Girl Week: SUSPIRIA (2018)

Written as part of the annual Girl Week blogathon hosted by Dell on Movies. Head on over to Dell's site and check out the other entries!

The year is 1977. Susie Bannion has run away from her Mennonite home in Ohio to join the Helena Markos Dance Company in West Berlin. Susie has long been obsessed with the dancing of the company, and its lead choreographer, Madame Blanc - she has studied the company's performances on videos from her local library, and even traveled against her parents wishes to New York City to see the company perform live. She was out of place in Ohio, feeling the need to express herself through the act of dance. Thankfully for her there is a spot open in the Markos Company, as one of the dancers, Patricia, vanished under mysterious circumstances (the rumor is that she was working with an activist anarchist group). More and more mysterious things start to happen around Susie, for you see, this dance company is run by a coven of witches.

Yes, in outline form, the plot of Suspiria is the same as the justly famed Dario Argento film of the same name, but this Suspiria, directed by Luca Guadagnino, couldn't be further from that film. Where the original was a Technicolor wondershow, assaulting the audience with the most garish reds and blues you ever did see, the 2018 version has a mostly muted color palette, greyed out in the shades of winter in Berlin. Where the plot of the original sort of tumbles out in the form of a fever dream, the plot here is very linear, and extended to two hours and forty minutes, divided into six acts and an epilogue. And most importantly, whereas the original only cared about the dance academy as a setting, this one puts the dance front and center. And with that, it also throws the politics of the time and place into sharp relief.

Perhaps all of those things put you off. Perhaps that all makes Guadagnino's Suspiria sound like a chore, a piece of homework, a pretentious piece of claptrap wearing the clothes of horror. Maybe that's all true. But Suspiria got me right in the chest. This is a horror film about a dancer's body so scarily accurate that it feels as though it were made entirely by dancers.

"When you dance the dance of another," Madame Blanc says, "you make yourself in the image of its creator." That's true. Watch any random episode of So You Think You Can Dance and you're likely to see a choreographer imposing their way of moving on a dancer unused to it. With each new piece you are a part of, you have to re-find your center, re-teach your body how to move, re-set your mind to the feeling of the new dance. It's why some dancers stay with certain companies for decades on end - when you find a choreographer whose movement vocabulary is close to your own, you stick with them, and they with you.

But dancing is also backbreaking work. When you're really in the moment, giving yourself over completely to the throes of the music and the choreography, injuries can happen if you're not careful. Anything from minor injuries like blisters, to injuries that will cause a huge set-back like a dislocated shoulder, to major career-ending injuries like a broken tail bone. There is one sequence early on in Suspiria of just such bone-shattering cruelty that I was thrown all the way back in my seat, eyes riveted to the screen, completely unable to look away. This is what it can be like to put your body through torture, day in and day out, to "dance the dance of another." It is one of the most horrifying, difficult scenes I have ever had to watch. And I loved every second of it - the bravura performance and makeup effects, the downright nasty editing, the blood-curdling sound design... it's stunning. And the film is only just getting started.

Suspiria does feel exactly as long as it is - which is to say, very - but I was never once bored or unengaged with what was happening. I was completely involved with the characters and story the entire time. Part of this is due to the actors - Dakota Johnson continues to be a perfect vessel for audiences to project themselves onto, Tilda Swinton nails the mixture of imperiousness and groundedness that marks most great minds of modern dance, and Mia Goth is so easy to latch onto and root for as perhaps the most innocent (and thus, doomed) girl in the company. But equal compliments must be paid to Luca Guadagnino, who keeps thinking of new ways to make uninteresting plot scenes interesting. One noteworthy scene in the middle of the film is a long take of the coven members preparing and sitting down to a pot luck dinner, while a group conversation of theirs takes place on the soundtrack, clearly taking place after the dinner has finished. We never quite see who is speaking, but we don't need to. The soundscape of the film is filled with moments like this, where our ears are filled with diagetic sound that comes from an unseen source, or certain bodily exertions - breaths, laughter, cracking bones - that sound a lot louder than they should. It's some of the most stunning sound work of the year, and Thom Yorke's hushed, droning score complements it perfectly.

