If you want to sing out, sing out.
Notes on the euphoria of cinema's collective singing/dancing
My regards to Olivia Rodrigo, but my personal song of the summer is older than she is (or I am, for that matter). The seasonal earworm destined to end up on my year-end Spotify Wrapped is none other than Aretha Franklin’s rendition of I Say a Little Prayer — before you ask, no, this is not #sponcon for the new biopic Respect opening this month.
The genesis of this all was an episode of the podcast Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso, an interview show hosted by the guy who essentially gave me my start in professional writing. Rather than having a guest for this particular installment, he simply put together a playlist mean to act as a balm for troubled times. I gave it a chance to surprise me and just let the episode run. When it turned the corner toward the Queen of Soul, something just clicked. I felt those first few notes play the keys of my soul.
The song’s eternal power carried me through a grueling summer professionally that also often left me feeling isolated personally. (Remote work has its challenges and burnout is real, do not let people tell you otherwise.) I turned to “I Say a Little Prayer” again and again as a reminder of what really matters: people caring for each other and expressing that love both to that person and to some higher power.
If you listen to any song that much, you’re bound to go spiraling out in other directions. For me, that was exploring all the various covers of the song. I was startled and delighted to find that Spotify had the version of the song from the 1997 rom-com classic My Best Friend’s Wedding (available on Amazon Prime), and semi-professionally recorded too! It’s notably missing M. Emmett Walsh’s deep, warbling bass solo.
I have a special affection for this song and scene that predates me even seeing the film. Or, perhaps more aptly phrased, that predates me even being allowed to see the film. My parents interpreted the edicts of the MPAA film ratings board as something akin to gospel, holding firm on prohibiting me from seeing any PG-13 rated works until I reached that age with very few exceptions. (This could be a whole other newsletter — my parents are welcome to come on for a Q&A around this subject if they want to clear the air.)
But sometimes, select scenes among perennial cable classics were deemed appropriate for my viewing. It was simply understood that if it was on and it got to be that scene, I would be summoned into the room to watch. So by the time I finally got to watch My Best Friend’s Wedding in its entirety, I must have seen the “I Say a Little Prayer” scene dozens of times.
It’s an undeniably great scene even when watched standalone due to the outsized presence of Rupert Everett’s performance, which then ripples outward in outlandish directions until an entire lobster restaurant is jamming along to the song. It’s ridiculous, sure, but also weirdly believable. There’s something about art, music in particular, that brings out our most exaggerated and extreme tendencies. To paraphrase Victor Hugo, music allows us to express what cannot be said in words but also cannot remain silent.
This supra-lingual quality most evidently displayed in musical moments within movies captures something of the magic of cinema itself when experienced in a group setting. Barriers come down, boundaries become eradicated, and strangers are bound together by a brief shared audiovisual experience. To be insufferable and put on my amateur sociologist hat, it’s a phenomenon known as collective effervescence — a ritualized process through which society expresses and channels the sacred. (I didn’t bust my ass to double major and not use the non-film-related one, folks.)
So the more I’ve seen My Best Friend’s Wedding, the more I’ve fixated on who gets to participate in this joyous occasion … and who’s standing on the outside of it. Watch the way the scene works in cutaways to Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney’s characters, two best friends whose will-they-or-won’t-they rekindling flame provides the film’s propulsive tension. Especially when it comes to Roberts, whose million-watt smile could power all of Hollywood, her sheepish embarrassment and refusal to participate in the moment marks a striking contrast to her normally sunny demeanor. In spite of what my spirit animal Olive Penderghast claims about the function of movie musical numbers, even the seemingly most frivolous ones can communicate a wealth of valuable information.
On the complete opposite side of humiliation, there’s full integration. This is the underlying subject of the unforgettable “Twist & Shout” parade scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (available on Netflix), another such scene I was allowed to watch before turning 13. I’m not much of one for fan theories and certainly don’t give much credence to the ones about this movie positing the entire thing takes place in Cameron’s mind. But I can be convinced that Matthew Broderick’s titular character is not the brash, impulsive rebel he’s come to epitomize in our culture. He’s a master planner and loyal friend on a selfless mission to prepare his pal to exit his comfort zone after high school. (This piece, which uses the Chez Quis scene as the portal to unlocking the movie, may radicalize you as well.)
