Tom Mason

'BALLETS THAT ARE DREAMS': HOW SURREALISM HAS INFLUENCED THE HOLLYWOOD FILM MUSICAL

My thesis will examine the extent to which surrealism and the Surrealist movement has influenced the cinematic musical as produced by Hollywood from the genre’s formative years in the late 1920s. This genesis was in the aftermath of a Surrealist foray into filmmaking with works such as Un Chien Andalou and Emak Bakia. However, the numerous shared aesthetic and thematic elements of Surrealist cinema and the Hollywood musical have thus far remained largely unexplored within film scholarship. Despite these common factors being suggestive of a significant Surrealist influence, there is currently no unified study of this impact. Indeed, as these tenets are among those central to how the Hollywood musical defines itself aesthetically and thematically in contrast to the ‘realism’ found in most mainstream cinema, a surrealist interpretation is key to a full understanding of the genre. This project will thus seek to bridge that gap in understanding to produce a comparative study of the Hollywood musical’s relationship with surrealism and charting its evolution.

Guy Austin, School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University

Andrew Shail, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University