Hidden in Plain Song
Nov. 7th, 2005 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkI really should be marking papers. Mid-life crisis hoy.
Classic film musicals are notoriously weak on plot. The genre theorist Rick Altman came up with an ingenious explanation for this in The American Film Musical where he proposed that rather than following a linear narrative structure, A leading to B thus precipitating C, the sequence of events in a musical is determined by the need for each number to reflect or contrast the themes of the preceding ones. Thus A introduces the heroine, B contrasts her with the hero, C is probably a duet. Altman was convinced that all true musicals are romances and talks about this narrative structure as dual focus but the general idea of a series of songs and dances being connected to each other by theme, with the linear story being generated more as a side effect seems more broadly applicable. I thought I’d have a shot at parsing Once More With Feeling in this way.
Going through the Motions starts things off in traditional fashion, introducing the heroine and her malaise. All she wants is to be alive. Buffy is out in a graveyard under cover of darkness, her clothing is sombre, her hair clipped back and she’s alone. Nobody hears her heartfelt confession.
Next up is I’ve got a Theory, this time Buffy’s with the whole gang, she wears her hair down, her shirt is blinding white, it’s daylight and she’s indoors. Another contrast is in the style of the song, her first was a naïve almost Disney-like ballad but this is a hyper ironic Sondheimesque ditty. Notably, despite the almost complete mirror imaging of the two numbers, the end result is the same. For although the central conceit of the episode is that people are singing their hearts out, this never seems to be taken on board by the characters. When Buffy sings:
What can't we face if we're together?
What's in this place that we can't weather?
Apocalypse?
We've all been there.
The same old trips
Why should we care?
Everyone but Giles immediately latches onto the initial exhortation, oblivious to bitter cynicism of the last few lines.
The next three numbers introduce the romantic couples, Tara and Willow dressed up in the midday sun, Xander and Anya waking up en deshabille as the next stage of their relationship dawns, while Buffy and Spike are hidden in darkness, down in the graveyard of buried desires. The non-communication, the secrets hidden in plain sight theme deepens as even the singers don’t seem to grasp what they’re admitting about themselves. Tara’s beautiful soprano warbles through her love song, blissfully unaware of the sinister connotations of being under Willow’s spell. Xander and Anya retro pastiche up the more trivial cracks in their relationship before falling onto the couch swearing never to tell, having just confessed all. Spike plays the rock god, ordering Buffy to stay away, only to act completely befuddled when she actually runs off.
After the romances, the next relationship to be immortalised in song is that of Buffy and Giles. Immediately prior to Giles’s ballad, the mentor-pupil aspects of their bond are parodied as Dawn gets filled in by the worldly wise Sweet (pause for momentary Hinton Battle squee) after an opening number in which she dances the sugar plum fairy in an outfit reminiscient of Hepburn’s existentialist gear from Funny Face. All dressed up in big sister’s clothes. Her plea to Sweet that she’s too young to be his queen go unheard, he’s only interested in the Slayer. Returning to Giles, with his song the non-communication subtext becomes text:
The cries around you, you don’t hear at all
And Buffy, busy with the training montage, doesn’t hear him, doesn’t realise his intention is to leave her. Tara arrives, discovers Willow’s violation and the scene ends with a duet between her and Giles where, as betrayee, she could be said to be acting proxy for Buffy. Still neither hears the other. No-one hears anyone.
Onwards and upwards as everyone converges on the final production number. Once more with irony, as the lyric anticipates walking through fire but Sweet’s customers are burning to death. The climatic number, Life, begins with a shattering of the fourth wall:
And you can sing along
And ends with a confession that at last breaks through the episode-long communication barrier. Which everyone hears:
I think I was in heaven
Shock, horror, despair. Spike catches Buffy just before she burns but the moment of clarity has passed. He sings the apparently hopeful message that she has to live, that her pain will heal but his last line reveals this as no more than the desperate hope of a man already long dead. Where do we go from here and the last dance is in formation, the characters unable to face each other any more. Buffy and Spike leave unnoticed and the curtain falls on them coming together but singing two different songs.
Classic film musicals are notoriously weak on plot. The genre theorist Rick Altman came up with an ingenious explanation for this in The American Film Musical where he proposed that rather than following a linear narrative structure, A leading to B thus precipitating C, the sequence of events in a musical is determined by the need for each number to reflect or contrast the themes of the preceding ones. Thus A introduces the heroine, B contrasts her with the hero, C is probably a duet. Altman was convinced that all true musicals are romances and talks about this narrative structure as dual focus but the general idea of a series of songs and dances being connected to each other by theme, with the linear story being generated more as a side effect seems more broadly applicable. I thought I’d have a shot at parsing Once More With Feeling in this way.
