By Jennifer Baldwin. I’ve been thinking lately about how art is often more “real” to me than real life. As Truffaut said: “I have always preferred the reflection of life to life itself.” One of the reasons I spend so much time watching movies, in fact, is because after I’ve watched a good movie I feel renewed. Beautiful art has that ability to renew and enliven the spirit. Highbrow, lowbrow, middlebrow – to me it really doesn’t matter as long as I get that kick of delirious pleasure.
An American in Paris gives me that kick. It’s everything that’s great about mid-century American popular culture, fusing elements of high art with low art to create a joyful, exuberant experience. American pop art at its best is confident, playful, eclectic, improvisational, and spontaneous. It has energy and rhythm, a freewheeling delight in its own creativity. An American in Paris, at its heart, is about our relationship to art, about our desire to be renewed and enlivened by it.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the legendary seventeen minute wordless ballet set to Gershwin’s “American in Paris” tone poem that concludes the picture. The conceit of the ballet is that American painter Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly), “enters” the paintings of his favorite French artists, from Dufy to Renoir to Toulouse-Lautrec, bringing them to life through music and dance as he searches for his love (Leslie Caron). It’s a bold, beautiful concoction of sight and sound, eschewing traditional narrative storytelling in order to reach a place of emotional truth beyond the confines of words. This is musical cinema at its purest.
And it’s also a bold bit of filmmaking chutzpah. The production costs for the ballet alone reached $500,000, a risk that could have blown up in the faces of director Vincente Minnelli, star Gene Kelly, and producer Arthur Freed. But this just goes to show the artistic confidence of Hollywood (and MGM in particular) at the midpoint of the century.
Minnelli and his collaborators weren’t content to make “just another” MGM musical. Encouraged by the surprise success of The Red Shoes a few years earlier, they knew that audiences could embrace the use of extended ballet sequences in a movie. They believed in their skills as artists and gambled that audiences would too. The gamble paid off – An American in Paris was the sixth highest grossing film of the year. It also went on to win the 1951 Academy Award for Best Picture, much to the surprise of critics, who thought the top award would go to either A Streetcar Named Desire or A Place in the Sun.
But while Streetcar and Place in the Sun represented the new, mature direction Hollywood dramas would take in the 1950s, An American in Paris was the start of a new sophistication and complexity in the MGM musical of the 1950s, which would reach its height with Singing in the Rain and The Bandwagon a few years later. These films are self-reflexive commentaries on the role of art and entertainment in American culture.
An American in Paris, in particular, examines and celebrates America’s cultural role on the world stage. Even though the film is set in Paris and seems to be ostensibly about France as an artistic center, it is really a celebration of American popular art in a post-WWII era. From the Gershwin score to Gene Kelly’s athletic, “American”-style dancing, the film is soaked in American cultural trappings.
In the “I Got Rhythm” number, Jerry teaches the French children English and celebrates American culture, from the Charleston to the airplane, from cowboys to Charlie Chaplin.
The “By Strauss” number is a comical critique of highbrow snobbery, of the kind that says American popular song is inferior to the classical tradition of Europe. Notice that the café owner is turned into the “emperor” in this mock-celebration, which again reaffirms the democratic, creative spirit of American music.
Even the musical number performed by the Frenchman, Henri Baurel (George Guetary) – “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” – is staged like a Zeigfeld Follies production number.
And of course, the ballet finale reminds us that Jerry Mulligan is a former American G.I. who, in his search for the girl he loves, has brought French paintings “to life.”
The idea of art becoming “real” is my favorite motif in An American in Paris. Beyond the simplistic love complications of the plot and the relatively thin characterization, the movie is about how the “reflection” of life (i.e. art) is more vivid, more colorful, and more fantastic than life itself. The character who most embodies this transformative power of art is the French girl Jerry falls in love with, Lise (Leslie Caron).
In two key instances, Lise is framed in a mirror and a window (echoing the framing of Jerry’s canvases), equating her character with art itself. Mirrors reflect the world; however, in the case of Lise, the mirror doesn’t just reflect the world, it transforms it. Color, beauty, grace — all are brought to life through Lise’s “reflection.” She is more than just a picture in a frame; she is art brought to colorful, bold life.
Right before the final ballet, we see Lise again in a frame — the frame of a car window. Jerry, in his emotional yearning for her, must enter the “frame” of his sketch in order to bring his favorite paintings to life and find Lise.
