How do spectacle and narrative figure into 42nd Street?
How does 42nd Street envision the viewer/fan turned creator? How does this film depict the potential of the fan? Is the fan located in/associated with narrative progression, spectacle, or both? Is this vision of fan potential gendered?
How does this film imagine the cinematic (or, in other words, the medium of cinema)? How does it, as cinema, address its viewers?
How can we think about questions of race in 42nd Street? How do discourses and representations of blackness & whiteness manifest in the film’s narrative and/or spectacle?
42nd Street is pure cinematic spectacle, loosely held together by the thinnest of narratives; it is not a film about the grandeur of theater, it is a film about the sequins and rhinestone covered quest for female sexualized stardom and popular acceptance. There are two main subjects within the film, the woman as object, and the visual possibility of the filmic. Cinema is represented in two ways, firstly, in the complete narrative and visual undermining of the art of theater. Throughout the entire film, we are limited to very thin and shallow visual portrayals of the rehearsing of the play itself; depictions so weak that we have no idea what the piece is supposed to even look like until the curtain comes up. The theater is further undermined in the crass, and haphazard casting process, by the incompetence and hostility of the director and the sloppy dance routines exhibited in rehearsals. This in turn provides a strong contrast for the cinematic climax of opening night – where the audience shifts from the supposed and seemingly make believe theatrical audience, to the camera, to us. This is articulated in two ways, through set design and spectacle angle. The fluid movement of elaborate sets and props is over the top for a theater production, furthermore, the camera supports angles that are not physically possible for an audience sitting in a theater to see – such as birds eye views of chorus girl choreography.
The image of the faceless chorus girl brings up another very important aspect of spectacle in 42nd Street – the objectification and fragmentation of the female body. Throughout the film, women are reduced to legs, both visually and narratively – as seen in the sexualized audition process. Furthermore, women are seen as interchangeable – an idea that comes to a climax when Peggy takes over the lead even though she doesn’t seem to have any brilliant or talented qualities that distinguish her from the other girls.
Spectacle clearly takes precedence over narrative in 42nd Street. The audience spends a good part of the movie watching musical numbers that separate them from the plot and take them into the world of gorgeous gowns, dashing men and women, and bright lights. This glamour and glitz is something that attracts the audience, but also takes away from the narrative of the film. The spectacle is what makes Busby Berkeley tick: his lavish sets, and intricate shots. This takes us out of the narrative, though, because it takes us out of the real world that is created in the film. As we circle over the heads of the dancers and performers, we cannot help but think that this is not how anyone would see the spectacle in the film’s audience, but is only made possible due to cinematic technology. Therefore, we are completely removed from the narrative and are given a show for purely aesthetic purposes.
42nd Street has a plot. There is no doubt about that, but we are directed to think more about the musical numbers because they stick with us more. The plot itself is rather cliché: small town girl with big dreams gets a chance on the big stage, but finds it is not necessarily the ideal life she believed it to be. There. It has been summed up in one sentence. The spectacle is what the movie is really about, exemplifying over-the-top sets. We cannot believe that these shows actually exist in the plot because of moments like the one in which we get a close up of a man and woman and then we pan out to see that the set in the background is completely different. This adds to spectacle because it removes the audience from reality and gives up any semblance of caring whether the audience of the film is to believe the story. The only relation between the story line and the scenes rampant with spectacle is the clear dichotomy between the richness of the musical numbers and the seediness of the actual theater business. Otherwise, we are clearly meant to focus on the legs, feathers, spinning stages, and elaborate sets.
Clearly, in the film 42nd Street, the choreography of Busby Berkeley has influenced the trajectory of spectacle and narrative. Patullo points out that Berkeley’s musicals do not try to integrate musical numbers with the plot of the film; rather, they separate the spectacle of the music and dance from the flow of the narrative. Whereas, in many other musicals characters spontaneously break into song and dance as part of an outgrowth of the story, this film operates as a backstage musical.
