Dirty Dancing : A Classical Film : Dirty Dancing

In addition, Mrs. John tries to push Annie into this same routine by teaching Annie what is suitable etiquette as a woman in their society, through piano and manners classes. When Annie fails to meet the standards, her mother is greatly ashamed, as though it was a reflection on both Annie as a person. Also, Annie’s father is told as a man who had multiple sexual relationships before settling with Annie’s mother, but instead of this affecting him, he is content with a wife, child, and all his needs taken care of. Meanwhile, the previous women who he slept with, are depicted as crazy and have been put in difficult situations due to raising a child with no father and a low economic status. The double standard between women and men becomes apparent when Annie’s mother sees Annie talking to a group of boys and interprets that encounter as unacceptable, inappropriate behavior for a girl.

During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that,

In the movie Dirty Dancing, the main characters are seventeen-year-old Frances Houseman, also known as ‘Baby,’ and Johnny Castle, who is a supposedly twenty-five-year-old dance instructor (Sylwester, 2008) This movie takes place in the summer of 1963 at Kellerman’s, a vacation resort (Ardolino & Gottileb, 1987). Throughout the beginning of the movie, the budding romance between Baby and Johnny becomes apparent; by the end of the movie, they have confirmed a relationship, but Johnny has been fired and must vacate the resort. Due to the setting of this movie, the gender construction and messages are a little more outward than they may be in a more recent movie.

What is mise-en-scene? Mise-en-scene is the arrangement of scenery and properties to represent the place where a movie is enacted. It is most commonly used to show the setting of the movie. But if used correctly can be used to portray the feelings of the characters and to help tell the story. Orson Welles made sure to use the props, actors, and even the camera to use mise-en-scene to tell the story of Charles Foster Kane to its fullest. Character positions, camera angles and music, and framing used to tell the story in Citizen Kane. It’s use of mise-en-scene made it not only ahead of its time, but it made it a masterpiece.

Dirty Dancing is a classic movie about a young man and a young woman falling in love, and as every movie seems to follow the same type pattern, they have difficulties with the access of being together. Baby’s father wants her to be with one of his doctor friend’s son, but Baby is not interested. The main character, Baby Houseman, is a young woman who is attending a country club with her family for the entire summer. Baby’s father is a doctor, which explains how they are have received a proper invite to the country club for an entire summer. In this country club, they obtain a diverse staff. The country club worker consists of the cleaners, servers, ushers, cooks, and the most intriguing was the entertainment. One evening at dinner a striking man was dancing for the evening and she was sidetracked from then on. The only problem was that he was a worker at the country club not a guest and she knew her family would not approve. One evening she heard music and as enticed by the tune and followed it. Baby ended up at a place where all the workers came to dance and hang out. She was not exactly welcomed in, but they thought if they told her to leave, then she would go tell on them and they would get into trouble. As time went on, they became fonder of Baby. They started to realize she was not a stuck up rich girl. One evening Penny, one of the entertainers was upset so baby followed them to Penny’s cabin to see what was up and come to find out that Penny had gotten pregnant from

Film Noir Film noir is not a genre, but can be described as a style or mood for films made in the early 1940’s during the Great Depression time period, in which Hollywood went noir. Just the word Noir itself means “darkness or black” in French. This meant all the films showed dark aspects of modernity, murderers, political corruption, and organized crime reflected on the disappointment of the times. Film noir is characterized by elements such as Dark and shadowy lighting, flashbacks and voice over, and cynical men and women. All films have similarities and differences in which they accomplish falling into the Noir genre, for example “Raw Deal” and “Out of the Past”, two very different films but fall into the same category.

Not all films which adhere to the classical Hollywood paradigm eschew issues. The film Singin’ in the Rain follows Don Lockwood, a popular silent film actor, as he attempts to maintain his star status during the advent of “talkies”. Lockwood’s journey manifests fame’s capricious temperament, the studio’s commercial interest, and the influence of outside variables on a film. Singin’ in the Rain uses Lockwood’s struggle with celebrity to expose the importance of public image and self esteem.

Joseph “Jody” Summers, a character in the motion picture Baby Boy, is an unemployed 20 year old black man, who lacks much ambition. “Jody”, at the age of 20, is the father of two young children, fathered with two different women. Living in South Central, LA with his single mother, “Jody” spends most of his days cruising around the neighborhood in his girlfriend’s car and considers it his divine right to cheat on her whenever he wants. His one inspiration of employment is to steal women’s clothing off the back of a truck and sell them, with his lady’s man charm, at local hair salons. His best friend, “Sweetpea” is just as directionless as “Jody”.