David Kajganich's screenplay is something of a marvel, weaving the supernatural elements into a story of different kinds of womanhood and motherhood, of how a ruined society treats women both before and after it falls. A key moment finds Madame Blanc saying that dance can never again be beautiful - a rebuke of the Third Reich's insistence that all art glorify the German nation and its people. And of course, the company's most famous piece is called "Volk," the German word for "people," and it is a violent, aggressive piece of choreography. The dancers pound on the floor and on their bodies, making the piece feel like a primal scream of femininity, perhaps its last.

In the background of everything, the period of Vergangenheitsbewältigung looms large. The process of the German people's reckoning with their culpability in World War II and the Holocaust echoes throughout the film, not only in the company's style of dance, but in the story of Patricia's psychiatrist Dr. Klemperer (played by Tilda Swinton in very convincing old man drag as "Lutz Ebersdorf"), who was separated from his presumed-dead wife during the war. When Patricia comes to him with her tales of a coven of witches at the dance academy, he is dismissive, believing she is talking instead of a rebellious political group who abide by a "constructed mythology." But as he reads her notes, and sees the academy for himself, and eventually becomes confronted with the horror of what happened to the women of his country while he watched and did nothing, he starts to believe that she may have been right.

It's a wholly unexpected thing to include in a remake of one of the most memorably violent films ever made, this melancholy story of national guilt being both weaponized and exorcised by women as best they can, but here we are in 2018, and a lot of these themes are more relevant than ever before. Guadagnino has taken the story of one girl's terror and transformed it into a tale of feminine power rising up from the ashes of a world destroyed by men, both those who abused power and those who watched and did nothing. It is a celebration of what women can achieve when they work together, and a condemnation of those who would seize and abuse power, no matter their gender. Despite its scenes of violence, Suspiria is an empowering film, reminding us of the vital importance of art, and how creation can be an act of rebellion. That a film this violent ends on a note of relative grace is a shocking glimpse of hope, however dimmed, however compromised, but still present. Hope that there is still compassion left, in even the darkest of souls.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - VMA Nominees

Look, I don't make the rules.

For HMWYBS nor for MTV's VMA Awards. The VMAs have always been somewhat arbitrary (consider: neither Michael NOR Janet Jackson has EVER won Video of the Year, and Madonna has only won ONCE), but it used to be that actual merit, as opposed to popularity, actually did play a role in nominations and wins (or maybe we just had better taste in the 80s and 90s?). Nowadays, though, they are primarily about spreading the wealth; nominating and awarding as many (popular) people as possible. I don't really understand this, since MTV barely even plays music videos anymore (if at all), so what do they care if a starlet gets pissed off?

Anyway...

This year's VMA nominees for Best Cinematography, which Nathaniel has asked us to give the HMWYBS treatment to this week, are neither particularly strong nor particularly weak. I'm hard pressed to choose which one I would award (although there's one that I know I wouldn't), but not because they're all of top quality. It's more that most of them strike me as being more... competently lensed, as opposed to strikingly or evocatively so. They're all well-shot, but none are really inspiring. Which is more frustrating the more I think about it: Music videos are supposed to be visual representations of a song. So why aren't more of these more visually exciting or compelling? And why on Earth was the one that is MOST compelling not even nominated for Video of the Year?

But I digress.

Anyway, my favorite shots were mostly pretty easy to pick out.

"Bad Blood" (Taylor Swift, Joseph Kahn, dir.)

