MARCH 28, 2008 - VOL. 1, ISSUE 8

In Peter Cohen's 1989 documentary The Architecture of Doom he posits that the Third Reich was one massive piece of performance art. His meditations on the Nazi rulers' passion for the art of antiquity, the art of perfection, informed their view of the world in aesthetic terms. The atypical person was not but a blemish on the beautiful canvas of the Reich. We can easily apply his observations to an analysis of Stanly Donen and Gene Kelly's musical masterpiece, Singin' in the Rain. Like the grandiose footage of the Nuremburg rallies the numbers of Singin' in the Rain are sweeping scenes of technical perfection, of mesmerizing spectacle, and both share a dangerously shallow evaluation of humanity.

In both films the role of aesthetics takes center stage. The artists are creating a world as they see fit, to reach their ideal perfection. For the Nazis this means a specific body structure, particular color schemes, and carefully designed insignia. In the MGM musical it is physical beauty, the perfect voice, the perfect talents, the right personality. The characters in Cohen's documentary weed out undesirable people with segregation and murder. Donen's narrative implements humiliation and back stabbing to do the trick.

I would like to focus on Singin' in the Rain for a moment. This film takes place in 1927, the dawn of the talking picture, and Monumental studios decides it must make the expensive transition to sound film. The studios star couple Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont, played by Kelly and Jean Hagen, have always been advertised as America’s Sweethearts on and of screen. Their silent production of The Dueling Cavalier is quickly changed into a sound musical feature. Two problems disrupt the production: Lockwood falls for struggling actor Kathy Selden, played by Debbie Reynolds, and the studio must confront the fact that Lina Lamont's voice is hideous and shrill.

Like most musicals, Singin' in the Rain is a love story. Lockwood and Selden fall head over heels for each other, but a third person stands in the way. Ms. Lamont refuses to be replaced by this fresh young girl, even though her relationship with Lockwood is strictly an advertising tool for their pictures. To add insult to injury, Lamont becomes aware that the studio desires to give her the axe in favor of Selden's better voice.

It is not enough that Lamont is "ugly," but she is a cruel, manipulative, vile harpy. This type of characterization is nothing new, as Cohen's film points out Richard Wagner's operas typified good characters as beautiful and bad ones as hideous—an artistic convention taken quite literally by the Nazis. Yet in Singin' in the Rain there are several unattractive figures that are not demonized or marginalized like Ms. Lamont. Lockwood's best pal, Cosmo Brown, is comically strange looking, as are the studio head and The Dueling Cavalier's director. All of the men are quite successful behind the scenes, and are each charming, honest people. Ms. Lamont however falls victim to Hollywood misogyny; she is reviled for her fading sex appeal and her career is facing a dead end.

Such a fascist reading of the film is almost completely masked by a vapid attempt at social commentary. The film presents itself as poking fun at the artifice of celebrity and cinema. From the opening scene of Lockwood's fabricated past to the climactic "live action dubbing" we are presented with gags playing on the ideas of constructing beauty and perfection in the name of entertainment. Kelly's and Donen's film only reaffirms everything they are playing at: making a feature-length advertisement promoting negligent sexism and an association of ugliness with uselessness. In the end, the ugly woman is defeated and the "good" people are happy.

This type of filmmaking is akin to the informational films developed by the Nazis. Architecture of Doom utilizes two such films to strengthen its point. The first is The Eternal Jew, which presents exaggerated stereotypes of the physical differences of the German Jew from the Aryan and "proves" that these features indicate malice, greed, and parasitic behavior. The second is the hauntingly prophetic film War in Miniature in which scientists explain how the gas Zyklon B is the best way to eradicate vermin and insects. Vermin is the analogy of choice for the Jewish people in The Eternal Jew.

It may seem offensive to compare a well-loved, charming musical to genocide, but I assure you it is not hyperbole. The dangers of films like Singin' in the Rain are that they are so well constructed and infinitely enjoyable, the subtext becomes subversion. I found the film to be one of the most entertaining movie experiences I've had in years. It's fluid, snappy pace and mesmerizing choreography have not dated a single day in over fifty years, but the fact that everyone onscreen is fine with Ms. Lamont's humiliation is what's so striking. The film's charm sucks you in to cheer for the lovely duo of Lockwood and Selden; it gets you to jeer the antagonizing Lamont. Everything works out in the end; the film is a smash hit, Lamont is weeded out, Lockwood and Selden lock lips. The end.

To parallel the films once again, we must look at the acts of creation taking place within the stories. For Cohen it is Hitler as the "set designer, director, and star." He shows us early designs of the first Nazi standard and sketches of what would become the uniform of the Waffen-SS, all by Hitler himself. They bear a striking resemblance to preproduction work of a costume drama. Throughout the first half of the documentary, we are shown how Hitler created a world: the landscape was Europe, his fascination with architecture would be the set design, his admiration of the Greek sculptors would influence his views of physical appearance. He trims out what doesn't fit his view of a better world.

Don Lockwood is the maestro of the musical and his landscape in the silver screen. His object to mold is Lina Lamont. Her voice isn't right so he'll try one thing: microphone placement. That doesn't work so he'll try another: voice lessons. Failure. He tries one last technique: dubbing, literally giving her someone else's voice. It is now obvious that Ms. Lamont cannot conform to Lockwood's aesthetic taste, so she must be disposed of for the sake of a better picture—the symbolic better world.

The Architecture of Doom offers us a chilling analysis of human behavior, not merely a finger to point at fascism. Cohen creatively and intelligently investigates how our concepts of symbols and perfection shape our views of the physical world and of its peoples. We are aware of the violent repercussions of bigotry because we know what happened as a result of the magnificently designed and choreographed Nuremberg rally—this film tries to help understand how it occurs. Singin' in the Rain however does nothing more then encourage passive spectatorship, enticing us to approve superficiality. I cannot say it is not a good film, because it is—technically, but we cannot afford to accept the dogmas of every important, well made film without question, The Birth of a Nation being a prime example. The movie-going community never stood for that film's unapologetic racism, so why should we for Singin' in the Rain's sexist advocation of shallowness?