Singing a New Tune: The Rebirth of the Modern Film Musical from Evita to de-Lovely and Beyond

As the author says in the book, this isn't your father's study of musicals. This book focuses on the movie musical in the last ten year or so, and looks at how it has changed from the Golden Age. I'm a fan of all things Buffy, which is why I bought this book, and there's a great interview with Joss Whedon here, where he talks about his musical story on the TV Show, "Once More With Feeling" and his love of musicals. But what I really enjoyed most about the book were two things. Firstly, the author went right to the horses' mouth to talk with the people, mostly directors, who are making musicals today (like Alan "Evita" Parker and John Cameron "Hedwig" Mitchell). Secondly, he didn't just accept pre-conceived notions and so-called accepted-wisdom about the movie musical (a fact that always bothers me) from past scholars. On the contrary, he finds room and reasons here to applaud recent efforts like Moulin Rouge and Dancer in the Dark, and makes a strong case why these different musicals are still good films. As a fan of the movie musical, but not necessarily Broadway musicals, I found the film-centric approach a worthwhile one.

I'm not so sure that the musical as a genre of movie ever really died. But like anything else in Hollywood they go through cycles. There will be a truly great, award winning, lots of money making movie; then the copycats will start making movies that are worse and worse until the idea goes around that this genre gets a bad reputation. But that's a nit. Mr. Muir has done a great job talking about musicals from the 1920's to now. About a quarter of the book is a general history to get us up to through the 1980's. The remainder is broken down into decades. From the 80's and into the early 90's musicals languished. Not a solid hit among the bunch. Then came 1996. Madonna did 'Evita.' Then came 'Chicago' with a bunch of Oscars. Finally the book ends in 2004 with 'The Phantom of the Opera.' The musical has changed over time and the book talks about these changes in a literate and understanding manner. Very interesting reading from a very knowledgable author.