fif-teen minutes

[fflo]

I have The Music Man on.  Again.  Surely I have seen this movie more times than any other movie, possibly by a margin of more times that the most times I've seen any other.  My folks, perhaps especially my father, were fans of it, to some extent, at least.  Sometimes I think about them when I see it, and why and how they might've liked it.  Sometimes I think about what a masternugget of Americana the musical is, and is comprised of, to the extent that any masternugget can be great without all the peoples it leaves out, and how it marginalizes some of its characters.  Sometimes I think about its values, and what kinds of human tendencies it has contempt for.  Sometimes I just enjoy the words; sometimes I just enjoy the actors; sometimes I just enjoy the music.  Sometimes I analyze its special ways of getting laughs.  Sometimes I think about its addressing of sexuality.  Sometimes I think about its message of redemption.  This time I find myself thinking about its suggestions about relationships, and how much I might've taken it all in, to heart, sinking down deep, from when I was a pup, and anyway how there might be evidence for that notion, if one were playing that game, which I am.  You can apply recovery to a work of art with its theoretical and philosophical lenses not unlike how you can look at literature through Marxism, or w/e other game.  This game tonight is about knowing me better.  Me knowing me better.  Me liking knowing me better.

Meanwhile it also has me liking Buddy Hackett, the little boy Ronnie Howard, the way we can now see the whole wide screen on our TVs (so all 4 Buffalo Bills, vs. 2 + 2/2), Pert Kelton, Lida Rose, Mary Wickes, that insane Hermione Gingold, the Wells Fargo wagon, the suggestion that there can be no sin in sincere, sthyncopation, the voice of Shirley Jones, and the blessed way the pursestring holders didn't get their way with recasting Robert Preston's virtuoso con man with Frank Sinatra in the part, and how sometimes the pursestring people don't get their pursestringholder way, ruining everything.

Comments

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched that movie in a yonk's age, and I think I've only seen it once all the way through. Maybe I should check it out from the library...

Though I still find myself earwormed with "Gary Indiana" from time to time. Certainly the music is drilled into my brain. I think maybe our elementary school music teacher had us sing songs from it.

[coconuthead.livejournal.com]

Not a wholesome trottin' race, no, but a race where they set down right on the horse
Like to see some stuck-up jockey boy settin' on Dan Patch?

I too am grateful for no Sinatra.

[yesididit2.livejournal.com]

pick a little, talk a little,
pick a little, talk a little,
cheep cheep cheep,
talk a lot, pick a little more

thats the one that earworms me from that movie. my parents were big fans too and i've seen it many times, though not recently.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

So I watched it the other night. Turns out I saw it once as a high school play as a kid. I recognized a couple of songs from the high school play that I didn't know were in "The Music Man." But I don't think I'd ever seen the movie all the way through--I must have caught a few fragments when other family members were watching it on TV when I was younger.

Elsewhere online, some people were talking about their personal touchstone musicals. Mine is actually West Side Story--the songs really hit me. But I can see how The Music Man could be someone's. I certainly enjoyed it. I even got how the magical transformation at the end actually made sense as either a subjective perception, or if you're more optimistic, a jump into the future. When I'd seen it out of context, it seemed like a bogus way to end the movie.

And yeah, the things you write make sense to me now. And I get that my elementary school music teacher was wrong about Ronny (spelled that way in the credits) Howard. She had us spit out "something special" because it was a little kid being cute, when actually it was a little kid who was deeply messed up at the start of the movie.

So yeah, thanks for getting me to see it all the way through for the first time.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm glad you enjoyed it. And yeah, people don't seem to pick up on how so much of the show/plot revolves around Winthrop's beginning to recover from the grief he was trapped in, along with being in his shell with his lisp. It's only cuz Harold Hill has delighted the boy that his sister doesn't rat out the con man, and then ends up feeling such fondness for him that they fall in love.

I know what you mean about the ending, too. I didn't get that either when I was younger. It was like What the hell?, only I wouldn't have put it that way exactly. Now I actually like thinking of it as a depiction of how it felt to the proud town to let itself enjoy and be proud of its band. When you really let yourself go and enjoy your art, after all, it's that triumphant, however much less polished the reality is to a(n imaginary) (so-called) "objective" observer.

I saw the West Side Story film outside this year, at Top of the Park, and realized I hadn't seen it all the way through since my high school English class watched it. There was a lot I didn't remember, and some stuff I'm pretty sure I didn't pick up the first time, or appreciate. Like the whole surreal atmospherics of it. The tension, as conveyed by the claustrophobic stylized streets and the lingering bits, visual and musical. For a long time I mostly remembered the parody versions of the songs my buddies and I made up ("When you're a Jet, you're a Jet you're a Jet you're a Jet you're a Jet you're a Jet you're a Jet", "Tonight, tonight, we're going to DIE tonight, tonight we're going to die, so let's SIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG...."). It was good to take it all in as a unit again, and let myself feel some of it sincerely.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Exactly about Winthrop. She never explicitly told Harold Hill that it was about Winthrop, but you just have to pay attention as an adult viewer to see that its the one thing that makes the plot add up.

And yeah, the ending, with that gawdawful performance of the Minuet. Which I now understand is a pretty damned good performance given their instruction, and isn't that much worse than some youtube videos I've seen of elementary school bands. Maybe the experiences I've had with amateur music have softened me up on that, and made me believe that if those kids were experimenting on their own, with the manuals, they could have actually done that. So while still comical, there's something believable about it.

I've only watched the Movie "West Side Story" once as an adult, but I've listened to the soundtrack a lot, so that's mostly what I key in on. Watching the movie I mostly noticed that Tony seemed more like a big goofus than a street tough, and I saw that Maria seemed to push Tony into a situation that he really couldn't do anything about that got him killed, so I was a bit annoyed with her.

But "somewhere" still chokes me up.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Plus, unlike in Romeo & Juliet, Maria doesn't even end up dead at the end! Some great love. I suppose a certain amount of blame belongs to his gang rapist buddies and how they treated Rita Moreno. Plot-wise.

But I suppose the fatalistic doom of it has to be there, to be a tragedy.

My ears are very warm. I didn't put sunblock on things that my hair was covering this morning, before I took off the cowboy hat, tied the hair back, and put a ballcap on. Man it was hot in the sun. I hope we get a new recruit or two for chorus outta that performance.

Hope you're having fun over at terminal 0.

-- L @ terminal L

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Havin' a blast here at Zero! (I like the way they spell out "Zero" on the assigner terminal.)

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Ooh, do they spell out "Oh"?

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure they don't.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Probably not "Eye" then, either.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

P.S. Speaking of chorus, there's a good chance we'll be singing "Somewhere" at our next concert. The theme is safe spaces, tho we lack a good title for it still. Maybe we could choke you up.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I'll make it through as long as I don't try to sing along.