Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Snowflake]

Originally Posted by JWBear
While I adore SITR, imo his masterpiece is the American in Paris ballet sequence.

iSm said:
IMHO, the American in Paris ballet sequence is an overbloated, far overlong, pretentioius segment of nonsense and non-musicality.


By contrast, the swift, tight, ultra-musical, story-in-five-minutes Broadway Melody ballet in SitR is genius incarnate.


Less is more.

Difference:
American in Paris - Vincent Minnelli
Singin in the Rain - Stanley Donen

IMO, Donen always, always had a much lighter touch and easy feel with the films and musicals he directed.

Minnelli, while admittedly an artist has always struck me as pretentious. He's also left us one of the hootiest fun films in The Cobweb (and a few other stinkers, too). As much as I love looking at The Pirate, it's a misfire. Lush, yes, but a little too rich sometimes. I'm with iSm on this, I think. Then again, I will watch Oscar Levant in anything. :-)