Makes me giggle. I kind of find this video stupid. I mean, good on Taylor for making with the grrrrl power like it's the 90s, and recruiting a million stars to do her bidding, but giving each of them roughly five seconds of screentime? Why even bother?  I suppose the clip is supposed to make a statement about how women are encouraged by the industry to be at each other's throats, but then shuns them when they do? Or something? It's typically slick for director Joseph Kahn, but tough to differentiate in look from any number of his other videos (particularly Britney Spears's similarly future-esque "Hold It Against Me"). Anyway, I love how this moment perfectly says "I am SO NOT a little girl anymore," with the perfect combination of humor and menace. (I should note that I actually kind of LOVE Taylor Swift and her music, but the girl does NOT put out good music videos, other than "Shake It Off")

"Never Catch Me" (Flying Lotus ft. Kendrick Lamar, Hiro Murai, dir.)

I think I like this one and how it relates to the song a lot, but I'm not really a rap fan and haven't REALLY listened to the song enough to know. But what I love most about the video (other than those two FABULOUS dancin' kids) is how it tips its hand as to what is going on. In this shot, you can see dead dancing kid in the background, out of focus, and a parishioner at the funeral looking into the distance, clearly not seeing the performance. Before this, especially with the gospel choir clapping hands, it's hard to tell if the kids are actually being revived or if they're ghosts or what. This is exactly the kind of subtle shot that more music videos (hell, even more films) could use.

"Left Hand Free" (alt-J, Ryan Staake, dir.)

I kind of can't stand this song, and the clip did absolutely nothing to make me change my mind, much less make a case for itself getting a nomination for cinematography. But I like pictures of people taking pictures of things, and I love how the two girls in this shot could have absolutely any type of relationship you want to read into it - friends, sisters, lovers... could be anything.

"Thinking Out Loud" (Ed Sheeran, Emil Nava, dir.)

Look, Ed Sheeran is an annoying little ginger hobbit, but he can occasionally write a good song, and he clearly worked his ass off to get this NappyTabs choreography looking good. The clip is lit really, REALLY well, but I could write a whole separate entry about how annoyingly cliché this choreography is in the post-So You Think You Can Dance world (PS - I haven't been watching this season because I've had better things to do with my evenings. Should I be? I almost feel bad). I mean, I rolled my eyes a few times, it's that annoying. But this was the only nominee for which I had multiple choices of Best Shot, despite having some of the worst editing in a dance-heavy clip I've seen in quite some time. What I like about this one is how the lighting goes from light to dark to light again just based on the dacners' movement and the camera position, to paint a picture of love that's more complex than the simple, sweet lyrics present.

"Two Weeks" (FKA twigs, Nabil Elderkin, dir.)

As far as one-take wonders go, this is one of the most striking ones in a long while, with Twigs (a former backup dancer) giving us some Aaliyah, Queen of the Damned realness, along with about fifteen other little Twigs around her, dancing, pouring water into a pool, or... whatever it is those ones in white are doing. It's an oblique interpretation of the lyrics to basically turn her into a goddess  warning you not to go around worshiping any others but her, but it's a pretty fucking fierce one, and to do it all in one take with multiple iterations of her in different positions is hella ballsy. BUT, it's one of those videos that has a great concept and absolutely NOTHING ELSE. Doing it in one take matches the song's mysterious, hypnotic pull, but that's the cinematography. That's it. Repeat multiple times with Twigs in a different place, and you've got yourself one of the most striking videos in ages. As an introduction to an artist who can be difficult to say the least, it's fabulous, presenting exactly who she is in a package that's (relatively) easy to digest and beautiful to look at - it pulls you in and you want to know more, listen more, watch more. But in the end, cool as it is, there's not much THERE there. I can't pick a single moment that's my favorite, but the standard YouTube preview image presents a pretty great picture. If you can only watch one of these videos, this is the one I would recommend, since it's easily the most unique (both aurally and visually).

