Now dancing scenes (oh, these make me wanna twist some hips as well!) differs a lot from kung fu fighting. Fighting, puts a mess on screen, with punch blows whizzing back and forth, and knuckles down at the face at impossible speed. Yet, it can afford that mess because the emotion that it tries to support is usually very intense; anger, for example. Dancing, be it ballroom, street, improvisations or any other kinds; have received very different treatment from directors, cinematographers and editors.
The movies you’ll hear me refer to will be: Strictly Ballroom (1992), Dance With Me (1998), and Take the Lead (2006). These films in common tell of fascinations with ballroom dancing. Given the availability of technology in the different years, and themes of which the directors deal with, we could look across the time leaps and perhaps find interesting nuggets about how the filmmakers themselves dance around the topic – Dancing.
Dancing as __________
In the world of science, there’s this ever-obsession with putting down your ‘definition card’, before we can talk further. If this can be important in the kitchen – knowing whether mother wants it sweet/bitter, if 'chocolate cake' meant flour mixed with cocoa, or chiffon layers sandwiched with chocolate bars, or is she just talking about the plastic decoration on the shelf; if that's important, then it will be important for the filmmakers to know what dancing “is”. Of course directors won’t allow him/herself to be as boring as telling you upfront in Times New Romans, font size 12, how he/she interprets it. But we could experience and probe its texture from the final product; much like eating a piece of the chocolate cake and reflectively guess the recipe later.
Dancing as Identity
Scott, the main character in Strictly Ballroom (1992), seems confused when his ballroom colleagues denounce his circus-like, acrobatic self-invented movements during a state competition. He frustrates himself even more when his first dance partner, parents and coach demands a strict stick with something pre-programmed and appropriate, allowing him freedom for steps choices akin to the Sony Playstation – Dance Dance Revolution.
Through dancing with his new beginner-partner, Fran, who provides us a contrast; secure, assertive yet knows how to submit, doesn’t mind an insult and sure of what she wants; he works through reconciling with the rules, and finding place for improvising.
Baz Luhrmann & Craig Pearce, the screenwriters of the film, I feel, also reflects this identity perspective in the way they position the cameras for the dance numbers. Even as Scott dances, the camera angles help us assume another kind of spectatorship; ‘watch Scott dance’, instead of ‘watch the dance that he is doing’ – So that, in the end, we may interpret the film as a portrait of who Scott was, and who has he grown (in the 2 hours) to be. Well, a lot of help was also garnered from antagonizing Scott’s parents, who lied to him about the fall of his father’s dancing career, when in actual he was deprived of the opportunity of winning because his wife refused to dance with him.
And so, as we are set up to be Scott’s friend, we shall see him flourish in all his brilliance, trotting the dance floor with fierce thumps of the Paso Doble. His grim and confident face pulls close to the camera, making a turn very slowly, almost inching his way forward, too slowly to be regarded as real. The camera frames the dances in a straightforward manner, simple linear cruise on the dolly, bit of close ups here and there; generally documentary in texture.
Dancing as Gender Roles
A dance couple due for a professional competition practices in the dance studio. They take a break.While her partner was gone, Ruby began twirling around a pole column. Sure steps swap swiftly on each whirl of her hips; silky end of the dress rises up, spinning around like a chopper’s blade.Rafael the handyman approached her and smilingly, with his Cuban accent, said, “I don’t understand how you can dance without music. No wonder you look so stiff.”
Compared to the previous one, Dance With Me (1998) brings in a kind of ‘maturity’, in terms of what the different conflicts the characters experience as young adults. After his mother died, Rafael left Cuba, to work for John whom he suspects to be his biological father. His heart gave way for Ruby, and on sending her home realized that she has a son.
Among these contentions of relationships, ‘dance’ began to brew a new meaning for both Rafael and Ruby. From where Rafael used to live, air of the night never would have time to still from ya-ya hands and tap-tap feet, moving to the reggae. When he saw how Ruby handled her moves without music back at the studio, he knew that he had very distinct ideas about what ‘dancing’ is to him - making his body as a vessel that allows music to ride and articulate itself through it.
On Ruby’s part, a little of her history shall colour for us the process of emotional struggle she goes through. She no longer could understand any sincerity of men, after having been left pregnant by her ex-dance partner. And she wouldn’t have raised her son and stayed sane had she not nursed her wound by regarding herself more competent, more skillful then men in general. But if you wanna dance, you gotta have a partner. So, dancing became not only about movements or body sculpting, a new issue rises up: Leading and following. Control.
Her resolution is a beautiful one.
She decided to partner with her runaway boyfriend for a medley round, hoping to harvest a win after 6 years of losing. On the dance floor, her partner makes very clear about who controls - he crunches hard to make powerful twist, tug and tosses, setting a mad pace for every number. Ruby warns him and almost yells at him to treat her more gently. Her leg cramps.
