Let's list some "stagey" movies. Also, why make stagey movies?

[Spoke]

I will not define stagey and further than to say watching the movie feels more like watching a play than watching a film. Perhaps y’all can help me out with some of the elements that make a movie feel that way.

A lot of the movies that feel stagey were based on plays, so not too surprising, I guess. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Driving Miss Daisy was based on a stage play, and it doesn’t feel “stagey” at all.

And not all the stagey movies are based on plays. Maybe they come out stagey because either the writer or the director is more used to working on stage productions. Maybe the creators designed the movie to be stagey for artistic reasons. Maybe it’s a matter of budgetary constraints.

What prompted the thread is the movie Nightwatching, starring Martin Freeman as Rembrandt. Sounded potentially good to me, but I found it to be stagey in a most egregious way. (It is very self-consciously so. Most of the scenes are filmed in stage sets with the floorboards readily apparent, and scenery being wheeled in and out.)

So what are some other stagey movies out there? Does it bother you to watch a movie like that? What elements make a movie feel stagey? And why make a movie stagey? Seems like you are not taking full advantage of your medium.

[TriPolar]

“What elements make a movie feel stagey?”

Lots of dialogue, long scenes, limited locations, the cast breaking out into a song and dance number.

[Dewey_Finn]

It’s been a while since I saw them, but I thought Le dîner de cons (aka The Dinner Game and the basis for Dinner for Schmucks) and La Cage aux Folles (the basis for The Birdcage) were both very “stagy”. Not surprising as both were based on stage plays.

[Sattua]

An awful lot of that happens in the editing room. The original cut of Star Wars was awful. It looked like a low-budget BBC soundstage costume drama (which . . . okay . . . it sort of was). Bits of that original cut are in the documentary that came with the boxed set of DVDs. Lucas saw it, hated it, started over with somebody else.

Plenty of black-and-white movies feel that way to me. A Streetcar Named Desire comes to mind.

[Spoke]

I saw Irma la Douce for the first time a few weeks back, and was not surprised to find out afterward that it was based on a stage production.

[Spoke]

Very broad acting seems to be another common feature of “stagey” movies.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Look Back in Anger (1989 version with Kenneth Branagh) feels like a play, as does Glengarry Glen Ross. (Of course, they are both based on stage productions.)

[burpo_the_wonder_mutt]

Wait Until Dark was based on a stage play. Play and movie were obviously going for a severe claustrophobic feel (also fear of the dark). Haven’t seen it in a looooong time, so that’s all I have to offer.

[Ike_Witt]

Glengarry Glen Ross was a play written by David Mamet. He may have a few things on this list.

[Defensive_Indifference]

I recently saw Hitchcock’s Rope. It was interesting, and I liked it, even though it probably was ultimately a failed experiment, as Hitchcock himself admitted. Anyway, it takes place entirely on one set, it’s filmed to look like one long unbroken shot, and the acting is very stagey, or maybe I’d say sort of mannered. It’s worth watching. But I think it fits the OP’s criteria for a stagey movie.

[Robert163]

@Ike_Witt

Glengarry Glen Ross was a play written by David Mamet. He may have a few things on this list.

You beat me by three minutes

In that film is the average viewer supposed to know the land is desert/swamp land they are selling

[RivkahChaya]

@Sattua

Plenty of black-and-white movies feel that way to me. A Streetcar Named Desire comes to mind.

An awful lot of older, hence B&W, but talking, films look that way, because the sound was recorded in real time. The sophistication for dubbing didn’t exist. Also, location shots were impossible, so even outdoor shots were on backlots, or sets built on soundstages to look like the outdoors (think, the forest scenes in the 1941 The Wolf Man).

Lots of silent films made great use of location shots and big, open spaces, but the first talking were very contained. Compare “The Mother and the Law” segment of Intolerance in 1916 with the famous car-train race, or the beautiful outdoor shots in the 1926 Way Down East to Bachelor Apartment in 1931 or more importantly, Blackmail in 1929. Blackmail began as a silent, and was changed to a sound film after many establishing shots had already been filmed. So it is a mix of silent and sound footage. The silent footage is big, and outdoors, location shots, while the sound scenes are, as you put it, “stagey.” Not only are they boxy, and on small sets, with one exception (which is still indoors) but the camera moves very little, because it’s movement would be recorded on the track. The one scene with lots of camera movement is technically a sound scene, on one of the sound sets, but there is no dialogue, and the microphones are all shut off. It’s a fascinating film, and a very good one, from early Hitchcock, when he was still in England.