BONUS: "Two Weeks", with its heavy, impactful use of the notorious f-word, and weird, icy-hypnotic pulse, seems like a song that would be impossible to pull off in a late night talk show performance. But DAMN if Twigs didn't pull out one of the greatest televised performances I've ever seen with this one for Jimmy Fallon. It's stunning, and if possible, it's even more hypnotic to watch than the music video.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - The Red Shoes

Look, I'll just come right out and say it: I don't know how to talk about Powell & Pressburger's The Red Shoes. Whenever I try, I'm suddenly utterly incapable of forming words, let alone coherent sentences. It is one of the most beautiful films ever made, and its influence can be felt far and wide, in films as different as Raging Bull and Center Stage. It is a landmark film for many reasons, but when it comes the how it films dance, it is so brilliant that all I can do is sigh. The only way to explain it is to see it. Words cannot do it justice. This is one film where the old "a picture is worth a thousand words" maxim comes into play, for I do not think enough words could possibly be written about this film, which flashes 24 pictures of pure Technicolor perfection at you per second for 133 minutes (how on God's green Earth did Jack Cardiff not get an Oscar nomination for his cinematography here?!?!?).

I mean, take this shot from the ballet sequence (all dance on film begins and ends here. There is no topping this. Everyone should just stop trying):

Even in terrible quality, it's gorgeous. You know the story of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, right? Basically, girl puts on pretty pair of red shoes, cannot stop dancing, dies. Everything about this shot is so perfectly ethereal - as Moira Shearer's Victoria Page dances her part in the ballet, she keeps going even as the other fair-goers around her drop from exhaustion. Even the posters fall down. But our heroine keeps dancing. On and on. And on and on. And the colors. THE COLORS. Good GOD but they are wondrous.

The brilliant thing about The Red Shoes the film is how it parallels the fairy tale story. Victoria Page cannot stop dancing. Not for the love of her life. Not for anyone or anything. When Lermontov, the director of the ballet, asks her why she wants to dance, she gives the only response:

"Why do you want to live?"

Lermontov answers, of course, that he simply must, but it's a rhetorical question. To dance, for Vicky, is to live. There isn't one without the other.

Which is why, if forced (and CURSE YOU, Nathaniel, for forcing me to), I have to pick this as the film's Best Shot:

When Victoria first hears the audience's applause, this is what we see. Waves crashing on the shore of the stage. It's such a perfectly impressionistic moment, and the film is full of moments like this (especially during the ballet sequences, which could never EVER actually be reproduced on stage). But beyond the perfect metaphor of the shot, note that we have our three main characters in a triangle. Victoria in the foreground, with Lermontov and Julian in the background, almost overtaken completely by the image of the waves. They're the only two people watching that matter to Victoria, but what really, truly matters to her is the dance. And the audience's response. As a performer, I can speak to that high, and it is indeed like ocean waves - you let that applause wash over you like the most lovely ocean water, and try not to get completely swept up in it. You want to stay as grounded as you can. But there will always be people in the audience whose praise you crave, and even in the heat of the moment, as you're swept up in the love of the entire audience, you can spot them clear as day.

Basically, this shot is perfect on every possible level. As is most of The Red Shoes, but this is the one that means the most to me.

Mary Poppins - Step In Time

This week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot is Mary Poppins, and I desperately wanted to participate, both because I haven't done so at all in the second half of this season (much less blogged at all), and because I have always loved Mary Poppins. But, lo and behold, I find myself incapable of truly doing so! You see, so many of my favorite parts of Mary Poppins, the parts I really want to talk about, didn't really include any shots that made me sit up in my seat and take notice. It's a remarkably well-constructed film, one that actually gets better as it goes along, but most of the cinematography is unremarkable, except for some stunning nighttime shots of the London roofscape...

"A trackless jungle!"

...which I largely suspect to be matte paintings.

I really wanted to go with something from "Feed the Birds", the most haunting lullaby Disney ever produced, because it always exerted a strange hypnotic pull over me when I was younger. Those shots of the cathedral, blurred around the edges, with the almost see-thru birds flying around it are incredibly affecting, but not a single one of them really summed up the number.

