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As a child I always hated being forced to sit through musicals. I never understood why people would break out into song like that, and I was far too young to appreciate the artistry (choreography, set design, costumes, pacing) behind it all. Carol Reed's "Oliver!" was the one musical I remember oddly enjoying as a child, probably because it is one of the darker ones and is appropriately drenched in the spirit of Dickensian squalor. This is a musical about ghetto life in Victorian London, and while the scenery and set designs are stark, dark, and true to that way of life, it is flat out bizarre for people to be breaking out into such ridiculous songs amidst their misery. Upon a recent viewing, my first since childhood, I have some new thoughts and insights into why this musical "works" in that bizarre breaking out into song kind of way, and why most just don't do it for me.
When musicals work or really say something, it is because they realize their own inherent strangeness. Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark" as tragic and operatic and over reaching as it was, worked as a musical because the musical numbers were the products of the imagination of the protagonist, an immigrant obsessed with Hollywood musicals. Likewise, the very cynical and enjoyable "Chicago" worked on a similar level because the musical numbers were the products of a homicidal ingenue singer/dancer. Musicals don't work when they take their own musical-nature too seriously (like in "Moulin Rouge") or are simply too much fluff about nothing (i.e. something pointless like "Mary Poppins"). Upon viewing "Oliver!" for the first time as an adult, I saw it in a new light. Told mostly from the point of view young Oliver, I saw the musical numbers as the products of his childhood imagination and his way of coping with the horrors of ghetto life around him. The best musical number was probably when Nancy got everyone in the tavern signing and dancing about the joys of getting drunk (as a cover to help poor Oliver escape the clutches of the evil Bill Sykes). It was undeniably catchy and sounded like a real pub tune that drunks might start singing around a piano. There are other great and classic tunes to be heard here, and the direction and acting from the leads to the dancing extras are all top notch.
Still, for all its bleakness (although it does have a happy ending for Oliver at least, though certainly things didn't end happily for Nancy, and unless you think a life on the streets being a pick-pocket is fun, it wasn't a necessarily a good ending for Fagin or the Dodger, despite their peppy closing tune) I wouldn't really classify this as a family film, though I don't think showing it to kids over the age of seven or eight will do any harm. This is a harsh tale about an unfortunate orphan trying to survive on the streets and find some happiness. I think it would be very interesting to see a modern update on this some how, perhaps a revisionist take on it, where people on the streets of Compton break into happy songs about their horrible lives. I'd like to see a hard-edged hip-hop version of "Oliver!". I always thought Dickens would translate well in those regards. As it stands, "Oliver!" was probably the last of the great film musicals and maybe the strangest G-rated film I've ever seen.


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