The International Film Musical

Although the musical is one of Hollywood’s best-known genres, the tradition of the film musical in world cinema remains largely unknown outside of the local or regional contexts in which it has often thrived. This book fills a significant gap in scholarship on film genre, popular music and world cinema by providing the first comparative consideration of the musical’s role within national cinema traditions. While the musical is one of the cinema’s few genuinely international genres, it has often functioned as an explicitly local or national form, drawing upon distinct traditions understood as ‘native’ rather than ‘international’. At the same time, musicals from around the world have often imitated Hollywood models, resulting in their easy dismissal as culturally ‘impure’. Indeed, as this anthology emphasizes, international film musicals vividly demonstrate the creative and ideological tension between promoting and abandoning traditional cultural forms and styles. This productive tension between local and global elements might be at the heart of international film musicals, which typically acknowledge the dominant Hollywood model while claiming their own cultural specificity.Key Features *Individual chapters provide succinct historical and critical discussions of musicals from sixteen major national film traditions, along with the transnational musical. *The book concludes with a coda by Rick Altman, one of the genre’s most prominent scholars. *Lists of key resources offer teachers as well as students additional information.