Going through the Motions starts things off in traditional fashion, introducing the heroine and her malaise. All she wants is to be alive. Buffy is out in a graveyard under cover of darkness, her clothing is sombre, her hair clipped back and she’s alone. Nobody hears her heartfelt confession.
Next up is I’ve got a Theory, this time Buffy’s with the whole gang, she wears her hair down, her shirt is blinding white, it’s daylight and she’s indoors. Another contrast is in the style of the song, her first was a naïve almost Disney-like ballad but this is a hyper ironic Sondheimesque ditty. Notably, despite the almost complete mirror imaging of the two numbers, the end result is the same. For although the central conceit of the episode is that people are singing their hearts out, this never seems to be taken on board by the characters. When Buffy sings:
What can't we face if we're together?
What's in this place that we can't weather?
Apocalypse?
We've all been there.
The same old trips
Why should we care?
Everyone but Giles immediately latches onto the initial exhortation, oblivious to bitter cynicism of the last few lines.
The next three numbers introduce the romantic couples, Tara and Willow dressed up in the midday sun, Xander and Anya waking up en deshabille as the next stage of their relationship dawns, while Buffy and Spike are hidden in darkness, down in the graveyard of buried desires. The non-communication, the secrets hidden in plain sight theme deepens as even the singers don’t seem to grasp what they’re admitting about themselves. Tara’s beautiful soprano warbles through her love song, blissfully unaware of the sinister connotations of being under Willow’s spell. Xander and Anya retro pastiche up the more trivial cracks in their relationship before falling onto the couch swearing never to tell, having just confessed all. Spike plays the rock god, ordering Buffy to stay away, only to act completely befuddled when she actually runs off.
After the romances, the next relationship to be immortalised in song is that of Buffy and Giles. Immediately prior to Giles’s ballad, the mentor-pupil aspects of their bond are parodied as Dawn gets filled in by the worldly wise Sweet (pause for momentary Hinton Battle squee) after an opening number in which she dances the sugar plum fairy in an outfit reminiscient of Hepburn’s existentialist gear from Funny Face. All dressed up in big sister’s clothes. Her plea to Sweet that she’s too young to be his queen go unheard, he’s only interested in the Slayer. Returning to Giles, with his song the non-communication subtext becomes text:
The cries around you, you don’t hear at all
And Buffy, busy with the training montage, doesn’t hear him, doesn’t realise his intention is to leave her. Tara arrives, discovers Willow’s violation and the scene ends with a duet between her and Giles where, as betrayee, she could be said to be acting proxy for Buffy. Still neither hears the other. No-one hears anyone.
Onwards and upwards as everyone converges on the final production number. Once more with irony, as the lyric anticipates walking through fire but Sweet’s customers are burning to death. The climatic number, Life, begins with a shattering of the fourth wall:
And you can sing along
And ends with a confession that at last breaks through the episode-long communication barrier. Which everyone hears:
I think I was in heaven
Shock, horror, despair. Spike catches Buffy just before she burns but the moment of clarity has passed. He sings the apparently hopeful message that she has to live, that her pain will heal but his last line reveals this as no more than the desperate hope of a man already long dead. Where do we go from here and the last dance is in formation, the characters unable to face each other any more. Buffy and Spike leave unnoticed and the curtain falls on them coming together but singing two different songs.
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 05:52 pm (UTC)Seriously, it is fabulous, and if I weren't in the middle of multiple grading and paper-writing hells, I'd be all over it. At least if you post it at the Ford, there's a chance I'll eventually come back to it!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 06:39 pm (UTC)Do you mind if I recommed your post on th Buffy Cross &Stake Spoiler Board?
What I like in the Buffy/Giles song is that the non-communication theme is emphasized by the fact they are moving in a different pace with Buffy in slow-mo, and eventually off-beat. It works as an original kind of counterpoint which is a structure that Joss used A LOT on BTVS.
Tara/Giles is an obvious musical counterpoint too, same with Spike/Buffy in the end.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 07:42 pm (UTC)Not at all, I lurk there a little. Thanks
What I like in the Buffy/Giles song is that the non-communication theme is emphasized by the fact they are moving in a different pace with Buffy in slow-mo, and eventually off-beat. It works as an original kind of counterpoint which is a structure that Joss used A LOT on BTVS.
I've been playing at vidding Buffy in S6 and that sequence is just painful, they're moving in opposite directions too and Giles all hunched while Buffy fully extends in the flips. Weeps.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 08:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 09:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 05:56 am (UTC)It's dialectical romanticism!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 08:58 am (UTC)