I don't find "realism" a very useful category. To David, I wasn't saying
that "realistic" was better, I was merely puzzled as to how someone who
likes Minnelli's musicals can find the melodramas "ridiculous."
Personally, I have to expend less effort to accept the conventions of
melodrama, especially in Minnelli, because the conversations in films
such as "Home From the Hill" aren't that far away from conversations I'm
familiar with among families (no comment on what that may say about my
own family!), whereas I don't have any close friends who start singing
and dancing in the midst of "serious" conversations -- and I would like
to think that I've spent more time talking to friends during the years
of my adult life than watching musicals. I'm not criticizing anyone
else's, uh, musical preferences. I hope we all agree that, as Bazin once
said, realism in cinema depends on artifice, and all cinema that
produces images with some intended resemblance to the daily world
depends on conventions to achieve that resemblance. I won't get into an
extended argument with someone who finds the conventions of the musical
easier to accept; it's simply that I don't. It strikes me as not very
productive to argue questions of taste, because in such arguments people
are basically just asserting their personalities. There's even something
to that effect in our group's statement of purpose: "...one intent is to
make this group a place where people can try to explore those aspects of
their reactions to a film that transcend their personal tastes and
quirks, and therefore might be accessible to others." If someone does,
or doesn't, like films in which the characters regularly burst into
song, I'm not sure that knowing that fact tells us anything about cinema.

Anyway, I don't think I really got close enough to or specific enough
about the visual essence of what I love about Minnelli in the piece I
was writing, so in that sense I was a bit disappointed with my effort,
which I regard as a start in (I hope) the right direction.. But it has
just appeared, and can be found at
http://www.chireader.com/movies/archives/2004/0104/040102.html (You will
also find Jonathan Rosenbaum's top films of the year at
http://www.chireader.com/movies/archives/2004/0104/040102_2.html)

- Fred