Why are these four Oscar contenders going the musical route?

Over the past year, studio marketing departments seem to have gone to great lengths to hide the musical elements of their movies (we’re looking at you, “Mean Girls” and “Wonka”). So it’s somewhat refreshing that four proud new additions to the genre will be making their mark this awards season. Michael Gracey, director of the word-of-mouth great “The Greatest Showman,” recognizes the enduring appeal of musicals for filmmakers.

“I always say you sing when words fail you,” Gracey says. “You want the scene to take you to an emotional high. And when you can’t express that joy or enthusiasm in any other way, you start singing. The same goes the other way around. “You descend into the depths of despair, and in that moment of pain, in that moment of suffering, singing is the only way to express how you feel.”

The Australian director proves himself as the true master of musical songs with his latest work “Better Man”. Focusing on the life of Robbie Williams, the film differs from many recent biopics by depicting the global pop star as a monkey through motion capture CG. It’s a bold and creative choice that elevates the narrative, but it wasn’t even the most difficult part of making the film. This happened when Queen Elizabeth II was about to begin filming an incredible number of films set in London’s Regent Street. It occurred when Elizabeth died.

“We had to find new money to invest in that musical number because we had to wait for the funeral,” says Gracey. “Another five months passed before he was back on the street. And of course there are those who say, ‘Stop it, you don’t need it.’ And you say, ‘No, no, no.’ “You don’t understand.” But that’s true for every director, right? “Every director thinks that every one of their sequences is the one where the movie is going to fail.”

For Jacques Audiard, his success in becoming the winner of Cannes “Emilia Perez” It was the first scene of the movie. This number, “El Alegato”, finds Rita, played by Zoe Saldaña, singing while walking through the streets of Mexico City. The famous French auteur, who has never shot a musical, admits through a translator: “Of course I was nervous.

“If I have the choice, I like to start shooting with the most complex scene,” says Audiard. “So starting from that market scene was a way for us to know where we were. And in that sense, the shot even gave us information in terms of tone and light; “There was one very important thing that had to be implemented, which was to have the entire beginning of the film be at night.”

Audiard plays with cinematic form by disconnecting his characters from the real world, often in the middle of a song. This is notable in “Bienvenida,” which features Jessi, played by Selena Gomez. Audiard explains: “There were two levels of reality. Jessi was in the bedroom and suddenly we went somewhere else. The name we gave to this series among ourselves was Dark Ideas, that is, Jessi’s Dark Ideas. “You talk to this girl and suddenly she enters the subconscious and the subconscious becomes wild and angry.”

Joshua Oppenheimer is an Oscar nominee for his documentaries “Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence” made the unusual choice to make his first narrative feature an original musical. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where a wealthy family survives in a secret bunker, “The End” has its characters express their inner feelings through songs. But Oppenheimer made certain choices. Unlike “Better Man” or “Emilia Pérez,” there are no backup dancers or visual effects in the context of the scenes. Actors like Tilda Swinton and George McKay carry these numbers on their own.

“I knew I would avoid the post-MTV fast-cut (aesthetic) genre. “I was going to go back to the golden age of longer takes,” says Oppenheimer. “Unless there is a change of location that I didn’t anticipate, the songs are basically one take. “Even though it’s not a dance yet, it’s choreographed because everything that’s going on has a musical rhythm.”

Much of the choreography was prepared on set, often in an actual salt mine. For one of McKay’s leading figures, the blown-up windsock man you might see promoting a business on the side of the highway was an unexpected source of inspiration.

“They suddenly collapse, then they swell and suddenly collapse; that was kind of the basis of the choreography,” Oppenheimer recalls. “We then timed these collapses or fades to moments of realization, the moments when the son of truth burst his bubble. “This is him realizing that everything he learned from his family was a lie.”

Unlike their peers, Jon M. Chu He faced a very different challenge. His assignment was to adapt the hit Broadway musical “Wicked” for the big screen. But as he puts it, when you have an iconic song like “Defying Gravity” to work on, it’s “the greatest gift a filmmaker could ever have.”

“’Gravity Defying’ is closer to you, like, ‘Awesome, great,’” Chu says. But strangely, when you’re doing it as a film, having the scope of flight and having the intimacy of the words is very unstable, because you make the wrong choice and you lose the power of the song.”

Moreover, as a fan of the original production, Chu did not want to lose many of those integral “Biblical” moments. Then he admits again: “Sometimes I thought it was the Bible, and then we said, ‘Actually, that doesn’t matter.’ Let’s go with what we’re feeling here right now.’”

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This story first appeared on: Los Angeles Times.