DANCE & THE AMERICAN MUSICAL
Greg Stanford
Most of the greatest Hollywood musicals have been oriented towards dance. By common consent, the greatest practitioners of dance on film were Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Astaire seemed to walk on air, presenting the illusion of effortlessness. He also always insisted that the dance sequences in his films be photographed with the dancers’ full body in frame, the camera only moving to keep the framing as the dancers moved. This sounds logical, but it amounted to a virtually revolutionary approach at the time.
Kelly’s approach was different, as were his gifts. He was extremely muscular and his dancing style was rather gymnastic. His dancing obviously cost a great deal of effort and muscular exertion and the effect was as thrilling as Astaire’s in its very different way.
Astaire enjoyed great success in the 1930’s in a series of films with Ginger Rogers. His career continued in the ’40’s without her, though he announced his retirement from dance films in 1946. Of course, the retirement didn’t take and he was back on the screen two years later, this time at MGM with Easter Parade, which led to a kind of second career until Astaire hung up his dancing shoes, at least on film, in 1957. Throughout his film dance career, Astaire’s image remained the sophisticate decked out in white tie and tails.
In further contrast to Astaire, Kelly presented himself as a man of the people. Generally, his dress as well as his style remained in complete contrast to Astaire. Kelly’s dances were often also photographed differently. Working with Vincente Minnelli and also as co-director with Stanley Donen, Kelly made elaborate use of crane shots, with the crane swirling among the dancers, seeming to put the viewer right in the middle of the dance. Many have spent fruitless hours debating the relative greatness of Astaire and Kelly, but in the final analysis we have two very different artists photographed in contrasting ways. We viewers are all the richer in having these two great dancers with us forever through the medium of film. Coincidentally, Kelly also said farewell to his time as a star of dance films in 1957.