ABSTRACT

While the Greek film musical enjoyed popularity and commercial success in the 1960s, introducing new discourses on tradition, Greekness and modernity, it virtually disappeared from the Greek film charts in the next decade after the fast decline of the Greek popular cinema. During the 1980s, a period of major political, social and cultural changes, the Greek popular cinema and its genres began to regain popularity. Among the films of the era, some film musicals were released, and within the blossoming direct-to-video network older musical filmmakers re-emerged from oblivion. The purpose of this article is to explore the Greek film and VHS musicals the 1980s on the basis of the bipolar axis of introversion/extroversion or modernism/postmodernism and to describe its various articulations in terms of form and content in the light of MTV and popular American film musicals.

Keywords: 1980s, Greek cinema, musical, popular film, postmodernism, VHS