#musical sequence

To continue the tradition we started with 2x01 with The Christmas Kiss, if you'd like to relive just the musical sequence from 2x03, The Montage, look no further!

I forgot about this scene.

Still the greatest, most unexpected thing I have ever seen on television.

Sean Garrity's hallucinogenic musical sequence while getting surgery for his cancer on Rescue Me.

Willard Mack (right) shooting a musical sequence for Broadway to Hollywood

The musical sequence in (500) Days of Summer also reflects how Tom’s perception—influenced and defend by other movies—shapes the viewer’s interpretation of the story.  After his and Summer’s first sexual encounter, Tom walks down the street as “You Make My Dreams” by Hall Oates plays seemingly non-diegetically.  However, he begins to dance in beat to the song, again reflecting how he is at once a character in the film and a representation of the cinematic apparatus, as the soundtrack is at once non-diegetic and a part of the reality that he shapes in the film. As seen in the first shot above, several fountains shoot off euphemistically as Tom walks past.   Tom is in the foreground but the massive fountains that overwhelm the frame are clearly in focus, and the fact that a municipal construct explodes in tandem with his mood reveals the extent to which Tom’s perspective dictates what the viewer sees.  After Tom walks past the fountains, he dances and random passers-by join in as a choreographed dance sequence ensues.  Tom takes a baseball bat and pretends to hit a home-run—an obvious reference to “scoring” and going through all the “bases,” which are common terms used in reference to sexual intercourse—which makes the others, who are now dancers in his musical number, pick him up and cheer. 

The heavily stylized sequence shows that Tom does not perceive what might be called “the real world,” but rather a reality of film history wherein spontaneous dance sequences are normal.  Whereas Patricia White speculates that musicals turn narrative signs into clear fictional constructs and thus exist outside of ideology (120), (500) Days utilizes that transformation to reveal the ideological impacts of a male-dominated narrative. As a representative of what the cinematic apparatus constructs as normal, Tom finds no issue with strangers dancing with him in celebration of his sexual victory, despite the fact that the audience realizes how unrealistic this scene is.  The viewer is meant to consider how Tom’s perspective is not at all natural, even if it seems so to him, and so we consider the ways that films and their naturalizing tools alter our perception of the real world.

Dyskograf - http://www.vjstv.com/Dyskograf

DYSKOGRAF is a graphic disk reader.  Each disc is created by visitors to the installation by way of felt tip pens provided for their use.  The mechanism then reads the disk, translating the drawing into a musical sequence.

Co-production : Cultures Electroni[k], Les Bouillants, Avoka

More info on the web : dyskograf.com avoka.fr

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DYSKOGRAF est un lecteur de disques graphiques. Chaque disque est créé sur place par les visiteurs de l’installation grâçe à une série de feutres mis à leur disposition. Le dispositif permet ensuite de lire les disques pour traduire le dessin en une séquence musicale.

Co-production : Cultures Electroni[k], Les Bouillants, Avoka

DYSKOGRAF is a graphic disk reader.  Each disc is created by visitors to the installation by way of felt tip pens provided for their use.  The mechanism then reads the disk, translating the drawing into a musical sequence. (more)