Streetcar is meant to look cramped, because we are supposed to feel like the characters are trapped by the limitations of the choices they have made, and Blanche by her own mind. If fact, throughout the film, Blanche’s world is closing in on her, and the sets do a good job of reinforcing this. I’ve seen it on a big screen, and the symbolism is much more obvious.

Deathtrap looks stagey, to give a more modern example (1982), but I think the intention is to reproduce the “play within a play” irony of the stage script. We’re supposed to feel like we’re watching a play. It makes the twist at the end work better.

[Dewey_Finn]

@RivkahChaya

An awful lot of older, hence B&W, but talking, films look that way, because the sound was recorded in real time. The sophistication for dubbing didn’t exist. Also, location shots were impossible, so even outdoor shots were on backlots, or sets built on soundstages to look like the outdoors (think, the forest scenes in the 1941 The Wolf Man).

A few months ago, ABC had an hour-long special about The Sound of Music. It was hosted by Diane Sawyer and they traveled to Austria to show some of the original locations (e.g., the real house in which the Von Trapps lived) and the filming locations. At one point, they interviewed Julie Andrews, and she described the filming of the opening scene when she sang the title song. She said something about how there were giant speakers in the trees blaring the music as she sang. I was amazed; I assumed the music was added later and her singing recorded in a studio.

[Spoke]

@Dewey_Finn

A few months ago, ABC had an hour-long special about The Sound of Music. It was hosted by Diane Sawyer and they traveled to Austria to show some of the original locations (e.g., the real house in which the Von Trapps lived) and the filming locations. At one point, they interviewed Julie Andrews, and she described the filming of the opening scene when she sang the title song. She said something about how there were giant speakers in the trees blaring the music as she sang. I was amazed; I assumed the music was added later and her singing recorded in a studio.

I would assume that the speakers were blaring so that she could lip-synch the singing. Same as you would do for a rock video. Song is already recorded, you are lip-synching in the video.

[Sefton]

Stalag 17 seems stagey on occasion, with so much of the dialogue and action taking place in the prisoner’s barracks.

I wasn’t surprised to see that the movie was based on a Broadway play. I was surprised that the play was based on actual life in an Austrian prison camp.

[buddha_david]

Noises Off! – which makes sense since it’s based on a stage play about putting on a stage play.

[rowrrbazzle]

@Dewey_Finn

A few months ago, ABC had an hour-long special about The Sound of Music. It was hosted by Diane Sawyer and they traveled to Austria to show some of the original locations (e.g., the real house in which the Von Trapps lived) and the filming locations. At one point, they interviewed Julie Andrews, and she described the filming of the opening scene when she sang the title song. She said something about how there were giant speakers in the trees blaring the music as she sang.

Also The Sound of Music (1965) - Trivia - IMDb

During the filming of the opening shot of Julie Andrews taken from a helicopter, Julie Andrews relates that although she tried digging her heels into the ground and bracing herself, on every take she was knocked over by the powerful helicopter downdraft. After more than a dozen takes, she attempted to hand-signal to Robert Wise to have the helicopter make a wider pass, but the response she got was a thumbs-up - he was finally satisfied with the shot.

[Leaffan]

Speaking of Hitchcock, “Dial M for Murder” is a very stagy movie. Most of it is filmed in the flat of Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) and his wife Margot (Grace Kelly).

Come to think of it “Rear Window” would also fit the bill, no?

[Terr]

The Breakfast Club?

[dofe]

Dogville probably counts as “stagey,” but it’s done so very deliberately.

The story of Dogville is narrated by John Hurt in nine chapters and takes place on a stage with minimalist scenery. Some walls and furniture are placed on the stage, but the rest of the scenery exists merely as white painted outlines which have big labels on them; for example, the outlines of gooseberry bushes have the text “Gooseberry Bushes” written next to them.