THE BAND WAGON
Vincente Minnelli 1953
When Eric Rohmer compiled his All Time Top 10 for
Sight and Sound in 1962, he justified his picks by reasoning, "These are those films which, as I see it, should cinema disappear, would give the most exact idea of its best successes, amidst its highest ambitions."
The Band Wagon is how we as a culture could explain and preserve the American Film Musical, the most cinematic and alive of all film genres, for future generations. Not just because it’s a
good musical, though it is (I’d argue it’s indeed the
best), but because it’s
every kind of musical. Rick Altman divided all Hollywood Musicals into three categories: Folk, Fairy Tale, and Show Musicals, and while technically
the Band Wagon is the last one, it occupies at various times all three. Here the set-savvy “That’s Entertainment” rubs elbows with the cornpone “Louisiana Hayride.” We get a ballet (“Girl Hunt”), we get a drinking song (“I Love Louisa”), we get a hilarious novelty number (“Triplets”— which has yet to leave my head all these years since my first viewing). The film is a series of “Oh, this is my favorite” numbers, until it’s over and you just want to hit “Play” again.
Like all movie musicals,
the Band Wagon is by nature self-reflexive, but Minnelli’s film pushes audience awareness of distancing techniques right out of the gate by tapping its nose at the then-outré status of Fred Astaire’s genial hoofing musicals with Ginger Rogers via Astaire’s thinly-veiled portrayal of himself. The film is smart and holds its audience in the highest esteem, and it justifies the vitality and worthiness of the musical as a cinematic art form by delivering everything the genre does well. We have all markers of the joys of a movie musical from the start, from feats of dance ingenuity to the candy-colored set design, as “Shine on Your Shoes” moves from a small ditty into a freewheeling work of pop sensationalism. It’s not just a catchy number, it’s a mission statement: Here is one of the, if not the, greatest dancers and movie star personalities. Get on board or get left behind. Astaire isn’t really “by himself,” as the opening number claims. Rather, he’s establishing dominance.
The Band Wagon, like
Singin’ in the Rain, is an almost
aggressively great musical, determined to prove relevancy by delivering what the genre at best promises and then some.
And what does it promise? “Entertainment,” of course. Not just in performances but in performance: Not just Astaire, but Cyd Charisse, who between this and
Silk Stockings was arguably an even better partner for Astaire than Rogers, brings the right level of aloofness; Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant give us their winking take on the musical’s authors, Comden and Green; Jack Buchanan blows hard and lampoons the self-serious theatrical perspective that would go on to seep into and poison much of American cinema and almost all of television drama for the latter half of the 50s. But while
the Band Wagon isn’t a serious or self-consciously Important film, it isn’t flippant either. The film is alive with necessity, with the “Now” of musicals as an art form. Here in theatrical trappings, but transported and made relevant solely through the tools of film. How many moments in life have ever been as gloriously well-conceived and relayed as Astaire and Charisse’s mating dance of “Dancing in the Dark”? Musicals require an intelligent viewer capable of sustaining the simultaneous suspension of disbelief with the requisite self-reflexive alienating, audience-addressing aspects. They invite us to be part of the experience, to acknowledge the illusion.
The Band Wagon inspires reactions that double as dubious-sounding pull-quotes because even the most effusive language just doesn’t seem like enough to relay cinematic magic of this nature to words. And as Claude Chabrol once memorably said, that’s why films cost so much.
The Band Wagon beggars belief. It is the possibilities of cinema made actual.
