Is our culture exhausted? I’m of two minds, but there are signs of fatigue, if not decline. Last night, I finished watching “My Fair Lady” on Netflix in HD and through my stereo system, as close as I can get to a theater experience for a film from 1964. It was magnificent and got me to wondering why we seem incapable of producing such cinematic grandeur today.
Not that there haven’t been attempts, but for me, they don’t measure up. Sorry, “La La Land” and “Chicago”, the two most recent endeavors to capture the magic, are poor knock-offs. The material elements are present in the physical choreography and vocalizations, and, yet, the whole package appears as a cheap imitation.
One factor for the debasement might have something to do with Hollywood’s zeal to be edgy. By edgy, I mean norm-busting: the unrelenting pressure to be a challenge to what used to be considered wholesome. It’s oft-putting and takes away from the synergistic combination of artistry, craftsmanship, and cinematography.
The zenith of the musical probably was the 1950s-60s. After that, it’s all downhill to the CGI/rapid-imagery, stale scripts, and unremarkable and uninspiring music of today. It’s so bad that the downfall of the musical coincides with the downfall of the Oscars. Who cares, except for the old stuff?
Please watch this performance of the wonderful song “On the Street Where You Live” from “My Fair Lady”. If you can, run it through a set of good speakers. Nothing from Hollywood’s current repertoire compares.
RogerG