Movie Musicals- The Beginning

This post is dedicated to the musicals that I love that began with film. It is interesting looking at those- because some of them are childhood musicals and some entered my life past childhood when I was in high school and some entered my life as a college student.

Annie- This is one of my childhood musicals. It at one point was my favorite musical. I was optimistic as a child, and I think that was a huge reason why I was drawn to Annie. There is something special about loving a musical since you were a child. There is kind of nostalgia attached to it. The beginning of my love was the 1982 movie. Later in 2014 at the age of 20, I finally saw the stage show, and I did feel like a kid again. My favorite song in Annie is “Tomorrow”.

Sound of Music- This falls in the same category that Annie falls into- childhood musical. Who can’t love Sound of Music when they see it in film or stage. My favorite song was Edelweiss and still is- it was my first piano recital song. The songs are easy to sing along to. I saw the stage show in 2015 at the age of 21, and now love Sound of Music more than ever. I did feel like a kid again watching it- Edelweiss is more emotional than it used to be.

Mamma Mia- I fell in love with this in high school (I think). Cannot believe that just year, Mamma Mia reached a huge milestone in my life- last marked ten years since I fell in love with it. It is very happy and light-hearted. So I was 14 when I fell in love with Mamma Mia.

SPOILERS

Les Mis- I was 18 when I first saw the movie of Les Mis, but 19 when I became a fan of the movie. Yes, that sounds confusing, but I am going to explain.

I did first see the movie December 2012. I came into the film blind to a number of things. I did hear “I Dreamed a Dream” before. I was unsure coming in. After Fantine died: I realized something: Les Mis was a tragedy- I was shocked and confused- I did not know to respond. Tragedy was a genre I never saw in musicals and a genre I was close-minded to. At the end, I did not know if I liked Les Mis. Despite the confusion, I started researching the musical (not knowing why). So rocky start.

I do not know why, but I gave the film a 2nd chance. I still sometimes wish I know why I gave it a 2nd chance, but glad I did it give a 2nd chance. If I didn’t give the film a 2nd chance, Les Mis would not have been a part of my life. This time, I was aware that Les Mis was a tragedy so it would not come as much of a shock. I began to realize there was something special in Les Mis. So my love for Les Mis began the 2nd time I saw the film, and that was in 2013. There are so many reasons why I love Les Mis- the brilliant songs, the tragic, but inspiring story, and the characters. I cannot put into words why I love Les Mis.

Marius, Enjolras, Grantaire

Man of La Mancha- I don’t know what year it was when I first saw the film of Man of La Mancha. However, I know I was still a college student. I remember doing a Spanish project on the character, Don Quixote, who is a character from the book, Don Quixote. I was fascinated by the fact that he is a tragicomic character. Tragicomic does sound like an unusual sort of type of character- those characters are tragic and comic at the same time. Due to that project I wanted to see Man of La Mancha, which is based off of the book. Man of La Mancha is one of the musicals that barely gets attention on this blog.

For someone who loves the language, Spanish, I loved being able to see the movie musical. The songs do have a hispanic feel in some way. I do love Man of La Mancha. I just haven’t really mentioned that I love it.

Beauty and the Beast- I am a 90s kid, so you know I grew up with the Disney classics that include Beauty and the Beast. I did kind of at one point sort of forget about Beauty and the Beast at one point- did not mean to do. However, my love for Beauty and the Beast still began with the classic movie from the 1990s. Even I did kind of forget, I never forget about the song, “Beauty and the Beast”- I don’t know what it is, but there is something about Disney love songs that are so magical and just have this kind of innocence. In 2017- when I saw the live action Beauty and the Beast movie, I was reminded of my love for Beauty and the Beast many many years ago.

Belle and Beast

Lion King/ Aladdin- The same thing did happen with Aladdin and Lion King. I did kind of forget about them, but never forgot about the main love song- “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and “A Whole New World”- so if I remembered those songs, there had to be have been some kind of memory. That is because after elementary school (at some point)- I just stopped watching them. At least I remembered the main love song.

Princess Jasmine and Aladdin

Simba and Nala

White Christmas- this is one of my favorite holiday movies. It is one of the main three Christmas movies I want to see every Christmas holiday. It is hard to exactly describe why I love it.

