Four words: synchronized swimming above water. Berkley's musical style in a nutshell. I watched snippets from 42nd Street (1933) and Gold Diggers (1933) and both contained Berkley's iconic dreamlike kaleidoscopes of choreography which transported me as the audience into a surreal state. But how did he do it?
Well firstly he used the footage being black and white to his advantage. For example in some numbers he used mirrored floors to allow for the 'kaleidoscope effect' to take shape. However if the film had been coloured, it is feared that this may have appeared visually to busy. Another technique commonly used by Berkley included going from deep closeups shots to extreme ariel shots with the camera. This resulted in the flower made of dancers appear to open and close in the number 'Shadow Waltz' in Gold Diggers.
Other than Berkley's unique choreography, there was also other aspects of his design of which I admire, such as the train splitting in half to reveal the interior in of the train in 42nd Street. I also loved the play with perspective when creating a skyline in this same film. I thought it was very effective and thought provoking.
Another aspect that I thought was poignant was in the film Gold Diggers in the number 'My Forgotten Man'. At the beginning when the main actress was speaking the lyrics, there is a visual zoom into her face which takes up the majority of the camera lens, making it particularly intimate for the audience. As well as this unusual shot of the time, I was also surprised by the sexual innuendoes inferred in the musical number 'Petting in the Park'. I would have thought that such conduct would have been against the censorship regulations and a bit of a taboo subject at the time.
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