In this film, the cinematic is imagined as a medium of privilege, where viewers gain backstage access to theatrical performers, a sort of behind the scenes tour of their lives. It is only through cinema, not through live theatre, that a viewer can indulge his or her curiosity and wonder. In this way, narrative plays a key role. It is important for the audience to be emotionally invested in the intrigue, the web of relations between the different characters. Viewers can get a glimpse of what “really” goes on in New York City theatre circles. Not only do viewers of the cinematic have exclusive inside access to the performers, but it is only through the magic of cinema that theatrical spectacles can surpass the lavishness and extravagance of live theatre. The musical numbers, especially toward the end of the film, become unbelievably fantastic, with camera angles that could not possibly correspond with real life points of view. In this way, the audience is imagined to be invested in the show, the spectacle. This is the way in which the film imagines the cinematic: as a vehicle toward enhancing modifying the pleasures of the theatrical.
Although 42nd Street is a film about the production of a musical. There are many segments of the actors on screen playing actors rehearing for said musical; however I would not argue that they are meant for entertainment but for narrative. I was not particularly amused by the portions of the narrative where the actors were learning their dance moves, but I was interested in their selection process which is what inadvertently allows Peggy to get on screen.
Although 42nd Street possesses a lot of narrative with spectacle added into the mix, they are separate entities and operate differently within the film. There is definitely a difference between the moments in which there is only dialogue, or rehearsal of the song and dance, as opposed to the ending number in the film where the performance becomes spectacle. The reason that it is spectacle then and not before is because they are in full costume, there is no dialogue only song, and the key reason: the camera’s movements completely change. The camera is no longer simply showing the action, but it is a part of it as well, gliding from dancer to dancer, going underneath the women’s legs, and zooming to the top to catch the action from overhead.
The film portrays the potential of the fan in a very positive way. It sends out the message that with the proper luck or if the opportunity were to present itself, the everyday fan could also become a glamorous star. In a way, it is this kind of image, this selling of an ideal, that perhaps kept/keeps young women wanting more and more Hollywood. Not only can they watch these films for entertainment’s sake, not only can they envision themselves in the starring role beside their handsome Hollywood love interest, but they are given that miniscule glimmer of a hope that it could potentially become a reality. 42nd Street does a good job at selling that dream in a somewhat realistic way.
On the surface, 42nd Street is a film about a Broadway theatrical production. We watch all the preparations for the show but, as if we didn’t have an “inside glimpse” to this (fictional) production at all, we are not given anything close to an actual performance until the very end—like the general public, we must wait for opening night to see the play. Then, in an interesting structural decision, we watch several selections from the play, nearly uninterrupted by events outside the play-within-a-film’s diegesis—but more on this later.
For the vast majority of the film, the style could more or less be called “realistic”; at least as realistic as any classical Hollywood film is, in that it does not call attention to the nature of the medium itself (and, in fact, tries to hide it). Signs of some other cinematic style begin to creep into the film leading up to that “opening night”, but once the show actually begins, any guise of visual “realism” is blown wide open. Earlier on, there suddenly appears a shot of two characters conversing, taken from up near the catwalks and at a strange angle; the shot is jarring for its lack of narrative purpose and its contrast to the utilitarian choice of shots up to that point. But this proves to be merely a small taste of what is to come.
Once Peggy makes her last minute shift into the lead role and the show begins, the style begins to shift—namely, narrative begins to fade away to make way for spectacle. At this point, the key narrative element that we as viewers are concerned with is whether Peggy will be a success in her starring role. So I found myself mainly watching her face for signs of stress are discomfort. If narrative were more at the center in this sequence, we would probably be afforded shots of the audience and gauge their reaction to this unknown actress appearing in the starring role. But we don’t, and after watching Peggy for a bit, it becomes clear that she has seamlessly transitioned into the star role (a bit unbelievable, but again, “believability” of narrative has become unimportant here), so I stopped focusing on her and began focusing on the spectacle of the show itself.
Similarly to how we never see shots of the audience, the play itself appears as if it was staged for the camera alone—during “Shuffle Off To Buffalo”, there are pans and close-ups, which are not consistent with how we view real life theater. Shots like this only increase—most famously with a birds-eye shows dancers making abstract geometrical patterns, and a low angle shot moving under the dancers’ legs—and narrative disappears altogether to make way for spectacle, climaxing in the extremely elaborate designs during the titular song. But the most important thing to take away is that when spectacle takes over for narrative, I didn’t really mind.