Fiddler on the Roof- I got to see this in 2014 when a church friend leant us 5 movies before a snow storm, which was back when I was a student at CPCC. School was cancelled for about two days. So part of what I did was watch the movie musicals that I was leant. Fiddler on the Roof was one of the movies. I love Fiddler on the Roof- despite the actual movie musical being 3 hours long- yes, I don’t mind stage musicals being 3 hrs, but a movie musical being 3 hrs can be a bit too long. In 2014- I was 20. The other movies that were leant at the time were Oklahoma, South Pacific, Camelot, and West Side Story- I ended up watching all of them.

What are some stage musicals you fell in love with beginning with film?

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Why I Love Man of La Mancha

One musical I never mentioned on this blog is Man of La Mancha. It is one of my favorite musicals. I first discovered the musical when I first heard of the book, Don Quixote. I read Don Quixote summer of 2016. I do not know what semester it was, but I did a project on Don Quixote once and had the class listen to “The Impossible Dream”, the title song.

Man of La Mancha is an underrated musical. It is not that well-known. It is a musical that has the concept of a show within a show. The character of Don Quixote can be a bit confusing as he is a tragicomic character. I love the pairing of the knight-errant, Don Quixote, and his squire, Sancho Panza. The songs sound hispanic and make you believe you are in Spain. My favorite song is “The Impossible Dream”. The other lead character is Aldonza, who Don Quixote believes is Dulcinea. A lot of why I love Man of La Mancha is my love for Hispanic Culture.

Have you heard of Man of La Mancha?

 

 

Favorite Protagonist Musical Songs

Today, I thought it would fun to make a list of musical songs sung by protagonists. There might be some duets because some musicals have two protagonists.

1. Tomorrow
2. Where is Love
3. What Have I Done
4. Who am I
5. Bring Him Home
6. Wizard and I
7. Popular
8. I’m Not That Girl
9. For Good
10. Defying Gravity
11. Santa Fe
12. Impossible Dream
13. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again
14. Sound of Music
15. Seventy Six Trombones
16. Home
17. Corner of the Sky
18. One Song Glory
19. What You Own
20. Your Eyes

What are some of your Favorite Protagonist Musical Song?

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Describing Musical Soundtracks

Today, I decided to describe some of my favorite musical soundtracks.

1. Les Mis- revolutionary, passionate, epic, heart-renching
2. Wicked- fun, exciting, Ozian
3. Sound of Music- exciting, heartwarming
4. Newsies- passionate, exciting, fun
5. Beauty and the Beast- fun, exciting, magical, romantic, heartwarming
6. South Pacific- exciting, romantic
7. Pippin- exciting
8. Man of La Mancha- hispanic-sounding
9. Annie- exciting, optimistic
10. Music Man- fun, exciting, light-hearted
11. Phantom of the Opera- haunting, romantic, beautiful
12. Rent- life
13. Grease- exciting, fun

How would you describe some of your favorite musical soundtracks? Are the words I picked accurate?

My Feelings On Death in Musicals

I have mixed feelings when it comes to a death in a musical. The ones that have existed have been either bizarre or funny, constantly overlooked, or memorable and emotional. The thing is growing up I always thought a death would always not be interesting or even worth it. I did see musicals where a character did die growing up, but those kept on being overlooked or I completely forgot what happened in the musical.

For a warning: this will be a spoiler heavy post

For starters, musical deaths can be overlooked. One of the most overlooked deaths comes from a musical I have seen live four times. Wicked has a death involved in it, but I always overlook it all the time. Nessa, Elphaba’s sister dies in act II after a house lands on her after a tornado. I know it happens, but to this day, I still overlook it, which is kind of odd because I have such a personal bond to Elphaba so why would I overlook what happens to her sister? But then again, all do you is hear about her death, not exactly watch it, which is why I might be overlooking it and I keep on being so involved in the friendship story and the love triangle story of Fiyero, Elphaba, and Glinda and as a result, I keep on forgetting about things that happen to both Boq and Nessa.

So, I just called some musical deaths bizarre and funny. How in the world can you call a death bizarre or even funny, which sounds a bit ironic. Well, the musical, Little Shop of Horrors, does have the antagonist of a man-eating plant so it does eat characters throughout the show. Just watching the plant eat certain characters is funny and in a way quite bizarre because this musical has some of the most unrealistic deaths ever. I find it funny seeing both Orin and Mr. Mushnik fed to the plant.

