Monday, September 17, 2012

Day 267

movie: Flashdance
starring: Jennifer Beals, Michael Nouri
genre: Music
year: 1983
format: TV EDIT

plot: A young welder working in a cabaret dreams of being a professional ballet dancer

One of the most classic-cultclassics around. Sort of a Cinderella story for the punk/new wave era.
I have to admit, I've never seen the unedited version of this. The film is about to have it's 30th anniversary and I've only ever seen bits and pieces of it on tv over the decades.
What I never understood was, once the public learned about how many body doubles there were for Beals in this film, why the credits were never adjusted?

I also never realized how many different styles of dance are in this until now (ballet, break dance, performance art, stripping, ice skating) as the story focuses on the ballet and stripping.

 The tv edit I just saw was very choppy, and some of the edits didn't seem to match. I'm putting that down to once again, the tv station editing it to streamline what they think is the main points.
You can't help but think that this movie was completely designed to be on heavy rotation on MuchMusic and MTV and no other reason. The self contained music videos speak volumes (no pun intended) about the mindset of the entertainment business at the time. 

what do i think i learned from this film?
You have to hang on to your dreams no matter how much others tell you that they aren't reachable.  Without dreams to strive for, you have lost your own identity.  You only truly fail if you're too scare to try.

No comments:

Post a Comment