Stanley Donen - Legacy

Legacy

Along with making a number of critically acclaimed and popular films, Donen's most important contribution to the art of film is helping to transition movie musicals from the realistic backstage settings of filmed theater to a more cinematic art form that integrates film with dance. Eventually film scholars would call this concept "cine-dance" (a dance that can only be created in the medium of film) and its origins are traced to the films that Donen choreographed and directed with Gene Kelly.

When "talkies" began to gain momentum in the film industry the Hollywood studios recruited the best talent from Broadway to make the first musicals. These films included Broadway Melody, which was promoted as the first "all singing, all talking, all dancing" film and had music by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, and 42nd Street, the first major success of Busby Berkeley. These films helped establish the backstage musical, a sub-genre in which the films plot revolves around a stage show and the people involved in putting the show on. Although these first musicals set the basic standard for the genre, their musical numbers were either within the context of a stage performance or seemed tacked on and gratuitous, doing nothing to further the story or develop the characters. Donen has stated that he disliked the musicals of Busby Berkeley and that his own films were "a reaction against those backstage musicals." Donen credits producer Arthur Freed as being the driving force behind the evolution in movie musicals, adding that Freed "had some sort of instinct to change the musical from a backstage world into something else. He didn't quite know what to change it into, just that it had to change." Kelly stated that Donen was the only person he knew that understood how musicals could progress and better suite the film medium. Donen and Kelly's films advanced the movie musical and set new standards with special effects, animation, editing and cinematography.

Donen and Kelly's first collaboration Cover Girl firmly established their intentions for musicals, particularly in the "Alter Ego" dance sequence. Aside from being a carefully crafted and perfected special effects shot that can only be achieved in the film medium, it also related to the film's story and the character's inner conflict. Donen and Kelly then tested the limits of films potential with the Jerry the Mouse dance in Anchors Aweigh, one of the most sophisticated combinations of live action and animation made at the time. By the time they made Take Me Out to the Ball Game they had perfected what Martin Rubin called an "indication of changing trends in musical films" which differed from the Berkeley spectacles towards "relatively small-scale affairs that place the major emphasis on comedy, transitions to the narrative, the cleverness of the lyrics and the personalities and performance skills of the stars, rather than on spectacle and group dynamics." Rubin credits Donen and Kelly with making musicals more realistic, compared to Berkeley's style of a "separation of narrative space from performance space" Take Me Out to the Ball Game was Berkeley's last film as a director and today can be viewed as a passing of the torch. Both Donen and Kelly found working with Berkeley difficult, and the director left before the film's completion. When Donen and Kelly directed their own work they were able to bring their ideas of what musicals could be to full fruition, including techniques that were later referred to as "cine-dance". Film scholar Casey Charness described "cine-dance" as “a melding of the distinctive strengths of dancing and filmmaking that had never been done before” and adds that Donen and Kelly “seem to have elevated Hollywood dance from simplistic display of either dancing or photographic ability into a perception that incorporates both what the dancer can do and what the camera can see... developed a balance between camera and dancer that…encouraged both photographer and choreographer to contribute significantly to the creation and final effectiveness of dance.”

When Donen and Kelly made their directorial debut with On the Town, they boldly chose to open the film with a big, extravagant musical number that was shot on location in New York with fast paced editing and experimental camera work, thus making a strong and clean break from all stage-bound musicals that had been made up to that time. The opening number, and the entire film, were unlike any musicals of the past and made a giant leap forward for the genre. Their achievements reached a level of perfection on Singin' in the Rain, which appropriately is a musical about the birth of the movie musical. The film includes a musical montage that Donen says was “doing Busby Berkeley here, only we’re making fun of him.” Charness states that Singin' in the Rain's references to Berkeley “marks the first time the Hollywood musical had ever been reflexive, and amused at its own extravagant non-dancing inadequacy, at that” and that Berekeley’s “overhead kaleidoscope floral pattern is predominantly featured, as is the line of tap-dancing chorines, who are seen only from the knees down." Charness also states that the film's cinematography “moves the audience perspective along with the dance.” Charness also singles out the films famous title number and states that “it’s a very kinetic moment, for though there is no technically accomplished dance present, the feeling of swinging around in a circle with an open umbrella is a brilliantly apt choice of movement, one that will be readily identifiable by an audience which might know nothing kinesthetically of actual dance…Accompanying this movement is a breathless pullback into a high crane shot that takes place at the same time Kelly is swinging into his widest arcs with the umbrella. The effect is dizzying. Perhaps the finest single example of the application of camera knowhow to a dance moment in Donen-Kelly canon.” He goes on to compliment Donen's camera direction in the Moses Supposes number, stating that “certain camera techniques which Donen had by now formularized.”…”the dolly shot into medium shot to signify the ending of one shot and the beginning of another.” Although Donen credits earlier musicals by René Clair, Ernst Lubitsch, and Fred Astaire as having been integrated musicals, he also states that "in the early musicals of Lubitsch and Clair, they made it clear from the beginning that their characters were going to sing operatically. Gene and I didn't go that far. In 'Moses Supposes', he and Donald sort of talk themselves into a song." Donen's Royal Wedding and Give A Girl A Break continued to use special effect shots to create elaborate dance sequences, and Kelly used even more sophisticated animation in his film Invitation to Dance.

During his career Donen's biggest rival was Vincent Minnelli, director of such films as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, An American in Paris and Gigi. Like Donen, Minnelli was a contract director at MGM who was most famous for the musicals he made in the Freed Unit, and film scholars have often compared the careers of both directors. According to Donen's biographer Stephen Silverman, critics tend to "express a distinct preference for Donen's bold, no-nonsense style of direction over Minnelli's Impressionist visual palette and Expressionist character motivations", while most film directors are said to prefer the work of Minnelli. Michael Kidd, who worked with both directors early in his career, describes Minnelli as being much less open to collaborative suggestions than Donen. Film critics have also pointed out that the two directors camera work differs in that Minnelli would often use forward and backwards tracking shots while Donen would use horizontal tracking shots and crane shots, with critics considering Donen's approach to be better suited for dance sequences.

Not all film critics have praised Donen. David Thomson dismisses most of his later comedy films, but praises him for leading "the musical in a triumphant and personal direction: out of doors...Not even Minnelli can rival the fresh-air excitement of such sequences. And few can equal his integration of song, dance and story." Andrew Sarris dismisses Donen as being without a personal style of his own and as being dependent upon his collaborators on his better films.

Among Donen's admirers are film directors Lindsay Anderson, Charlie Chaplin, Jules Dassin, Jean-Luc Godard, Stanley Kubrick, Karel Reisz, Martin Scorsese, and Francois Truffaut. Donen's skill as a director has been praised by such actors as Cyd Charisse and Audrey Hepburn. Debbie Reynolds has downplayed his contributions to Singin' in the Rain, stating that "Stanley just operated the camera, because Stanley didn't dance." Donen's work has been influential on such contemporary directors of film musicals as Bill Condon and Rob Marshall. The 2011 film The Artist pays tribute to Singin' in the Rain (amongst other films), and Donen praised the film after attending its Los Angeles premiere.