On a Clear Day You Can See the Cracks in the Scenery: Visual Reflexivity and Realism Trump Nostalgic Idealism

Abstract

Narrative elements of the musical, once so fully linked to the harmonious union of heterosexual couples, took a darker turn ideologically reflective of social conflict of the sixties and seventies and artistically reminiscent of shifts occurring both within the entertainment industries and motion picture style itself. The mixture of narrative darkness, egocentrism, and ambiguity prevalent in these integrated movie musical products of the late sixties to early eighties projects a generic ambivalence toward earlier established norms, and rather embraces the uncertainty prevalent in both the political and artistic moment. Compounding this narrative ambivalence that projects the genre as neither idealistic nor wholly nihilistic, a new sense of visual complexity emerged that embraced psychological subjectivity, community separation, and generic self-reflectivity. As with narrative shifts that destroyed the hazy idealism once so indicative of the musical, technical stylization closely reflects the innovations of the French New Wave and New American Cinema, as well as American and European avant-garde movements and these movements’ seeming opposite, Italian neo-realism. Techniques such as short shot length, jump cuts, freeze frame, and image superimposition help to replicate character subjectivity as these narratives turn in on themselves and often focus on the conflicted emotions and personal journeys of their protagonists.