Comes the final number; in her frustration, she literally glides away from her partner, and stop a few feet away from Rafael, who is watching her from the crowd of audience. She looks intense at him, and he sees her bitterness in her eyes. She began letting the streams of emotions take their own form through her movements. He moves slightly with her, as if telling her that he is in fact dancing with her. Closing her eyes, she falls back into the arms of her partner, and just flowed with mellow mood of the music.
Photography of the dance has much improved after 6 years. Apart from the simple spectator’s view, cinematographer Fred Murphy includes more variation of dolly movements in relation to the dancer’s direction and those that are around them. And the shots are much longer, recording more actions within a cut. When photographing Rafael and Ruby, to convey a sense of respect and indifference of hoarding control in a dance, the camera always sets its referent point at Ruby’s height. The director even have Rafael to get to his knees while holding Ruby’s hands, letting her guide him around her and pull him up. The editor refrained from using the slow motion, unlike what the editor did for Strictly Ballroom to emphasize certain facial expressions or moves which just looks corny.
• • • • •
Dancing as Narrative
My interpretation of what ‘dance’ mean for Liz Friedlander, director for Take The Lead (2006), perhaps has less to do with the content in the story itself, but rather giving support to the structure of the story flow.
Inspired by a real person, dance teacher Pierre Dulaine offers to teach high school detention students to dance ballroom. The students labeled as ‘rejects’ regained hope affirmation in this new thing that they are taught. This gave them very rare opportunity to believe that their skills are appreciated and can be honed to mastery, and then of course to be recognized in the highly competitive ballroom dancing ring. You can well guess the plot.
What I’d like to discuss here though, is not about the very story, instead, I hope to highlight some interesting innovations of the way the dance numbers are photographed.
In the previous 2 movies that we’ve talked about, the outcome of the photography and the subsequent editing presents the dance in a pretty fragmented way. We can see that they move a certain hand, lift a certain leg, do a certain turn, but as much as we can sense that they are doing this thing called ‘dancing’, we don’t really see the whole process being done. It’s like starting with a bow, and ending with a curtsy, and stuff just any moving parts in the middle, and there you go, the Tango.
Whereas in this movie, Alex Nepomniaschy places the cameras within meaningful relationships with the process. In the movie’s production note, Liz commented:
“I visualized the movie starting as a stylized documentary, then exploding into a Hollywood movie at the end.” In discussions with her creative team, Friedlander stressed the idea that the film “should take its cues from the learning curve of the kids. As their world opens up, the movie should also ‘open up’ in look and feel.”How can this be done? I believe, while arranging for camera positions, not only was Alex informed about the specific moves, and which detailed gesture would be close-up worthy, he was also conscious about the space that the dance was to occur in. Apart from the portraits and interesting movements, he also provided us a spatial reference, letting us know where this movement is currently being performed; the right side corner of the hall? In the centre of the dance floor? Immediately in front of the audience?… Thus, he included views of the ‘spectators’, ‘hovering mosquito’, ‘ceiling’, ‘ant’, ‘among-the-others’, ‘cruising-across-the-floor’, and the dancers’ own viewpoints of course. It either involved many cameras or the actors repeat a scene a dreadful lot of times. Consider the spatial sensitivity in the following shots:
Having the variety of shots is still not enough. Liz and her editor Robert Ivison have chosen to collage the myriad of shots into an understandable story. They carefully selected shots and weave them together so that they can appear as a whole – a complete set of Tango or Waltz, etc. An illustration might be an instructional tai-chi video, which shows you exactly what moves come after which, just that this one is done with much more style and speed than that.
Even if that weren’t the actual dance sequence, all the more I would give my applause to the convincing editing. The shots juxtaposed through the cuts, brought about a logical connection to the steps. And plus, we have sufficient spatial reference point to put the dance into its environmental context.
• • • • •
Conclusion
I should argue, that filmmaking allows for the art of representation, that can be expressed in such many ways. Mark Cousins (1) postulates that every creative director would ask, “How do I do this differently?” every time they handle a subject. But ‘different’ in what way? Simply changing the actors or the language would make it different, doesn’t it? Of course not. From the 3 movies we’ve opened up and discuss about the way a similar subject is handled, I think the question for creativity here could be, “With due diligence, what does this subject matter mean to me?” and according to my meaning, how would it manifest in my characters, their lines, actions, environment and outcome?
• • • • •
• • • • •
Mark Cousins (2004). The Story of Film. Pavilion Books.
- - - - - § - - - - -
Sharon Chong, published 29th June, 07
:o)
Sharon Chong, published 29th June, 07
:o)
No comments:
Post a Comment