American Musical Film
S07
Steven Bach
The musical film is acknowledged as one of the American film industry’s original contributions to world cinema, drawing on American vernacular entertainment forms (vaudeville, Broadway, jazz, popular song). We will look at and study musical films and the industrial and social conditions that encouraged and altered the form from The Jazz Singer to Chicago. Particular attention will be paid to the 1930s and to recent innovations, as well as to international development of the form, particularly in Europe.