Film Musical and Musical Film: The Narrative and Auxiliary Functions of Music and Choreography as a Way to Differentiate Between the Genres

There is still no unambiguous and generally accepted definition of the genre of ‘film musical’ in the Russian film literature, which leads to significant confusion in the classification of films and makes it difficult to analyze them. The problem lies not only in the lack of a clear definition, but also in the blurred boundaries between a film musical and a musical film, the two genres that are closely related but have significant differences. In this regard, there is a need for a deeper and more detailed study of this issue and for developing a more accurate classification system based on the analysis of the role of music and choreography in the narrative, as well as on other genre features, such as the style of performance of musical numbers, their theme and function in the structure of a film. The result of the research is a system to differentiate between the two designated genres which is based on the differences between the narrative and auxiliary functions of music and dance in the structure of a film. These findings provide a more comprehensive understanding of the distinction between the genres of ‘film musical’ and ‘musical film’ for further research.