Mary Poppins is quite sneaky that way, bringing in some things quite radical for a children's film. For one, there isn't really a plot, for another, there are several ballads (like "Feed the Birds") that threaten to put kids to sleep but actually deepen the film and the characters. And for another, it's very anti-establishment: Mrs. Banks is a suffragette, at one point making sure that her maid put rotten eggs in her bag so that she can throw them at the Prime Minister in Downing Street, and Mr. Banks is a banker at quite possibly the creepiest bank ever in the history of the world:

And I so love how little Michael starts what must be a total economic meltdown after he tries to take back his tuppence from the greedy Bank President (who, let's be honest, basically stole it from him anyway). A surprisingly prescient moment, teaching children how silly adults get about money. But again, there are no really great shots in that bank melee.

So, I am forced to instead talk about one of the greatest dance numbers ever filmed, "Step In Time". And even here I find myself at a loss for words, except that I adore the way choreographer Marc Breaux (whose next project was Julie Andrews'  next film, The Sound of Music) uses absolutely everything you could conceivably find on a rooftop, having the chimney sweeps dance on railings, climb up and down smokestacks, dance over and balance on the lip at the edge of the roof... it's ingenius, fun choreography, and takes a very silly, overly simple song and turns it into a major production number entirely worth it's eight-minute length. It's filmed really smartly, balancing mid-shots, long shots, and close-ups quite well, letting us in on the fun while still letting us see the dancing as much as possible (although there are probably a few too many reaction shots from the kids, who are, shall we say, not the greatest actors Disney ever found). Yes, now that I'm older I can see the seams show when Julie Andrews jumps up in the air for her multiple tours, but when I was a kid, my jaw always dropped. The performances of Dick Van Dyke and the rest of the ensemble help greatly, too - they make it infectious. Seeing this number, you would think it would be great fun to be a chimney sweep, no?

And I love when the soot-stained crew travels down the chimney into the spic-and-span Banks household, possibly even more than the rooftop shenanigans, as they flip the maid, chase the cook, march for women's rights with Mrs. Banks, and leave a befuddled Mr. Banks shouting "What's all this?!?" over and over and over (David Tomlinson never fails to make me lol when he gets frustrated). And that final shot of them all dancing, jigging, and backflipping down the street is a glorious fade-out to the number.

And yeah, I know the silhouette of the dancers dancing on the chimneys is a beaut, but my favorite shot has always been this one, which immediately precedes that iconic shot:

It's an ever-so-slightly vertiginous shot, totally selling that this entire number is actually taking place on the rooftops of London and not on a soundstage somewhere, maybe 5 feet off the ground. With the added danger of dancing over a hole! One foot wrong and down you go!

Down you go, step in time!

Down you go, step in time!

Never need a reason,

Never need a rhyme!

Down you go, step in time!

Dammit, now I'm never going to get that song out of my head. Ah well, the movie's been in there for years, and it's quite delightful to have around.

Favorite moment: walking on hands between the rooftops, then dropping down, hanging on only by the feet
Length: approx. 8:10
Number of cuts: 96

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Fantasia

Curse you, Nathaniel!

Choosing a best shot from Fantasia is (as I mentioned earlier), a fool's errand, even when you're allowed to pick one shot from each sequence. Not to mention the fact that I haven't seen the film since I was a child, and even then I tended to fast-forward through the entire middle (the entirety of Rite of Spring and portions of Pastoral Symphony, both of which have exciting moments but are far too long for a child's attention span). On top of that, the purpose of choosing Fantasia is to celebrate the centennial of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", which has always been my least favorite section of the movie.

And on top of all that, I have been super busy this week.

But rewatching some of the sequences over the past week, I've been reminded just how freaking gorgeous Fantasia is. Practically every frame is a work of art, even in the sequences I dislike. I mean, Disney itself has marketed just about every frame from The Sorcerer's Apprentice in one form or another, and for good reason. It's possibly the most iconic piece of animation in the Disney canon. Which is exactly why picking anything from Mickey's big moment would be way too easy. But upon watching the sequence again, I was struck by this moment:

Foreshadowing the last sequence in an anthology film? Has any other anthology film ever done that? Because, come on. Even if Yen Sid (heh heh) is conjuring a butterfly, in the beginning it totally looks like the malevolent terror Chernabog, the mountain/demon star of Night on Bald Mountain and scourge of countless childhood nightmares.

