Barry Keith Grant in his introduction to ‘In the Hollywood Film Musical’ states that actors in the film musical continually break an implied 4th wall. In other words it is evident in a film musical that the actor portraying the onscreen character is performing for an audience beyond a diegetic one. A quintessential example of this is in Tom Hoopers Les Miserables where Anne Hathaway sings I Dreamed a Dream (as a soliloquy) directly to the audience, it is obvious that Anne Hathaway is very much conscious of the broader audience and knows excactly who she is singing too. This breaking of the fourth is linked back to Brecht’s alienation effect, it reminds the audience they are engaging with a piece of fiction. One Night the Moon contrasts its realism with this convention of musical theatre. When a song isn’t being sung directly to camera the characters and the story is grounded in realism-Jim and Rose react to the death of there daughter in a grounded, raw and depressingly honest fashion. This realism comes across as being more profound when contrasted with the songs. The songs serve the purpose of taking the audience out of the story and making them focus on themes and issues such as: land and belonging, Isolation, racial discrimination…..

Notes I made on the film.

• I found it interesting how in one particular song the white man sings ‘the land is mine’ whereas the Indigenous Man sings ‘I am the land’. It shows the two different relationships too the land, Paul Kelly’s Jim wants to posses some of it, own it, box it in and map it out whereas Kelton Pells Albert Yang understands how the land works and that it is something far more dangerous and far more complexed than anything that can be mapped. The contrasting lines in the song demonstrates Jim’s superficial relationship with the land and the spiritual connection of Alberts (relationship with the land).
•  The significance of place: Grant in his writings said that musicals take place beyond reality, in a space charmed by the magic of performance, he then quoted the wizard of oz by saying all musicals are ‘not in Kansas anymore’. Grant was outlining the idea that a musical space transcends reality and once the audience accepts this different reality-things far out of the ordinary, like spontaneous singing and dancing, even actors performing with there own physical limitations (e.g Pierce Brosnan who couldn’t sing in Mamma Mia) become understood and welcomed. Its as if the genres conventions allow for a space of spontaneity, risk and failure-that other genres don’t have.
• Emotion: The music can position the audience to like/not like a certain character and/or feel a specific thing for a certain character such as like pity or pride.
• Plot: A musical can inform the viewer quickly, it can save the film time. For example in Hairspray Edna changes from a recluse too a lady about town in the matter of one song. It is the use of song that facilitates this massive change without the audience questioning it. This is an example of the way a musical can easily speed up character development in a way few other genres can. ‘Song’ can also spoon feed the audience about certain characters emotions, ploys, plots and thoughts. In Les Miserables ‘Stars’ essentially hand feeds the audience Javerts opinions on laws, human rights and justice, which makes the song such an interesting character study. It’s his one chance in the film to communicate his thoughts and (potentially) redeem his actions.