It’s here where the tense, tightly coiled Cameron finally gives himself over completely. After being shot and portrayed primarily in isolation or anomie (he’s wearing a Detroit Red Wings jersey in Chicago!), the magic of everyone gathering together to celebrate the song finally collapses his last line of defense. After trying to stop Ferris’ performance of “Danke Schoen” just prior, he moves from unwitting accomplice to willing co-conspirator. Something I had never even noticed before dissecting the scene tonight: look at roughly 2:09 in the video just above. I’m not entirely sure the spatial dynamics of this scene are coherent, but there’s Cameron indistinguishably absorbed into the fray, cheering on his buddy.
Something about my prolonged exposure to these scenes makes me place an outsized value on them. I always find them catching my eye, and a well-executed collective musical moment goes a long way in redeeming a movie. (Scroll down for one such selection.) So in celebration of these celebrations, I’ve selected ten particularly memorable scenes that showcase the wide variety of what a movie can do with a great song/dance number.
Just a quick note on ground rules: these are explicitly not movie musicals. That list would be something entirely different! The below scenes occur in movies that feature no awareness of music as a form of heightened expression. Everyone in them is aware of what they are doing as song and dance.
So with that, shall we dance?
I could write an entire essay on the way Andrea Arnold uses music in American Honey (available on Showtime Anytime and to rent from various digital providers), her ambling road movie about wayward teens traversing middle America hawking junk magazine subscriptions. More than any dialogue, music forms the heartbeat and communication of the movie. As director Richard Linklater so aptly put it in the oral history of Dazed & Confused, “Teenagers can’t express themselves very well, so music is their voice. Music expresses their emotions. That’s why it means so much to them.”
No sequence better illustrates Arnold’s mastery of melody than when the new recruit Sasha Lane’s Star, joins crew 071. As she prepares to go on her first business outing with the gang, she encounters the gaggle convening on the van meant to transport them. Tunes are already cranking — E-40’s “Choices” — and the song assumes the tenor of a tribal chant. It’s their way of reaffirming the bond they share to the business and to each other, something Riley Keough’s boss Krystal also utilizes for much more enterprising purposes.
So, naturally, the newest addition hovers tentatively in the mix. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan’s camera captures the impromptu scene as well as Star’s tentative approach to joining the moment. As American Honey is a film that celebrates the unlikely amalgamation of outcasts and cast-asides that form in the cruxes of economic necessity, it doesn’t take her long to catch on. The scene thrillingly captures that feeling of giving yourself over to a team that will redefine and reaffirm your identity.
I’ll simply turn over the floor to director Céline Sciamma to shed further light on this memorable rendition of Rihanna’s “Diamonds” in Girlhood (available on Showtime Anytime and to rent from various digital providers). Not unlike the above scene in American Honey, the journey of the song demonstrates how the young protagonist Mariemme inserts herself fully into the renegade bande de filles (“group of girls,” the film’s French title). Mariemme is the one the scene opens on — shot alone, admiring the hotel room dance from a distance before she feels she has permission to enter it.
I asked Sciamma about this moment when I interviewed her about Portrait of a Lady on Fire in 2019, and here’s what she had to say:
“For Girlhood, I really tried to think of [the scene] as if it were a scene in a musical. When they start to sing in a musical, [they’re] very strong moments within the characters’ relationships. They’re saying things to each other, and, if they’re dancing, their bodies are expressing themselves. It’s about the music not being the commentary, but really thinking about it like, ‘Okay, if there was a Fred Astaire film, when would this thing happen? What would it say?’ It’s always about the intimacy between the characters and what their bodies can express.
[…] in the ‘Diamonds’ scene in Girlhood; it doesn’t become a clip if suddenly there’s room for the viewer. When we talk about the female gaze, of course it’s about not objectifying women, it’s also about mostly how you experience the journey of the character. You experience it with your body and mind. You’re fully aware. It’s not about you being fully inside the film; it’s about the film being inside you. I think that’s what we can offer.”
Pop music gets plenty of grief among the cool kid crowd, but it plays a crucial function as one of the few things that tie people together. Though everyone’s experience of a song is inexorably tied to their own life, the sense that you share this thread with others can fortify it as a foundation in social settings.