Flashdance - The Audition

Ah, Flashdance! Dance movies made a comeback in the 1980s, and it started right here 30 years ago today. Well, dance movies never really went away, I guess, but Jennifer Beals certainly got more people interested in seeing dance on the big screen. Pity she didn't do most of the actual dancing. Flashdance also pretty much set the template for every dance movie that followed: You can see all the story beats and pretty much this exact sequence in Save the Last Dance, Center Stage, all the Step Up films, and others.

Not that I'm complaining, exactly. Formulas wouldn't become formulas if they didn't work, and Flashdance works really well. It even holds up a lot better than you might think. I'm just glad that later films did a better job of capturing the actual dancing.

The one precedent Flashdance set that I'm not at all happy about is the editing style. In just over two minutes there are thirty-three cuts in the dance, and they aren't used in the best ways. The best parts of the dance are when the camera follows Beals's Alex as she dances. In fact, director Adrian Lyne nearly ruins this final sequence, Alex's big audition, with countless cutaways to the panel of judges' reactions, which run from silly facial expressions to cigar-smoking to toe-tapping to nose-blowing. Trust me, no one cares about them. We just want to see Alex tear it up on the dancefloor.

And tear it up she does. Jeffrey Hornaday's choreography might include a few too many of those punch-the-air-and-kick moves for my taste, but Beals (and/or her body doubles) looks so fantastic doing them that I don't really care. This a truly go-for-broke audition piece, throwing everything in the dancer's arsenal on the floor in the hopes that the panel will see not only technique, but the raw passion present in all the greatest dancers. It's also incredibly of its time. You can see this mostly in the technique; the arms closed in tight when pirouetting, the height of the battements (high kicks), the style of the jetées (leaps) - these are all indicative of 80s technique. If a dancer were performing this piece today, you would see much higher battements, rounded arms in the pirouettes, and straighter legs in the jetées. The gymnastic and breakdancing elements are also very 80s, but in a more fun, cultural way.

Lyne also throws pretty much every editing and camera trick in the book at this sequence to maximize how cool it looks. He films the pirouettes from three different angles to make it look like she's doing far more than she actually is. He zooms in on the really cool moves (almost as if to say, "look at how cool that is!"). He shoots her in silhouette against the light from the windows (a callback to the first dance sequence when she dances in silhouette). He films her flying leap in slow-motion and from angles which emphasize how high and how far she jumps. He shoots just her feet to emphasize the footwork (a trick which I particularly hate, as it leaves out the rest of the body entirely).

This last trick works far better in the beginning of the sequence, before the dance actually begins. The set-up of the scene does a great job of building tension - following Alex's feet as she walks through the room, a slow pan across the people behind the table, and my favorite bit, the close-up of Alex's trembling hand as she puts the needle on the record player. (For the record, I would be unbelievably nervous about dancing to a record. What if it starts skipping?) And then, she falters. It almost looks like she's going to continue, but instead she gets up, excuses herself, and starts again. Forget that this would likely never happen in any real audition situation, but it's really effective and setting up both the people auditioning Alex as well as the audience. Even though we know what Alex is capable of, will she be able to hold it together and win over the old fuddy-duddies?

Maybe Lyne lays it on a bit thick here - we're already on Alex's side, and the stakes have been set well enough in the previous hour and a half - but it still works as a shock. Alex is human. She can falter. This might just be too much for her, like it was for her friend Jeanie (who falls in a skating competition earlier in the film). But she rallies. And that makes all those punch-the-air-and-kick moves feel even more triumphant. My favorite critical line on Flashdance comes from The Guardian, which called the film "a preposterous success," which is just about a perfect description. The characters and plot are preposterous, as are many of the directorial choices, and yet Flashdance does nothing but succeed. The whole thing is greater than the sum of its parts, because... well... because what a feeling it leaves us with!