In the stage show, Audrey and Seymour are eaten by the plant too, but in the movie they are not. So I don’t know what to think when it comes to both of their deaths. Of the entire musical, those are the only two characters I love. When I saw Little Shop of Horrors this year, I wanted to cry at Audrey’s death, but I didn’t. Seymour ran into the shop and saw Audrey about to be eaten by the plant and did pull her out, but the plant did fatally wound her and a reprise of “Somewhere That’s Green” is sung and she dies in Seymour’s arms and in the end after she died, Seymour did feed her to the plant. I wanted to yell at the plant constantly throughout the musical. Still I don’t know how to describe Seymour and Audrey when it comes to death when they die in the stage show and live in the movie, which makes no sense to me one bit.

When I saw Man of La Mancha in 2015, I already knew there was going to be a death in the musical due to a Spanish project I recently completed. I learned that Don Quixote is a tragicomic character and I knew he was going to die in the story. When I saw that scene, I remember crying. But I have seen some deaths that are more memorable than his.

So far the most memorable and emotional deaths come from the same musical. Les Mis has some of the most memorable deaths ever. It does have a high death toll in it, which is hard to get used to at first. There is something about Les Mis that makes me really care about these characters. Most of these characters do not die alone, but they are with someone at the time of their death, which gives them joy, peace, and comfort and sometimes shown compassion. These deaths have made me get emotional and have even reduced me to tears due to the love I love at the songs that happen at their deaths and the relationship I have created to the characters.

Fantine is the first to die in Les Mis and she dies of sickness. She dies with Valjean by her side. Valjean shows compassion in two ways: 1) he stays with her till she dies and 2) he promises to raise her daughter, Cosette as his own. Good thing there is a big gap between her death and the second one. Fantine dies early in the first act, but you don’t get another death until act II, which is when the barricades are. “Come to Me” does play a role her death being memorable.

The second character to die is Eponine and she gets to die, despite being shot, in Marius’ arms, the boy she loves, and he ends up showing her compassion by staying with her till she dies even though he is quite heartbroken. Her death is memorable and “A Little Fall of Rain” is a reason why I love this death. It sounds crazy that you actually “love” seeing a favorite character die-well, yes seeing a favorite character die in a musical can be devastating, but I still am moved and touched and I actually am happy in Eponine’s death as well because I am happy seeing her happy for once in her life.

The students and Gavroche die for what they believe in and all of them lose their lives except for Marius, which really shows just how unsuccessful the June Rebellion of 1832 was. Gavroche was just a kid, but he still died for what he believed in. The students stayed passionate even in death.

Javert actually in my opinion has the saddest death because he commits suicide so he is the only character who actually dies alone, but from my point of view, his death is the least memorable and it is hard to feel for Javert throughout his story. I just have a hard time finding common ground with him. But you can find actors who make you care about his journey. The only Javert who has managed to do that even at his suicide scene is my Javert in the West End.

The last character to lose their life in all of Les Mis belongs to Jean Valjean. He ends up dying with Marius, his now son-in-law and Cosette, his adopted daughter by his side. He truly has become a better person throughout the years. While Valjean dies at least he gets to die in peace and at least he gets to see Cosette one last time. So many characters lose their lives in Les Mis and you feel like you personally get to know them and their deaths are so memorable. Part of it has to do with the songs that are sung as they are dying and part of it has to do with how well you get to know the characters.

I have many opinions about deaths in musicals. It can be hard to watch a favorite character die especially if you feel like you grow close to them. The overlooked deaths are crazy because I know they happen, but I still overlook those-part of that comes from lack of songs and focusing on a different part of the story when you watch it-that is what I do with Wicked.

I cannot believe I once told myself, A DEATH CAN NEVER BE MEMORABLE-part of why I told myself that is that I couldn’t exactly remember the deaths I had already seen and there were no songs for the deaths to be memorable. I also told myself A MUSICAL SONG CAN NEVER BE ABOUT DEATH.

Turns out Les Mis proved me wrong and I learned that even at a favorite character’s death, you can be touched. It seems as though songs like “A Little of Rain”, “Come to Me”, and “Finale” make those deaths memorable and so worth it and the fact the students die for standing up for what they believe in. The bizarre and funny deaths sounds odd, but that is where the fun of Little Shop of Horrors comes from. Death is just a hard thing to watch in a musical, but Les Mis makes it easy to cope with the deaths due to the songs.