The film “42nd Street” illustrates a relatively straight forward, but nevertheless interesting dynamic between spectacle and narrative. While the two are separated in a pretty clear way, the effect that it has on audiences is quite significant in that it is able to give the audience a feeling of participation. Connected to this desire of participation is the idea of fandom which is addressed in the narrative of the film. The combination of this fan culture narrative and the ability to hook audiences in with the spectacle/narrative balance, makes the film quite gripping for certain viewers.
As discussed in Pattullo’s reading, Busby Berkeley had a distinct choreographical and directoral style in his show-within-a-show, “backstange musicals.” By separating the spectacle and the narrative in an aggregate way, viewers get the narrative behind the scenes look, and then a completely different performance spectacle. This dynamic is very effective in that the audience feels like a part of the artistic process when they see the backstage narrative aspects, which very much adds to their enjoyment of the spectacle. An example of this separation in “42nd Street” is when are main characer Peggy is rehearsing for hours and hours to the point of collapse minutes before her performance, and yet during the actual dance numbers at the end of the film the character shows no sign of fatigue. The musical numbers, while still within the realm of the narrative, are completely separate performances.
In terms of fan culture, the plot has much to do with the idea of real world fans getting their big break and rising to the top, much like the story we saw in “Prix du Beauté.” Fan culture of the time, a predominantly feminine one, was filled with fans who idolized the films and the stars and dreamed to one day become one. The story of Peggy who barely gets cast into the show in the first place and ends up becoming a star is a storyline that many fans would be interested in. In addition, the behind the scenes aspects of the plot (even though they are about theater and not necessarily film) could give fans who were intrigued about the mystical filmmaking process a view of what actors, directors, and producers go through to make a show. The participation effect discussed early is only more effective when dealing with an audience of fans who are already hungry to participate in the first place.
At their cores, narrative and spectacle find kinship in their shared need for motion. They require agency, obstacle, intrigue, and surprise, and for what? Something in the human mind is intrinsically attracted. And so in terms of an audience perspective, differences between the two are often nominal if not entirely moot, because they are inevitably intertwined in a medium of art that is as physical as it is cerebral.
Thus “42nd Street” remains as a relic of a failed venture, because the joined narrative and spectacle were forcably and awkwardly defined and divided. Lauren Pattullo describes Berkeley’s division of “narrative and number” as being so rigid as to require a second director to handle the story side of things, while Berkeley exclusively choreographed. This distinction comes across as artistically fresh to some, though for me the style creates a disjointedness in “42nd Street”, where it seems less like one film cleanly split into components and more like two films spliced and glued together.
Berkeley’s stated desire to avoid mixing narrative and number, together with his obvious allegiance to the number side of production, creates an inevitable bias against the narrative, and an alignment not unlike a neo Méliès, where narrative simply gets you to a spectacle. In this case, why use narrative at all?
For Berkeley, I feel directing purely dance numbers would have been appropriate. After all, his innovation with the camera sufficiently separates his work from any stage dance of the era, and his engagement in that particular medium shows through much more readily. Yet his complacency to near-narrative ends up working entirely against him, making the movie into a kind of creative shotgun wedding that looks, ultimately, as half-done as it was half-directed.
The intention was no doubt pure, but it’s result is diluted, because above any semantic argument about narrative and spectacle, above any assignment of the “right” use of cinema, the golden rule of art stands that the engagement of the audience is only assured through engagement of the artist. So when Berkeley only focuses on half the production, how are we expected to respect the whole presentation?
Starting an essay with a definition is not considered a strong way to open an essay, but for clarity the word “cinematic” should be defined. For the purpose of this essay, “cinematic” will refer to qualities of cinema that set it apart from the other arts. While all of the other arts can pertain to film, theater bears the strongest resemblance to the films of Busby Berkeley. Busby Berkeley, as evident in films like 42nd Street, imagines the cinematic as superior
While 42nd Street is structured similarly to a backstage musical one might see on stage, Busby Berkeley reveals a clear preference for the cinematic over the theatrical. Despite his film’s prevalent theatrical themes, the spectacle of the film is tied to the cinematic. Berkeley uses the theater not as a vehicle to showcase the thrill of live performance, but exploits the conventions of theater to deliver cinematic spectacle.