As the ballet concludes, Lise disappears and Jerry is left with the rose that symbolizes her. It’s a bittersweet ending, suggesting that the fantasy of art cannot last and that we must rejoin the real world eventually. But as the camera zooms in on the red rose, we recognize that the emotions we experience in art can indeed be carried back into our ordinary lives.
Jerry and Lise reunite in the real world, embrace on the stairway, and walk off hand-in-hand into a limitless future.
As the film ends, we’re told that it was made completely in “Hollywood, U.S.A.” – a reminder that the dream factory of Hollywood can indeed renew our spirits and enrich our real lives.
An American in Paris says that our love for art is “here to stay.”
Posted on July 4th, 2011 at 10:17am.
Leslie Caron . . .
That’s all I’ve got. Excuse me while I freshen up.
Go ahead and freshen up, CharlieSays. 😀 Ms. Caron is indeed charming.
Jennifer,
Thanks for this charming homage. I recently re-watched the film on your suggestion and enjoyed it very much, despite the kitsch element you mention. I particularly loved the “I Got Rhythm” sequence, which is one of the great dance numbers, all the more fetching for being relatively modest and low-key. I also adored Oscar Levant, who brings to the film his double talent as sardonic wise-ass extraordinaire and maestro of the classical piano. Hollywood’s real problem these days is not that it doesn’t produce Gene Kellys, but that it doesn’t produce Oscar Levants: bit players who can elevate an entire film through sheer chutzpah of personality. I’ve never loved Leslie Caron, unfortunately. I wish Jerry had wound up with the American heiress Milo Roberts, who has pluck and verve (remember how she cons Jerry into that little tete-a-tete in her hotel) while Leslie is a little insipid, a little too much the melting school girl. In any case, the film is a splendid bit of mid-century Americana, as you say.
One question: how do you manage these wonderful screen-captures?
David, thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed your rewatch of the film. The “I Got Rhythm” number is a showstopper for me. At the TCM film fest, I had a ridiculously huge grin on my face through the whole song, it was just pure joy.
And I’m so glad you mentioned Oscar Levant! I wanted to write more about him but I couldn’t quite fit it into the essay. He makes everything better. 😀 The lack of great character actors (and just plain characters) is definitely a loss for modern Hollywood.
I can’t agree with you, re: Leslie Caron, however. I think she’s delightful. What she lacks in acting skill (this being her first role, it makes sense), she makes up for with her genuineness and her graceful dancing. She’s so fresh and sometimes awkward, without affectation or an overworked personality, that’s it’s endearing.
But, I will say… Milo is pretty awesome as well! In a lesser movie, her character would be more of a villainous “bitch” — to make it easier for audiences to accept Jerry/Lise, of course. But the filmmakers don’t go that route, thankfully. And Nina Foch imbues her with intelligence and grace, and as you say, “pluck and verve.” It’s a pretty mature handling of a love triangle (or would it be a “love square” because George Guetery is involved as well?). I’m not sure today’s filmmakers would be able to handle this level of maturity in a light romantic comedy.
As far as the screengrabs, I’m not sure what my secret is, to be honest. 😀 I use a regular MacBook, and a basic screen capture software. A lot depends on the quality of the DVD, and the American in Paris DVD special edition from a few years ago is pretty good.
Hey – Happy 4th of July to all you guys. Love the screen grabs, especially the ones against the drawn backdrops. It really helps you to appreciate the detail they put into these films.
Happy 4th of July, Jacob! Thank you for reading. And isn’t the attention to detail amazing? Minnelli had such a wonderful eye. His compositions are perfect.
A lovely tribute! You captured many of my favorite moments above. That last shot which says “Made in Hollywood, USA” makes me cry every time. It seems to symbolize a Hollywood that existed once — and we’re so lucky it did — but it’s also a poignant reminder that that Hollywood is gone forever.
I was very lucky to see this last December with Patricia Ward Kelly and Leslie Caron in attendance!
Best wishes,
Laura
I was sent here by Laura (thank you, Laura) who knows that An American In Paris has been my favorite film musical since I first saw it back in 1951 (yes, I am that old). I cannot but marvel at your screen shots – not just their quality, which is the best I’ve seen, but also by your choices of the scenes – you’ve captured the very moments that make each one so memorable.
Thank you so much, Jennifer.