When thinking of a specific type of dance, the vast majorities of the time people generally relate and direct the art form to a certain type of culture or race. As times develop and cultures start to merge, people tend to try and get to understand other diversities. This happens especially when we look at various forms of dance, where the people of origin are no longer the only ones who strictly perform it. Shown in the movies “Save the Last Dance” and “Take the Lead” both show a great deal of racial status and stereotypes involving dance, where the minorities try their best to fit in. Proving themselves by showing how they can adapt to other cultures by the flow and movement of their bodies. Both show a great understanding on how people of different races can be brought together by something most people can relate to, dance. To what extent does race inform the dancing as portrayed in the films “Save the Last Dance” (2001) and “Take the Lead” (2006)? To support the following argument stated above, there are several sources that will be implemented throughout the essay found within the dance community (journals, articles and books).

Celebrated filmmaker, Richard Linklater, takes us to a modest Texan college in the beginning of the effervescent decade of the 80’s to tell us an energizing tale about a bunch of students who have in common the fact of being baseball players and love beautiful girls and exciting parties.

Genre theory is used to study films and put them into a classification so that audiences know what type of film it is before they see it. Genres are categories based on the story of the film, sometimes the actors and actresses, or even the directors. All films fall under a genre or sub-genre category. Romantic Comedy is an example of a genre which is light-hearted, humorous story involving people in love, sometimes overlapping with subgenres such as screwball comedy teen comedy, or gross-out comedy. ( Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014, table 4.1). This paper will focus on the romantic comedy genre and movie Rocky. It will take a better look at the specific conventions of this genre and how this movie fits the gangster genre.

"I know what you’re thinking; Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I have kind of lost track myself. But being that this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk (Siegel, 1971)? During my research I found out that this is one of the most popular movie quotes.

Presented in an engaging and intensely graphic visual style, Waltz with Bashir uses the medium of fluid animation to present layers of history and effectively communicate concepts surrounding how we deal with trauma. Often referencing traumatic events that which current society did not encounter directly themselves, Waltz with Bashir triumphs in the struggle against ethical and visual implications of animated form, evoking a strong emotional response in its visual style. A vector based, frame by frame animation technique was used to present a re-enactment of the events that took place; referencing live-action footage as visual reference for the stand-alone animation process. The opening scene of the film sets up the dramatic visual style; as the camera tracks along, rabid dogs run loose on the streets of Beirut. Initially just one dog running towards the camera, eyes wide and vicious, swiftly multiplies into a pack of dogs, snarling and drooling; tearing through the highly stylised war-torn streets. This dramatized, surrealist scene we later find is actually a visual interpretation of a nightmare that Folman’s friend Boaz has connected to his experiences from the war in Lebanon. Typically a convention used in narrative film, Folman’s process removes us from the reality in the film because of its surrealist animated form and we become lost in the spectacle of animation. This allows the feature’s concepts to

In the film, Born into Brothels (2004), British filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman setout to present a perspective from the children of sex workers living in Red Light District of Sonagachi, Calcutta. This film, however incidental, demonstrate single narratives on the basis of morality, sexuality, and preconceived notions about the third world. Their attempt at filming an impartial ethnographic film that spoke of the true nature of life as a child in the Red Light District of Calcutta failed from their Western gaze and lack of insight about the community of Sonagachi to contextualize how the Red Light District and the poverty surrounding are a result of globalization. Acknowledging the “before” that Briski and Kauffman could never understand about the Red Light District because of their limited Western understanding about the third world, would’ve resulted in a more inclusive look into the subjective perspectives of the children. Instead, using footage and still pictures of the dirty allies, children covered in what seems to be oil, naked children chained like animals in a zoo, etc, as an aesthetic (lens) used to reproduce hegemonic narratives about the third world and objectively reflect reality. Additionally, these shots separate the people of the Red Light District from Westerners and establishes and “us” and a “them”, them being objects and not full established subjects.

The release of Gordon Hollingshead and Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer in 1927 marked the new age of synchronised sound in cinema. The feature film was a huge success at the box office and it ushered in the era David Bordwell describes as ‘Classical Hollywood Cinema’; Bordwell and two other film theorists (Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson) conducted a formalist analysis of 100 randomly selected Hollywood films from the years 1917 to 1960 in order to fully define this movement. Their results yielded that most Hollywood made films during that era were centred on, or followed, specific blueprints that formed the finished product. Through this analysis of Hollywood films the theorists were able to establish stylised conventions and modes of