What are your feelings of death in a musical?

Musicals I fell in Love with Through the Movies

Yesterday, I talked about musicals I fell in love with through the music. Today, I want to talk about musicals I fell in love with initially by the movies. Movies are the easiest way to access musicals and as a result, I fell in love with more musical first by the movies more than by songs alone.

Grease is one of the musicals I fell in love with through the movie. I remember when I was younger that the song, “We Go Together”, was my favorite song as a child due to its funny lyrics. I also love “Summer Nights” as well.

First up belong is the 1982 version of Annie. It was my childhood favorite musical in elementary school. I loved Annie due to her optimism and my favorite song was always “tomorrow”. Later in 2014, I was finally able to see the stage show. Even today, Annie still makes me feel like a kid again.

Similar to Annie, I fell in love with Sound of Music in childhood through the movie. I always loved songs like “My Favorite Things” and “Do Re Mi” and my personal favorite “Edelweiss”.

Just like Annie, I eventually saw the stage production. I saw the stage production of Sound of Music in 2015 and it still makes me feel like a kid and my love for it grew. This musical and Annie holds a special place in my heart due to loving them since childhood.

Next up is Beauty and the Beast. To be honest, I did love the animated movie in childhood. I loved the song “Beauty and the Beast” for sure. But there came a point where I did kind of forget I once loved the movie. It was the 2017 live movie that brought back my love for Beauty and the Beast. I never once forget about the song, “Beauty and the Beast”, in this Disney classic. Besides “Beauty and the Beast”, I also love “Be Our Guest”, “Something There”, “Gaston”, and “Belle” among others.

Mamma Mia was a musical I fell in love with in high school through the movie. It is so happy and so fun. Complete with ABBA songs, it is a wonderful movie to watch. My favorite among the ABBA songs is Dancing Queen.

Another musical I fell in love with through the movie is Les Mis. I never would have imagined I would fallen in love with a musical like Les Mis. I was the person who believed all musicals were happy. Les Mis showed me that tragic musicals exist and that heartbreak is a musical emotion. This movie is a wonderful movie and to this day still reduces me to tears. It is a wonderful tale of hope, love, compassion, forgiveness, sacrifice, humanity, and redemption. My love for the movie eventually led to me seeing the stage show both at community college and in London. I could go on and on about the importance of Les Mis in my life.

Of all musical movies, it is one of the most meaningful. I love its songs such as “One Day More”, “On My Own”, “I Dreamed a Dream”, and “Do You Hear the People Sing”.

Singing in the Rain is another musical I fell in love with through the movie. It is so happy and fun. Its incredible dance numbers are fun to watch. I love watching Singing in the Rain and i love just how light hearted it is. I love songs such as “Singing in the Rain”, “Make Em Laugh” and “Good Morning”.

I fell in love with South Pacific through the movie. It was in Winter of 2014. School was cancelled for about four days due to snow and four musical movies were leant to my family to watch and South Pacific was one of them. Through numbers such as “There is Nothing Like A Dame”, “Some Enchanted Evening”, and “Younger Than Springtime”, South Pacific is a wonderful love story.

Fiddler on the Roof was also leant to my family during the snowstorm in 2014. I love the movie of this musical. I love songs such as “Tradition” and “Matchmaker”. I fell in love with the musical through the movie as well.

White Christmas is another musical I fell in love with through the movie. I loved everything the two two army people did for their general. I still don’t the names of any of the songs. It is just a wonderful holiday classic to watch every Christmas.

In either Christmas break of 2015 or 2016, I finally got to watch the movie of Man of La Mancha. My dad was got me interested in Don Quixote. In summer of 2016, I read the novel. I love the tale of the tragicomic knight. My favorite song from this musical is “The Impossible Dream”. Its song sound hispanic and is quite well.

I recently saw the movie musical of Oliver. It was such a well done movie. True, I first saw Oliver through the stage production, but due to not remembering seeing it, that doesn’t truly count. Well, the movie was very well done. I loved the movie of Oliver. Through the fun numbers like “Consider Yourself” and the more emotional numbers like “As Long As He Needs Me”, Oliver is a wonderful adaption of Dickens classic Novel.

Movie musicals are a wonderful way to access musicals. For me, I prefer seeing musicals live over watching musical movies, but what I love about musical movies is that I am able to fall in love with a new musical quicker. Tomorrow’s post will focus on the musicals I fell in love with through the stage production.

