Funny Face is a 1957 American musical film directed by Stanley Donen. It contains songs by George and Ira Gershwin. It has the same title as the 1927's Funny Face Broadway musical by the Gershwins and has the same star (Fred Astaire), but the plot is completely different and the film has only five songs from the stage musical: "How Long Has This Been Going On?" "Funny Face" "Let's Kiss and Make Up" "He Loves and She Loves" "'S Wonderful" In the 1957 film version, photographer Fred Astaire sees something in Audrey Hepburn's face which is new and fresh and would be perfect for a fashion ad campaign to which he has been assigned. It would give the campaign character, spirit, and intelligence. The fashion shoot will use famous landmarks from Paris. While in Paris, a straight laced Fred Astaire watches a creative "bohemian" dance by Hepburn. I've edited and brightened that dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FznWwWrOIQ for this video. Art of the Beat/Bohemian Generation The Beat Movement/Generation was an American social and literary movement that started when I was in elementary school in the 1950s. It centered in bohemian artist centers in San Francisco’s North Beach, Los Angeles’ Venice West, and New York City’s Greenwich Village. Its self-styled “beat” (“weary”) were alienated from conventional “squares”. They were “hip” with heightened sensory awareness induced by drugs, jazz, and Zen. By the time I was in college in 1961, the Beat Movement as a fad had begun to fade. Writers and poets like On the Road Jack Kerouac, howling Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti in his City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Philip Whalen, Gary Snyder, and LeRoi Jones and their chaotic musings splattered with obscenities was less an bold acceptance of the unorthodox and more just tedious self-involvement.
