Singin’ in the Rain, one of the great musicals from Hollywood’s golden age, hides a smart and playful story under its technicolor exterior. Set during Hollywood’s transition from the silent era to the talkies, like most movies about movies it loves to take the piss out of Hollywood. So much so that this becomes the theme of the movie itself.
Image & Reality
The distance between how Hollywood presents itself and its actual reality forms the recurring motif of the movie. Its central plot – the transition to sound revealing that Jean Hagan’s starlet isn’t as refined as she appears on screen and the efforts to cover this fact up – makes for the primary demonstration of this fact. This in turn impacts the relationship between Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds, as keeping the lies up forces them apart. The climax, which resolves both plots, hinges on embracing the truth and doing away with Hollywood’s artificiality.
But it’s not just the main story which reflects this theme. From the opening moments, we’re awash in the difference between image & reality. Kelly’s monologue about the glamorized version of his ascent to stardom as flashback reveals the true story. This tension makes for some good gags, but it also teaches us what the movie is about.
The Small, Smart Choices
These choices continue through the rest of the script. Every chance it has, the movie revels in showing Hollywood’s lies. Cosmo’s ode to entertaining, “Make ‘Em Laugh“, takes place on a soundstage and ends with a reminder of the fake walls that make up their world. The same for when Lockwood and Selden take a romantic stroll and connect with each other. The movie sets this on another soundstage, with Lockwood using all the tricks of Hollywood magic. This creates piece by piece the atmosphere we’d expect from such a scene. Reminding us of the power of movies to make us fall in love.
Even the dream ballet sequence that usually closes out a Gene Kelly movie gets translated. Usually we just depart reality for a world of pure dance where Kelly gets to show off, like in American in Paris or Anchors Aweigh. But in Singin’ in the Rain it becomes a part of the movie being made, a set piece to sell the fake movie and a set piece to sell the real movie.
The Take-away
Theme doesn’t have to be restricted to the main story and big moments of your script. If you take the time you can think about how the same theme can impact all your scenes. In the process you also make them more interesting and unique to your story. Any movie can have a scene where a girl and a guy fall for each other. Singin’ in the Rain is the one where it happens as the guy uses all the Hollywood tricks to literally put romance in the air.