Materializing Musical Cinema is a collection of videographic essays that engage with the diverse histories and contexts of musical films made around the world. The volume expands the scope of musical film study to marginalized musicals and bodies in the genre, especially those made outside of Hollywood, and pays special attention to musicals made beyond the United States, including films from Japan, Mexico, India, Israel, Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, South Africa, and Senegal. Through their investigations, contributors emphasize how filmmakers use the language of musicals to push against conventions of genre and stardom, revise narrative and aesthetic norms, and challenge social expectations. The contributors use a range of videographic techniques to convey their critical engagement with the genre: working with the rhythms of image and sound, employing explanatory voiceovers or text, imposing algorithmic deformations, engaging in speculative practices, juxtaposing sound and image, and remixing materials for analytical and comparative purposes. The essays in this volume demonstrate how both musicals and videographic essays have unique affective, spatial, and rhythmic affordances that transform their material. Taken as a whole, Materializing Musical Cinema conveys how videographic criticism combines theory and practice, materializing the genre’s sensorial components so audiences can experience and critique the multi-layered complexities of musical cinema.

Desirée J. Garcia is Professor and Chair of the Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies Department at Dartmouth College. 

Jenny Oyallon-Koloski is Associate Professor of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.