How Musicals Work

Currently enjoying "How Musicals Work" by Julian Woolford (available from Nick Hern publishing). Haven't quite finished but one small thought thus far.

In a section about theatrical language, Mr. Woolford makes a passing point about film musicals:

"The various theatrical languages that musical-theatre creators have utilised over the years have translated with greater or lesser success to the more naturalistic medium of film...I mention this only to point out that in the transfer to a movie version, any musical necessarily has to change its theatrical language to a cinematic language" (p.193)

Which is, I think, a much better way of saying what I was trying to say about Nine: film musicals need to be conceived as films, rather than merely being filmed.