Nothing expresses this quite as elegantly as when Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” takes over the Stillwater tour bus in Almost Famous (available on Paramount+ and to rent through various digital providers). Though teenage journalist William Miller is on the rocks with the band he’s assigned to cover for Rolling Stone, joining in the song with the whole band and re-establishing that sense of belonging. It’s just a chef’s kiss when Kate Hudson’s Penny Lane leans over and issues that legendary (and improvised!) reply to his suggestion he needs to go back to his mom: “you are home.” And, in this moment, so are we.
The legacy of 27 Dresses (available on HBO Max) definitely suffered from the industry ill will (justified or not) towards Katherine Heigl. It seems to me the film acts as a kind of punching bag for those who think the late-‘00s marked a nadir and death knell for the rom-com genre, which now barely exists on the big screen. But I’d argue that the movie has quite a lot going for it, much of which is evident in the scene that seems to have the biggest foothold in our popular imagination: the “Bennie & the Jets” scene.
At this point in the film, relations between the would-be lovers played by Heigl and James Marsden have reached their chilliest point yet. What better to melt their hearts than a song that slowly begins to work on them, pointing out they’re not so different as they seem? Among the clips I’ve pulled here, I’d argue 27 Dresses speaks the most to that inexplicable power of music because it shows that one does not even need know the words to a song for it to bring a flood of memories and goodwill. If we didn’t believe in the way a pop tune can overpower us, then the smash cut from their small-scale barside rendition to them up on an elevated surface leading the entire establishment in song would just be a non-sequitur.
If you understand the latent desire for connection expressed through the function of communal singing a little better now, then maybe the biggest WTF moment of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (available on Netflix) makes a little more sense. Yes, I think this is more bizarre than when it literally rains frogs in this movie.
This sprawling ensemble of broken souls in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley features characters who, for any number of reasons, are feeling alone. Heck, Magnolia quite literally introduces them to the tune of Aimee Mann covering “One” (Is The Loneliest Number)! What they desire more than anything is reconciliation, even if they lack the fortitude or willpower to fight for it.
This gutsy musical number in the film’s second hour allows them that moment of connection through art that they cannot attain in their lives. For a moment, the song unites them in their grief and solitude. The tragic irony is that we can see how this misery ties their stories together, but many of them won’t until it’s too late. It’s heartbreaking, yes, but Anderson’s bravura idea to introduce this heightened moment at the dramatic core of his epic drama adds something mystifying to the proceedings.
There’s no clip on YouTube available for the most recently released title on this list, Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock (available on Amazon Prime) — a part of his Small Axe anthology series. But, in a way, I’m glad because I don’t want you to spoil the enchantment for yourself. If you haven’t already, please take an hour and watch this unadulterated ode to Black joy completely out of the withering white gaze. It’s a dance party of defiance and delight for Black Britons in 1981, who throw house parties of their own when white establishments won’t let them in.
The hot song of the moment in which the film takes place is clearly Janet Kay’s “Silly Games,” so much so that the kitchen staff belts it out early in the film as they prepare the evening’s culinary centerpieces. When the DJ puts the record on, the partygoers come rushing in a way that’s instantly recognizable to anyone who knows the sensation of sharing the biggest current cultural sensation.
But in a moment of inspired and unplanned ecstasy, McQueen lets cinematographer Shabier Kirchener roam the dance floor longer than planned to scope out the grooving. I won’t spoil what happens when the track stops — just know that it’s an overwhelming sensorial experience that occurs because the boundary between character and performer dissolves almost entirely. What we’re left with is an organic outgrowth from the feeling you get from making a song your own through the act of singing and dancing along to it.
Song and dance don’t always bring people together, however. Some people simply don’t “get” the latest trend because they’re trapped in the limitations of their own experience and/or unwilling to have a new one. Director Paweł Pawlikowski establishes this dichotomy seamlessly in his period romance Cold War (available on Amazon Prime), a story of two star-crossed lovers who share a passion for music and each other … yet diverge on many matters of malleability.
As an exile from Communist-controlled Poland, the beguiling singer Zula (Joanna Kulig) sees the West as a land of opportunity and freedom. But she feels a bit stifled by the stodginess of her partner and director Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and his insistence on more formal, well-regarded musical forms like jazz. The scene opens on her dozing off in a sleepy joint only to have the stylings of Bill Haley & The Comets revive her through “Rock Around the Clock.”
