Stage & Screen: "An American in Paris"

I did an experiment. And I fell in love.

The experiment: compare two versions of An American in Paris in 24 hours. Last night, I watched the 1951 film version starring Gene Kelly (my love). Not 24 hours later, I saw the current production of An American in Paris on Broadway.

This was never an experiment I imagined myself doing. When I first saw the 1951 film (probably about ten years ago), I hadn’t yet come to the point of maturity from which I could fully appreciate Gene Kelly’s masterful dance and totally embrace a film that was half a decade older than me.

In other words, I was twelve. And bored.

Years later, I saw Singin’ in the Rain and was overcome. I watched every film from Gene Kelly’s career that I could find, but, in my rush to see everything I’d missed, I never revisited An American in Paris – which I had really missed in the first place. Right?

I started the film yesterday night expecting to have come to a point in my life when I could now enjoy, as an adult, what everyone said was this apparently glorious musical. You’ve got Vincente Minelli, a Gershwin soundtrack, Technicolor, Lerner’s writing, Freed producing, and Gene Kelly (emphasis on the Gene Kelly). Plus, this movie had won six academy awards, including Best Picture. What could go wrong?

Maybe I’m crazy, but I am just not that taken with this film. It feels like absolute treason to say – treason to film, treason to Gene Kelly, treason to every Minelli film that ever was. But, for me, honestly? American is clunky; you can tell where bits were salvaged to create some semblance of a through line. Most of the songs feel forced or out of place to me. The big moment in the film is, of course, the famous ending ballet sequence – but even that doesn’t work within the already-problematic story. All the ending ballet sequence does (and does beautifully, to be fair) is retell the story of what we’ve just seen happen up until this point. Its function is to prolong a conflict that, immediately after the sequence, is fixed way too easily.

Then there’s the outdatedness of it. The caricatures of the French and the children that follow Gene Kelly around begging him to speak English have not aged well.

The film is only an hour and fifty-one minutes, but I remembered it as being something outrageous like four hours. But this, I think, was just because the movie reveals itself as disjointed and noncommittal, which makes it drag.

So, there I was, twenty-two and still bored.

I don’t want to be too harsh on the movie; obviously, it’s renowned and Gene Kelly said it was his favorite of his musicals. I really do want to love this film. But there are so many ways I always leave dissatisfied, whether because of something I’m ignorant of or because my expectations are too high? But when have expectations ever been too high for Gene Kelly?

Then, today, I saw the Broadway production.

From the moment it began, you could just tell that this story was meant to be seen on a stage. It’s a love story, and the presence of the couple in a physical form performing in such unity is not an experience that can really be lived in the same way when you watch it on film. I’m far from an expert on dance (though I wish I was). But choreography and the art and mastery of movement have both always taken my breath away.

The stage production has done something astounding, something I wouldn’t have believed possible. They’ve transformed this story into the show that it has always wanted to be. Seamless graceful movement is the primary way the show communicates the heart of the story to the audience and every motion is infused with the style of both theater and ballet. Everything moves just as it should, just the way it was meant to. It has the tenderness and romance that the movie tried to capture.

For me, the movie misses this graceful, seamless movement because of its disjointedness. But the show unfolds like every romance must unfold, tenderly and intentionally. Exactly like a flower blooms.

This production is certainly one of the most romantic shows currently on broadway, if not the best love story. I would expect Valentines Day to be totally sold out. But I also am surprised that so few people are talking about this show.

I wasn’t interested in it because of my issues with the film, but the show fixes so many of these issues; it repositions the climactic ballet to be of actual importance to the story (and to make sense as the climax) rather than leaving it as a peripheral and repetitive (however gorgeous) reverie. They deleted the unmemorable songs (which are so difficult to get through in the film) and replaced them with fitting numbers, but left alone the basic framework, so it’s still the story. They integrated the composer into the story more (and even got in a joke about Oscar Levant which did not go unappreciated) and the romance was sublime.

I wish people knew that the Broadway production is so much more than just a remake of the film. It’s the thing the movie would have been if it could have been. It's wonderful.