Favorite Moment: The flying leap into the backspin. Isn't that everyone's favorite part? It's certainly the red-headed judge's favorite. I love how ballsy it is.
Length: approx. 2:15
Number of Cuts: 33

Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor - Where Did You Learn to Dance?

I'll be honest: I don't think Debbie Reynolds is a great dancer. If I ever decide to post about "Good Morning" from Singin' in the Rain here (which I'm sure I will, it being my favorite film of all time), I will probably point exactly when she starts cheating her steps. That's probably unfair, given the circumstances surrounding the shooting of that number, but I am what I am; I just can't help it!

I will say, however, that I find her so gosh-darn likable that I hardly ever actually care about her dancing. Even when she's putting all her effort in to getting the steps just right, she never betrays how hard she's working. She's just downright delightful to watch all the time. And that's doubly true here, in this number with Donald O'Connor (one of my favorites) from 1953's I Love Melvin (the song starts at about a minute in to the clip above).

Both Debbie and Donald are just a joy to watch here, easily navigating Robert Alton's busy choreography on and around a carpet, a table, a chair, and a sofa. I've not seen the film, but this is apparently the only dance number the two of them shared, a year after Singin' in the Rain (and even still, I'm very interested in seeing it after watching this number). Debbie's tapping is far better here than it was in their previous film, even though quite a bit of it soft-shoe on the carpet. She even manages to out-mug Donald O'Connor at one point (I love the man, but he was a ham of the highest order)! There's a lot going on here, but the choreography somehow never seems too much. Given that this is a story about a model and a photographer, it makes sense that Debbie would be posing a lot, but there's more than a few points where she's posing on every. single. beat. for bars on end. It should come off as choppy or schizo, but it somehow doesn't. The pair of them are in constant motion - when they're not moving their bodies, their eyes do the dancing for them, something probably only these two performers could pull off without seeming stupid. In fact, I can't think of a single performer of this era other than Debbie Reynolds that could have pulled off those precious poses while wearing that skirt (which spins quite fantastically), without coming across as completely juvenile. Such is the power of Debbie Reynolds: She's cute, but there's a maturity somewhere in there that cuts through the sweetness. In fact, I'm far more annoyed by the moment where the carpet gets in the way of Donald's tapping than by anything Debbie does throughout the whole number.

Like I said: She's just so gosh-darn likable!

Favorite Moment(s): Debbie's leap off the table and Donald's cartwheel over it
Length: approx. 3:20
Number of Cuts: 4

Busby Berkeley - Dance Until the Dawn

Sometimes it's the dancers that are famous, sometimes it's the choreographer. Busby Berkeley was in all likelihood the first choreographer to fully recognize the potential of film as a tool to showcase dance in new ways. "Dance Until the Dawn" is from the 1931 musical Flying High, with Bert Lahr and Charlotte Greenwood. It wasn't first Hollywood production Berkeley choreographed (that would be 1930's Whoopee) and it certainly wasn't the last. Most of his signature moves are all here: the chorus girl "parade of faces", the synchronized precision line dancing, and of course the hypnotic bird's-eye-view kaleidoscope shots.

It's interesting to note that Berkeley wasn't credited as a Director on any film until 1933's She Had to Say Yes, despite having served as choreographer on 11 films before. He was apparently given a degree of independence in the direction of his musical numbers; they always have a very distinct style almost completely separate from the non-dance scenes in those early films. Did Berkeley's style come from the directors of those early pictures, or did it come from within? The general consensus seems to be that it all came from him, and I find it hard to disagree. The man was a genius. He was a visual artist using human bodies in motion to create a living work of art in a way that had never been done before.