Lauren Pattullo, in her essay titled “Narrative and spectacle in the Hollywood musical: contrasting the choreography of Busby Berkeley and Gene Kelly” writes “The extravagance of Berkeley’s numbers may be seen to discredit the realism attempted by the narrative sequences, or else heighten the sense of spectacle achieved by the numbers.” In this same way, Berkeley’s numbers discredit the realism of its theater setting. The camera moves freely and fluidly, framing the action in ways that violate the logic of the stage. In one instance, the camera moves into a room in the set, and we see action inside this small room that would be impossible to see if this performance were actually performed on stage.
There are numerous times during the musical numbers when the camera invites the audiences into the spectacle, in a purely cinematic way. For instance, when the camera moves between the dancer’s legs, the audience is treated to an effect that can only be captured on film. The Coen brothers, who undoubtedly have an appreciation for the film medium, paid homage to this scene in The Big Lebowski, preserving its hypnotic repetition while imbuing a hallucinatory sensation. Neither scene would carry the same effect on stage. On film, size is fluid. The dancers’ legs can be both small components of a larger geometric shape, or large arches under which to pass.
The “backstage” element of 42nd Street serves to provide the film with logical framework, even if the logic of the stage it is violated to some degree later on. The geometric dance sequences that made Busby Berkeley famous are wondrous displays that would not have the same impact on stage, where the viewers’ vantage point is static. By tearing himself away from the constraints of theater, Berkeley delivers a cinematic spectacle to the audience, unencumbered by the stage.
While Busby Berkeley’s career is neatly written off as a series of films that cohere to the plot/number model, it seems as though 42nd Street steps outside of this classification. Indeed this film does contain plot/number elements; the narrative assumes a natural continuity between the musical numbers and the story, allowing a coherent diegesis (Pattullo: 75). Because the film follows a Broadway troupe’s preparations for a musical performance, when the break in narrative arrives it is to show the viewer what they have been waiting for all along. This is not to write off the dance numbers by any means, in fact the viewer will certainly awe in the synchronized movements that form what actually is moving human architecture. Surely the spectacle is the dance and music numbers however, the narrative makes the viewer wait, anticipate and appreciate this spectacle.
The narrative is an emotional rollercoaster with a medley of characters, all intertwined together in some way. Specifically, the unfilled love between the show’s leading lady, Dorothy and Pat, her out of work partner from her vaudeville days, is undeniably engaging due to her current unbearable “sugar daddy.” Throughout the film, outside forces make their relationship turbulent. To finally see her throw out the wealthy benefactor and then watch as Pat comes to her aid after her ankle is sprained becomes all the more fulfilling since this opens the lead to the sweet-faced newcomer. Everybody wins and the culmination of these tribulations is the musical performance. It almost functions as a gift to the audience to see the fruits of the troupe’s labor and particularly to see the starry-eyed new comer, Peggy, get the lead.
Peggy is essentially the “fan turned creator.” Fame has and will always be the aspiration of hundreds of females (or at least media construct has intoned us to believe so). To see the average girl work hard and become successful, even at Dorothy’s expense, is satisfying because the audience can and has always sought to identify with the characters on the screen.
Let Them Get Comfortable and Then Hit Them With The Good Stuff!
42nd Street is a backstage musical that uses the medium of cinema to get the audience involved with making a theater performance while trying to dazzle them at the same time. The film addresses the viewer by allowing them to go behind the scenes of a theater show and then ending with a grand performance to dazzle them. It’s as if the viewer were seeing how this movie was made possible throughout the strenuous rehearsals, financial and relationship problems. As Feuer explains in the Pattullo article, the audience experience “double identification” and “demystification” (p.75) are present in backstage musicals. This movie wants the viewer to feel like they are a part of the process of putting on a performance while also putting on a final show for the audience, thus providing a spectacle for the audience. We, the audience, get to see how hard it is to make a film and thus feel that we are actually involved in making the film. However, when they are practicing for the final showing the camera tends to be placed right where the audience would sit. It even pans around to show us a few of the audience members sitting there with us. This represents the ‘double identification’ of the audience. 42nd Street then performs the final showing in which demonstrates as the demystification of the audience. We were allowed access that showed how this theater performance was put together but are then exposed to so much more that we didn’t see and are given private access to the final show. This occurs when we watch the finale from the audience stand point, however, the camera then gives us different angles, which the audience wouldn’t get. We are taken above the stage, go through the dances legs, and get close up profiles of the two main characters at the end. We were demystified when learning how the show was done, but then were hit again with a spectacle that we were only allowed to see, thus breaking us a part from the normal viewing audience present watching the performance. This film, and backstage musicals during the 1930’s, used the medium of cinema to present an insiders look to the art while at the same time preparing them to ultimately be dazzled by the production they just watched come to fruition.