And just as she awakens, so does Lukasz Zal’s camera. In a single unbroken take, we follow her to the center of the club’s action as she dances with multiple French gentlemen. The camerawork captures her dynamism and draws us into her kinetic field of energy, making the scene all the more intoxicating. I actually had the chance to talk with Kulig a bit about making the scene, here’s a bit of what she had to say:
“I was dancing all night,” she told me. “I had some training with a choreographer, but after [a] few takes, Paweł just told me to forget about what I learned and go wild. So I did. We had some points where I was about to connect with the cameramen, but the rest was just spontaneous. And dancing all night long gave me something extra — the feeling like I was drunk 😊.” (Emoji emphasis all Kulig’s, not mine, I should add.)
All the while, Wiktor remains seated and unmoved. Without the utterance of a word, we see the irreconcilable difference between the two of them.
SPOILER ALERT!!
Don’t say I didn’t warn you — the final three scenes discussed here involve the movie’s endings. Skip ahead to “Weekend Watchlist” if you’d rather experience those scenes purely.
I said there’d be a not-great movie on here! Friends with Benefits (available to rent from various digital providers) certainly did not hold up all that well on a recent rewatch, although I still maintain it’s better than the other sex friends comedy of 2011, No Strings Attached. (Whoever allowed Ashton Kutcher to woo Natalie Portman on screen … I just want to talk.)
But if ever there were a grand romantic gesture designed to win over my heart, it might be a flash mob. It combines two of my favorite things: intensive planning and song/dance. If we have to conclude with a contrivance, I’ll gladly accept something elaborate like this over a fumbling confessional speech. Sorry about it, I swoon!
And, look, I had just wrenched my ankle in a flash mob two months prior to seeing this movie for the first time. (There’s video footage of it somewhere, but I have to get crafty because of rights issues with the music that resulted in it being blocked in several countries.) So maybe I just needed this to save the concept for me? The baggage of your own life that you bring to any movie can color it in unexpected and unpredictable ways!
In the earliest days of sound cinema, song and dance numbers were an expression of pure ecstasy. That was in part a celebration of the new technical capabilities of the medium — finally, the soaring heights of the stage were no longer off-limits! But in an age of heavy censorship when even a hint of sexuality got censored, these scenes became expressions of sensuality that could not be explicit. When you think about it, the parallels are pretty clear — two people, moving rhythmically together, vibing on the same wavelength, professing a sentiment that goes beyond words.
There’s a long cultural history of Bollywood movies containing raucous musical numbers that has nothing to do with this; I’ve done a small bit of Internet research (so now I’m an expert), and it seems that the Bollywood sequences began more in an attempt to get music as a ploy for commercial attention. But Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (available for free with ads on Tubi TV) beautifully fuses that tradition with the American one with the number “Jai Ho” over the ending credits.
The final shot of the narrative portion of the film is Jamal and Latika, childhood friends who can finally share a kiss as young adults after an arduous separation and fateful reunion. After their journey, the dance number serves as a kind of cinematic consummation of their union. Charmingly, each of their younger incarnations on-screen gets to join in the fun of the dance as well. In the song, they get to share that romance denied to them in their own time. For a brief moment, all is right in the world, and it’s enough to bring you to your feet. (I think we forget now, but Slumdog Millionaire truly had a *moment* that feels unfathomable now for an independent film not in the English language.)
The final scene in this list is the newest addition; until a recent rewatch at New York’s Film Forum, I would not have called myself a fan of Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 (available on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel). It was one of those classics that fell firmly in the “not for me” camp. But something about that big screen magic won me over this time. I was captivated by the boldness of Fellini’s experimentation with film language (most famously evoked in the movie’s opening minutes). But the film’s grand finale bowled me over in its raw emotionality through the symbolic medium of dance.
At this point in 8 1/2, the grand ambition of Fellini’s directorial avatar (Marcello Mastroianni’s Guido Anselmi) has completely collapsed. Despondent, he wonders how he can even go on. Out of nowhere comes the tunes of a circus band, and from the ruins of his tattered set — a monument to his unfulfilled ambitions — emerges the cast of characters from his life. Out of his failure comes the keys to his success, the people who populate his world, giving it character and meaning simply by being.
Inexplicably, the cast begins to assemble into a line dance. Guido seizes the moment to grab his megaphone and impose order on the scene — a sign that he’s begun to reclaim the mojo he spends the entire movie fretting that he’s lost. Movingly, he allows the moment to seize him and join hands with his people … but not before inviting his long-suffering wife Luisa to come along with him. Through dance, he reconciles his life and his art. He does not need to look to the stars to achieve greatness, only in at himself.