This is from one of his earliest films, so some of it is a little rough (the dancers are notably not as tight as usual for Berkeley), but it's still hugely enjoyable in a way that only Busby Berkeley numbers are. He really showed off as much of the work of putting the film together as he could - look at those costumes on full display as the chorines enter, and later when they spin around! look at that multi-level set! look at each of these girls' faces! - which makes him even more unique among choreographers, who really do tend to be all about the movement.

Not that Berkeley didn't care about movement as well. Quite the contrary. After establishing the ensemble, the costumes, and the set, he goes about creating some great images - images that audience members couldn't possibly see if this number were performed on stage in a theater. I'm not just talking about those famous bird's-eye-view shots, either. There's one moment in particular (it comes at around 2:41 in the clip) that would be almost completely lost on theatregoers, and might have even been lost on the cinema patrons of 1931. While that line of men coming through the wheels of girls may have evoked gears to most, and might have received applause onstage as such, looking at it from this angle - one much higher than even the balcony seats in the theater - it's near-impossible to not see the sexual subtext.

Can't un-see it now, can you?

But moving on to those kaleidoscope shots. They really are unlike anything else on film. Pure poetry. You'd be forgiven for thinking it was special effects - completely animated, or each layer shot separately - but it's all done for real, in camera. There is something about bodies moving in unison that never fails to evoke wonder and amazement in human beings. It's one of the reasons why the Rockettes are still getting standing ovations for their kicklines after nearly 90 years. It's sublime, really.

If I can get a little serious, in intellectual circles "the sublime" is defined as the terribly beautiful. Watching a large group of human bodies in complete synchronization is beautiful, wondrous, even, but also unnatural and scary - we are creatures of free will, after all! Think about it: Other than chorus girls, what group of people most often march in strict, synchronized formation? Soldiers.

But enough with the serious, high-falutin' stuff. Busby Berkeley numbers are eye-popping in a way you just don't see anymore. Using the human body and the camera in perfect harmony, he created some of the most amazing sights you'll ever see. He really was the first person to conceive of dances almost exclusively for the camera, and even our greatest choreographers (Gene Kelly, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse) couldn't match his ingenuity with a lens. What he did was so singular, even those later geniuses knew not to touch it. Dance on film has come a long way, but there's still nothing like a Busby Berkeley extravaganza!

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers - Pick Yourself Up

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers are maybe the greatest duo to ever dance together on the silver screen. They're certainly the most prolific - ten films together, no small feat! Top Hat is their best-known film, and many say it's their best, but the final number ("The Piccolino") is a dud, and it's always left a bad taste in my mouth whenever I watch Top Hat. No, my favorite Fred & Ginger film has always been Swing Time, if only for the songs: "Never Gonna Dance", "The Way You Look Tonight", "A Fine Romance", and this one right here, "Pick Yourself Up," which is unfortunately presented as a pure dance number - just an instrumental with no lyrics.

But who needs singing when the dancing is this great? The story is that Fred's character, dancer and gambler Lucky Garnett, must make $25,000 in order to marry the gal he's in love with. While in New York, he gives his last quarter (which just so happens to be his "lucky quarter") to Ginger's Penny Carroll. His friend Pop steals it back for him, but Penny thinks it was Lucky. He follows her to her work. Naturally, she's a dance instructor, and naturally he apologizes for what happened by taking a lesson from her, and naturally he pretends he's terrible. When her boss fires her, Lucky professes that she actually taught him a great deal, and they launch into this, the first musical number of the film.

It's all in one take, and they use the whole space - even going over the barrier around the dance floor. It's often been said that dance in the Astaire & Rogers films was akin to sex, but this is all innocent fun. I particularly love how Ginger is marking (or, if you're inclined to be less charitable, faking) the tap steps, and how she spins like she's out of control, waiting for Fred to catch her and lead her, since this number really is his show. At the same time, though, they still feel like equal partners. It's just pure bliss - as most of their dances together are. I'm not sure this is my favorite dance of theirs (it might not even be my favorite in this film), but it's up there.