As one glides between pair after pair of bare open legs, following the camera towards its destination: two star actors lazing and gazing, singing into the open legs— one comes to the realization that 42nd Street’s cinematography and choreography may not be designed for theatrical audiences as much so as for a cinematic viewer. The film envisions the cinematic experience as being one capable of transporting the viewer to new points of view, allowing the viewer to gain access to theatrical spaces that otherwise would be utterly inaccessible. Another way of describing 42nd Street’s cinematic aesthetic could be to return to that lovely malleable word: spectacle. The film’s spectacle is not only the appeal of seeing a massive troupe of girls dancing in unison, legs revealed, but that the viewer’s perspective is not limited to his or her theatrical seat in the audience. The camera permits the viewer to slide between the girls’ legs, or to merely pan and note details of a theatrical set that otherwise would blend in with the vast array of action. In the final dancing number, the camera focuses in on a variety of these details that would not be viewable from any theatrical seat, even from the front row. A barber pulsates as he shaves a customer— both barber and customer pushed back into the corner of the shop, a newspaper under a man’s arm reads “Extra,” an Indian statue dances, a man beats his wife behind the security of their apartment walls… One or two of these details may be noticeable for a viewer from afar. Perhaps, the viewer’s eye would have happened to fall upon the Indian, but such an occurrence would be coincidental, due solely to that wandering eye, because the play’s central action is occurring elsewhere on stage. The advantage of a camera is that it is able to direct the viewer’s eye to these details. 42nd Street uses this spectacle of increased visual access to its advantage. It does not need to wait for the abused wife to go out the window to describe the play’s narrative world and show her attempting to flee. In sum, the film addresses its viewer in uncovering metaphorical viewing booths, peepholes that allow the audience to travel along with the action. Whereas Kelly’s choreography includes musical numbers that bend the narrative’s coherence, having the actors sing and dance throughout the film, Berkely’s choreography in 42nd Street does the opposite. The dance numbers appear due to narrative causality. But then once the dance numbers begin, they do not necessarily have to pertain to the narrative. The appeal of these parts of the film is the experience of being a theatrical viewer gaining a filmic perspective. The film considers itself cinematic not only because it is able to fly and glide between those open legs, but because the viewer happily floats along as well. In other words, the viewer is the film’s accomplice. What is the crime?… pure visual delight.
The film, 42nd Street, works one-sided in the sense that it almost agrees with author Lauren Patullo’s analytical essay on the stylistic portrayals of choreography in relation to story/plot within cinema word for word. Here, Lloyd Bacon’s film incorporated a number of thematic issues regarding the business of Broadway productions by allowing the audience to see how a production needs in order to become a final product. Also, as compared to the creative process of dance numbers produced by Busby Berkley this film consisted of dance numbers and singing spectacles completely independent of the narrative.
Ironically, the spectacle became part of the background in relation to the narrative. Unlike spectacled musicals, where numbers are usually related to the particular narrative—or according to Lauren Patullo, not if it’s a Busby Berkley production. In 42nd Street, the spectacle serves as a goal to be used as a method to attaining success, which also parallels the other characters incorporation in the plot. Further, the show serves as a foundational performance for individuals on the road to success. In the film, character, Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler), is a naïve, yet innocent performer looking for a chance to “make the cut.” By the end of the film, Peggy is entrusted by the entire staff/cast to play the lead role, which will either be her ground-breaking role or become her one and only performance in show-business. Judging by the importance for this one show to succeed and her charm throughout the film we assume Peggy attains success and that everyone else will be alright.
In this sense, the narrative drives the tone of the entire film, while the deadline of the show sets the pace, but the only point the spectacle is seen occurs when we see the women auditioning, practicing, and performing in the final scene. I feel the women are gendered and are thus spectacled throughout the film, but have all taken a back seat to the overall story arc/narrative in contrast with the spectacle.