What are some movies you fell in love with first by the movies? Did they eventually lead to the stage production?

Musicals I Love With Sad In It

This sounds like a crazy post. Well, the musicals I tend to be drawn to are complex and have both positive and negative emotions in it. Below I will write a list of the musicals that I love where sad has been involved and that only counts if it was in the songs, but not where it wasn’t that capable.

1. Sound of Music
2. Wicked
3. Newsies
4. South Pacific
5. Phantom of the Opera
6. Rent
7. Les Mis
8. Beauty and the Beast
9. Man of La Mancha

Why do I love feeling the negative emotions in these if they are going to hurt? Well, musical emotions come in two sets, which only applies to positive emotions. There are the positive emotions that are naturally part of the show and than there are the emotions that naturally apply to the experience. I feel like those with sad going on feel more real to me. Some of these musicals actually took some time until I realized sad was in some of them. But some, I knew on the very first round that sad is a piece of them.

Possible Spoilers:

Wicked was the musical where I began to understand the negative emotions. I can trace back how far the negative emotions have come through this musical. I remember not liking “No Good Deed” that much and that song seemed emotionless from 2006 all the way until 2016. I saw Wicked live in 2006, sometime in high school, 2013, and 2016. That one song seemed not interesting and seemed emotionless. It was in 2016, my fourth time, where the portrayal of “No Good Deed” finally made me appreciate it for once and where I finally began to pick up on its emotions.

Well “I’m Not That Girl” began as this sad song and was a sad song during the first three rounds. Well, I don’t know when it was, but I want to say it was like 2014 or 2015, I realized the song was heartbreaking thanks to the help of “On My Own”. I realized that both songs were about unrequited love and due to “On My Own” being stronger, I realized “I’m Not That Girl” was a heartbreaker.

But where did I began to realize that heartbreak was part of the musical world? Well, I didn’t know about heartbreak until December of 2012. It was when I saw Les Mis for the first time through the movie. While watching the movie, I finally was able to pick up on heartbreak, but I thought the musical was too depressing. I wasn’t able to dig deeper because I didn’t know it was going to be tragic and I didn’t know musicals could be tragic.  Les Mis showed me a side of emotions I thought was literally impossible and it was during my second viewing of the movie where I began to see something special about Les Mis. Over time, I realized the musical wasn’t too depressing due to its underlying spirituality, which has themes of love, hope, compassion, forgiveness, humanity, sacrifice, and redemption. Ever since the realization of heartbreak, I was able to notice that it was much easier to spot negative emotions and darkness in other musicals.

Just like Les Mis, Rent is a sad musical. It takes place during the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s/1990s. It has an incredible message of how precious life is, living in the moment, and measuring your life in love. You see these characters struggle through depression, drug addiction, relationships, HIV/AIDS. But they are like this family despite all their struggles.

In the case of Sound of Music, I never noticed sad was in one of its songs for quite a long time. I grew up with the movie and never once picked up on that emotion. I remember it being in 2015 when I saw the stage show for the first time. It was during “Edelweiss” and I remember the emotion entering at a place that seemed unusual. It was at the moment where the Captain stopped singing and there was a pause before Maria and the children started singing and I noticed the emotion. I feel like realizing sad was in a song in the middle of that song is a spot where the emotions tends not to be a part of. But due to the emotional shift in “Edelweiss”, I learned to love the musical even more.

The latest meaningful musical that had sad in the score belongs to Newsies. I remember watching it and it existed at the end of act one. I just witnessed this big fight break out as a result of the strike. After the fight, Jack witnessed Crutchie being arrested and that left him with a lot of inner conflict. In the first scene, which was “Santa Fe (Prologue), you realize that Jack is quite protective of Crutchie. Due to what he witnessed, he sang “Santa Fe” and that became a sad song and I felt sad, but innocently during the production. Another moment with the negative emotions belonged in “Letter From the Refuge”. The thing with that song is that I don’t remember it while watching the production. I eventually rediscovered the song and was able to notice I do remember one of the lyrics. After a couple of listens, I realized that song is a heartbreaker.

The negative emotions are highly important in the world of musicals. For all of these musicals, my emotional connection is quite strong. I care about these characters’ journeys, which is why I love feeling the negative emotions. I only love feeling the negative emotions in musicals that I love myself and typically tend to be a meaningful musical.