I found this conclusion moved me to the brink of tears, an unanticipated conclusion to a largely cerebral viewing experience. I struggle to put the way this scene touched me into words, almost as if I need song and dance myself to convey the intensity of the sentiment. Too bad someone already made a musical out of this movie!
I’m sure I’ll think of others that work as soon as I hit send and kick myself. (If you’ve got a favorite that I didn’t include, that unfortunately means I do hate it … but shoot it over to me anyway!) Some other scenes that don’t quite meet the theme but are great all the same…
Again, not #sponcon but … I was mixed on Ema, the latest film by Chilean director Pablo Larraín (Jackie), which opens this weekend. But I have eyes. I can recognize that this dance scene featuring the film’s titular character, who belongs to an avant-garde dance troupe, is just straight fire. And not just because it features an actual flamethrower. I don’t know that I found the movie itself cohered all that much, but this scene has an infectious rhythmic energy.
Finally, this is the exact opposite of the purpose of this post, but it’s a worthy exception. I won’t spoil the context of this scene in The Nest (available on Showtime Anytime), a film whose odd release strategy last year left it massively underseen, but know that the inimitable Carrie Coon has fled a scene with family and friends she has found suffocating. She escapes to a bar, surveys the scene while taking a few drags off a cigarette … and then director Sean Durkin smash cuts to her character breaking it down on the dance floor solo. Notice how her hair, neatly coiffed in a bun while she peruses the crowd, is now busting out and coming loose.
When I finally caught up with The Nest in my screener pile (#humblebrag) last winter, I was back living with my family as the third wave of COVID-19 was beginning. When this divine revelation of a scene flashed before my eyes, it provoked a visceral — and audible — reaction in me. I can’t remember if I yelled “MOOD” or “GIRL, SAME!” at my screen. Either way, you get it. Watch this movie if for no other reason than fully appreciating this iconic dance moment.
WEEKEND WATCHLIST
If you’re in the mood for a crowdpleaser, you really can’t go wrong with Coda (streaming on Apple TV+ from 8/13), which won basically every award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
It’s a bit color-by-numbers, but you won’t notice that as it sweeps you off your feet in the moment. Here’s a bit of what I wrote at the time:
“CODA” hits all the beats in the coming-of-age story with familiarity, sure, but also aplomb. Ruby Rossi, played by Emilia Jones in a soulful breakout performance, embodies that classic teenage tension of being pulled in opposite directions by her family and her independence. Her scenario is a particularly unique one, though, as the only hearing family member in a tight-knit group of Massachusetts fishers. As pressures for regulation and interference increase, her father Frank (Troy Kotsur) strikes out on his own to create a co-op that grants a dignity to the scrappy dockworkers. Without even feeling the need to ask, Frank presumes he can count on Ruby to serve in her capacity as an ASL interpreter to grease the wheels.
[…] More than most movies, “CODA” really does convey the heavy nature of Ruby’s role within her family to emotional effect. But [director Sian] Heder does so without flattening or patronizing the deaf characters for whom she must help. This is a model for how to treat disability on screen, allowing for the fullness of their humanity to shine through from humor all the way to sexuality. The film soars when it makes clear the truth we can sense underneath it all along: Ruby’s beautiful voice emerges not in spite of her deaf family but because of them.
Two other titles I’ve caught at festivals this year that might be up your alley. Homeroom (now streaming on Hulu) is not quite as groundbreaking as it thinks it is, but if you’re looking for a pretty unfiltered look at the emerging activist generation, this is a vivid portrait of a grueling year in their lives.
Materna (now available to rent on various digital platforms) takes the “we’re all connected” hyperlink cinema approach to an interesting place, using the collision of four women on a New York City subway car to tell an anthology story of their relationship to motherhood. Of the vignettes, it starts strongest with a largely non-verbal segment with the luminous Kate Lyn Sheil (who I had a terrific time interviewing last year) and slowly goes downhill. Still, it nets out mostly in the positive column! If you think this sounds up your alley, don’t be shy on checking it out!
That’s it for today’s edition! As a reminder, this Thursday edition of the newsletter would normally go to paid subscribers only. If you wouldn’t want to miss this moving forward, be sure to get on the list now!
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall