Mettre en scène les codes du genre : artifice et théâtralité dans la comédie musicale hollywoodienne classique

Through a close reading of Busby Berkeley’s Take Me Out To The Ball Game (MGM, 1949) and Vincente Minnelli’s Meet Me in St. Louis (MGM, 1944), this paper analyzes the relationship between stylistic choices and discursive strategies in 1940s Hollywood musicals. Based on highly artificial dramatic and formal codes, the musical is the most hybrid, heterogeneous and unnaturalistic genre in Hollywood. Far from smoothing over the disruptions entailed by the genre’s dual mode of representation, the mise en scene and the actors’ performance constantly highlight the tension between integrative and non-integrative elements by overtly theatricalizing spectacle-oriented sequences. Neither demystifying nor remystifying the genre’s illusion-making process, such theatrical games pave the way to a double reading. By setting into relief the utopian nature of the genre’s normative discourse, the staging of the musical’s generic codes prompts spectators to embrace the collective dream while remaining aware of the unreality of Hollywood myths.