Our film club met last night to discuss Singing in the Rain. I, among other film club members, am not a fan of musicals (though I enjoyed this film as a whole). In preparing questions for our discussion, I stumbled upon the concept of diagetic music, which is music that appears in the context of a film, meaning that the characters can hear it. If, for example, there is a band performing during a movie scene, the music is diagetic. Alternatively, the orchestral soundtrack backing most movies is not diagetic, meaning that the audience can hear it but the characters cannot.
I love reading fiction, and the more successfully an author transports me to the world of the characters, the more I tend to love the novel. I similarly love movies and, to a lesser extent, stage productions (this, though is more a product of my long legs never fitting well in the tight confines of theater seating). But I strongly dislike musicals. When I watch a musical, I find myself wishing they would skip the songs and get on with the plot. The problem is even greater when the plot is weak or nonexistent, and it’s just a string of songs.
In reading about the concept of diagesis, it helped me think through what prevents me from enjoying musicals. I love reading stories, and I love listening to music. I don’t love when one treads on the other, and I think that is what musicals represent. When I experience fiction, I want to be transported to the world of the characters. The characters’ lives suddenly stopping so that they can participate in a song and dance forces me out of their world and reminds me that what I am experiencing is not real. I know intuitively that fiction is not real, but the fun of fiction, for me, is pretending that it is real.
As to Singing in the Rain, I enjoyed it significantly more than I expected. It still felt disjointed because of the stops and starts of the story due to musical numbers, but the vocal and dancing skill of the cast was incredible (and I’m not a fan of dance). My favorite scene, the finale, was an example of diagetic music, where Debbie Reynolds’s character is behind the curtain, singing while Jean Hagen’s character is lip syncing in front of the audience. Reynolds’s performance is crucial to the plot, and brings the audience more into the world, not less. The concept of diagesis helped me to better understand part of why I enjoy that scene so much.
Briefly Interesting 