Contrast the main differences between realistic and formalistic musicals, and illustrate these differences using A Star Is Born and Sweeney Todd

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Realistic musicals are generally backstage stories, in which the production numbers are presented as dramatically plausible. Such musicals usually justify a song or dance with a brief bit of dialogue.
2. Formalist musicals make no pretense at realism. Characters burst out in song and dance in the middle of a scene without easing into the number with a plausible pretext. This convention must be accepted as an aesthetic premise, otherwise the entire film will strike the viewer as absurd. Everything is heightened and stylized in such works.
3. A few realistic musicals are virtually dramas with music. In George Cukor’s A Star Is Born, for example, the narrative events would hold up without the musical numbers, although audiences would thereby be deprived of some of Judy Garland’s best scenes—a documentation of her character’s talent.
4. Some musicals are virtual operas, with no spoken dialogue. Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, directed by Tim Burton, is entirely sung, and Johnny Depp and the rest of the cast do their own singing—a considerable achievement considering the technical challenges of Sondheim’s difficult score.