly. JaffaCakeLover (talk) 12:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Non-musical films
According to one line in The musical film today, "In the early 2000's, the musical film began to rise in popularity once more…even [with] film versions of stage shows that were themselves based on non-musical films, such as The Producers, Hairspray and Sweeney Todd."

Um…The Producers and Hairspray are based off of films that are very much musical, and Sweeney Todd isn't even based on a film (though, yes, there are earlier film versions of the urban legend of Sweeney Todd). The only musical that fits this category, in fact, would be The Phantom of the Opera, which is largely based off of ''The Phantom of the Opera (1925 film).
 * — The Man in Question (talk) 23:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Disputed tag
This article has been tagged as disputed for some time, but it is not clear why. I recommend either that the tag be removed, or that we list the exact disputed details here at talk. Anyone have an opinion? --Elonka 10:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The tag was added in June 2006, disputing the defintion of a musical film "The musical film is a film genre in which several songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative. The songs are usually used to advance the plot or develop the film's characters." I can't see anything wrong with that explanation. Remove the tag. Thuresson (talk) 21:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm happy with the definition, but I see a lot of films on this list that I don't think many people would consider a "musical"; for example "For Those About to Rock", "Let's Spend the Night Together" and "The Last Waltz". The music isn't really woven into the narrative. The narrative breaks for concert footage. And the music doesn't really develop the plot or characters, it's just a music performance. The combination of narrative and music is done more as a documentary than a musical film. Even for fictional stories like "Hard Core Logo", "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains" and "This is Spinal Tap" (none of which appear in the list), the music isn't really woven into the narrative to advance the plot or character development, it's just concert footage.
 * Is there any concensus for removing some of these from the list? Or at least marking them as "(concert film)" as has been done with a few of them? Willondon (talk) 23:15, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Musical film list
The first paragraph of this entry gives a definition of a musical film which seems quite accurate to my eyes, yet the List of musical films by year gives many films which fall outside of the description given in this article. Which is correct, given that the two articles are at odds with each other? Cheers Deckchair (talk) 19:27, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Obfuscatory verbiage
Is use of the unexplained terms "deictic" and "diegetic" really appropriate in this general-interest Wikipedia article? They may be useful and socially acceptable among consenting adults discussing a Cahiers du Cinéma article in private, but here they just seem pretentious. More to the point, they will certainly perplex and deter most readers. AVarchaeologist (talk) 01:38, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Modern film musicals
Given that the film musical is enjoying a resurgence in popularity in the 21st century, I think it's necessary to have at least some mention of recent examples. I understand that a messy list isn't necessarily the way to go, but I believe that the information that was here should have been cleaned up and sourced rather than simply stripped out because it wasn't up to one editor's snuff. As it stands, the article reads, rather bizarrely, as if movie musicals ceased to exist after 1999, with a sole mention of Moulin Rouge. Pac if ic Bo y  21:56, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Bollywood and influence
While linking to the Bollywood page is appropriate, there needs to be some discussion in this article of the overall genre, IMHO. However, what's here now is both frustratingly specific and overly general. I don't have the resources to fix it myself, or I would. Also, I've taken the liberty of removing the section on Sauhraab Grover, which doesn't belong in a general survey article like this (and was unsourced to boot). Pac if ic Bo y  21:56, 1 June 2013 (UTC)