May 16, 2012

Dirty Dancing

Over the mother's day weekend ABC family had a showing of all the classic romantic movies. One of my favorites has always been Dirty Dancing. Even though I have seen this movie numerous of times, i instantly noticed a few important symbolic film techniques that I had never noticed before.  In the opening sequence of the film the director uses medium close ups to show the intimacy of the dancers, this is significant because the film is named "Dirty Dancing" The camera focuses on the characters by using extreme close-ups so the audience can see their facial expressions. The camera then follows different characters; the camera movement is very steady. The opening sequence gives the audience an idea of a later enigma, as the closeness of the dancers later relate to the intimacy of the two main characters in the film. The opening sequence is also a montage of the full film. The edits during this sequence are rather slow which refers to the pace of the song, which creates the impression that music is an important in this film. The use of black and white also gives the pink text more effect as it makes it stand out and look visually appealing. The style of the writing is very feminine suggesting that this film shows the life of the young girl, Baby.

2 comments:

  1. Dirty Dancing
    I also saw this movie, being a dancer I naturally would pick to analyze their dancing scenes in a new way this time I saw it. The scene with their final dance begins with the use of spot lighting. The spot light is placed so that Johnny and Baby are in the dark this is perhaps done to show that the entire movie they were ‘rebels’ as their faces are more in the shadows than not. Also there are the light fixtures hanging from the ceiling which provide a little light. As the camera oscillates around Johnny and Baby a disco ball come into view. Being as this movie was made in 1987 it first makes you believe the director chose to leave the glare from the disco ball in the movie simply because they couldn’t edit it out. Honestly, I’m not sure how advanced there editing software were twenty-five years ago, obviously they aren’t as good as they are today. However, the lighting from the disco ball can also be interpreted as a message to the viewer that at this moment they are free from all restrictions and have finally decided to embrace their love for each other regardless of the cost.

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  2. Dirty Dancing one of my all time favorite movies, I have recently watched this movie. It's rather ironic that Baby ends up being with Johnny, a young girl with a rather strict and strong standard father pushes for his daughter Baby to be with the "Bosses son" a young man who is on his way to college, and Baby doesn't find him at all appealing just trying to make her father happy but in reality she truly wants to be with Johnny, falling for him after seeing the way he dances. A young girl coming from a very rich and predominate family choosing to be with a guy who has grown up with barely anything barely making it buy; trying to the strong person for his friend Penny after she is in a tough situation and becomes pregnant. It is the typical good girl gone for the bad guy film which in the end turns into the good guy, which happens at the ending performance when Johnny shares his last and final dance with Baby; gaining Baby's fathers acceptance.

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