Rouben Mamoulian’s Love Me Tonight(1932) freed
the genre from the Broadway setting. [Mamoulian
also directed Applause(1929), a pioneering back-
stage musical.] As the term implies, the integrated
musical assimilated singing and dancing with con-
ventional spoken dramatic action; characters now
could burst into song (or dance) as part of any sit-
uation. Of course, most of these musicals reserve
musical performance for key dramatic moments,
such as when a character declares her love, her goal,
or her emotional state. Sometimes these songs are
delivered to another character, but they may also
be directed inward—a sort of sung soliloquy—or
even aimed directly at the viewer.
Part of the pleasure of watching integrated musi-
cals comes from the potentially dramatic shifts in
tone and style required to move between dramatic
and musical performance. Audiences have learned
to appreciate the stylistic prowess required to bal-
ance these two seemingly incompatible entertain-
ments, along with the whimsy or poignancy such
combinations are capable of generating. Only in a
musical can downtrodden factory workers erupt
into a celebratory tune, as in Lars von Trier’sDancer in the Dark(2000), or a gang of rebellious
college students sing and dance their way into a
drunken, stoned stupor, as in Julie Taymor’s Across
the Universe (2007). The integrated musical, as
these examples illustrate, freed the genre from
the Broadway backdrop and allowed the musical to
apply its unique stylings to a virtually limitless
range of stories, characters, and settings. While
traditional musicals still tend to use the romantic
comedy for their narrative template, contemporary
movies have mixed the musical with a variety of
other genres and cinema styles. Director Trey Parker
has created credible musicals within the context of
an extended South Parkepisode (South Park: Bigger,
Longer & Uncut, 1999), a Michael Bay–style action
movie performed by marionettes (Team America:
World Police, 2004), and the only prosecuted case of
cannibalism in United States history (Cannibal! The
Musical, 1996). The genre dominated animated fea-
tures from Walt Disney studios for almost sixty
years. Even television programs have gotten into
the act: The Simpsons,Scrubs, Xena: Warrior Princess,
and Buffy the Vampire Slayerhave all created special
musical episodes.13
2
Contemporary musicalsBill Condon’s Dreamgirls(2006)
is set within a backstage musical situation that allows for
staged performance of some musical numbers [1]. But a
significant amount of the movie’s most meaningful music is
delivered in the style of the integrated musical: offstage and in
character [2]. Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe(2007) and
Phyllida Lloyd’s Mamma Mia!(2008) [3] represent a relatively
new approach to the genre, one in which all of the music
expresses character emotions and contributes to the narrative
despite the fact that none of it was originally written for the
movie. Both musicals select familiar songs from the catalogs of
popular supergroups (the Beatles and ABBA, respectively) and
create narratives to suit the appropriated music.SIX MAJOR AMERICAN GENRES 107