A Film Canon

 

 

Unlike 42nd Street, which deconstructs the theatrical musical, and Love Me Tonight, which imbues the entire world with the artificiality of the stage, Top Hat attempts to construe its musical sequences in the most naturalistic terms possible; that is, as spontaneous improvisation, encapsulated in Fred Astaire's observation, to Ginger Rogers, that "every once in a while, I suddenly find myself dancing." This slippage between brain and feet elevates dancing to the autonomy of a language, rather than a mere performance, producing a subsidiary, podalic conversation that contributes to the pervasive miscommunication upon which the narrative hangs, as well as Astaire's characteristic sidelong gaze. The fluid transitions from 'regular' to choreographed life also explicate tap dancing as an embodiment of the frenzied, hyperactive pace of the modernist metropolis, epitomised by the moment at which Astaire taps out the rhythm of the traffic on the roof of a hansom cab. That said, there are still residues of the backstage narrative, as well as a conspicuous irrealism to many of the sequences, most notably the fantastic pastiche of Venice. Nevertheless, it feels as if Sandrich only invokes these factors for the sake of ultimately rejecting them, in the name of a more organic peformative space, perhaps best described as a giant tympanum, whose staccato reverberations - rain falling, telegram 'stops', Rogers' slaps - suggest that somebody, somewhere, is always putting on tap shoes.