{"id":4947,"date":"2014-04-30T00:00:16","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T04:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=4947"},"modified":"2014-05-21T00:53:47","modified_gmt":"2014-05-21T04:53:47","slug":"work-boots-and-ballet-slippers-a-review-of-flashdance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/work-boots-and-ballet-slippers-a-review-of-flashdance\/","title":{"rendered":"Work Boots and Ballet Slippers: A Review of ‘Flashdance’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"flashdanceboots\"
\n

\nFlashdance<\/a> (1983)
\n<\/b>Written by Thomas Hedley Jr. and Joe Eszterhas
\nDirected by Adrian Lyne<\/p>\n

When mentioning having recently seen this for the first time, more than anything I hear, \u201cToo bad you didn\u2019t see it in the \u201880\u2018s\u2014it was great then, but now it doesn\u2019t hold up.\u201d\u00a0 Even people who like it seem to only like it ironically, for its leg warmers and soundtrack.\u00a0 Few take it seriously\u2014it\u2019s got a 30% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the screenplay got a Razzie.<\/p>\n

Did we see the same movie?\u00a0 Because to me, Flashdance<\/a> is a cohesive and universally relatable work of art.\u00a0 In fact, I was so impressed by it that I watched it again a couple days later.\u00a0 What gives?<\/p>\n

I think it has to do with it being so iconic to its era that people have become blind to its timeless themes and legitimate beauty.\u00a0 It\u2019s mistaken for a glamorous romp about a girl with high heels on, when really, it\u2019s the struggle of a woman alternating between bare feet and work boots.\u00a0 It\u2019s remembered as an \u201880\u2019s movie\u2019 for silly, surface reasons, but really, it’s a human<\/i> movie.
\n
\nDon\u2019t get me wrong, it\u2019s not without its stupid scenes, most of which do<\/i> involve high heels.\u00a0 But even those scenes aren\u2019t without charm.\u00a0 Yes, trampling over graveled train tracks in heels doesn\u2019t make sense\u2014but I\u2019m too excited about the gorgeous setting and lighting and cinematography to care.\u00a0 Yes, the fact that she can dance like mad and run faster than a man in them doesn\u2019t make sense\u2014but I\u2019m too intrigued by the fact that her character wants to<\/i>, to care.\u00a0 And yes, the bar where she dances at night has too many good stage props for how poor it seems, but the characters inside it are too well crafted for me to care.<\/p>\n

Accept that this movie is essentially a musical comic book, and you\u2019ll enjoy it way more.\u00a0 Every shot is composed like a panel\u2014the faces and hair of the characters lit and placed exactly how they should be in frame in order to illicit the vibe they need to.\u00a0 The side characters\u2014the comedian friend, the bar owner, and the antagonist\u2019s sidekick Cecil\u2014are all particularly entertaining, and are always quipping the exact right lines to provide comic relief, while still experiencing parallel struggles to that of the protagonist. \u00a0 Every visual exaggeration and every word of dialogue relentlessly serves the theme\u2014emphasizing how funny, scary, and exciting it feels to do what you actually want<\/i> to do, such as live by yourself.<\/p>\n

She works in her boots all day so she can pay the rent, then comes home and takes them off, not to relax, but to strip herself of the world so that she can do her real <\/i>work.\u00a0 There\u2019s no glory in this, and it\u2019s hard to tell whether she\u2019s getting anywhere or just going insane.\u00a0 She dances\u2014but no one watches her.\u00a0 She enjoys when she sweats, because to her, it means she\u2019s making progress.\u00a0 She is getting to know herself.\u00a0 Her mind and body are becoming one.\u00a0 All of this is said with music and dance numbers, no words, and because it expresses so much through just movement, I kinetically felt it.\u00a0 I have always had terrible posture, but after watching this, I found myself standing more like a dancer does, and positioning my feet with more intention.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t just an imitation of a style\u2014it\u2019s an outward expression of an inner confidence developing.\u00a0 It\u2019s like in the scene where she sees dancers on TV, straightens up without thinking about it, and then spins, spilling her Pepsi:<\/p>\n

\"flashdancespin\"
\n

\nMy favorite scene though is where she enters the ballet school to pick up an application, and we see the contrast between her rugged work clothes, and a sea of leotards and ballet slippers.\u00a0 On the surface, they look more like dancers than she does, but they\u2019re just people who signed up for someone to tell them how to be dancers, whereas she\u2019s a working<\/i> dancer.\u00a0 Yet, she\u2019s the one who feels intimidation.<\/p>\n

This movie reassures us that, even though it can be scary that you don\u2019t look the part of what you want to be, if you\u2019re doing what you need to do to make it happen, you will become a unique person who gets shit done, and you\u2019ll realize your dreams in your own unique way.\u00a0 Because of this, I think she looks way more beautiful in the scenes where she\u2019s in jeans and boots than the ones where she\u2019s in dresses and heels. \u00a0To quote the song Express Yourself<\/a> by Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band\u00a0(a song not on the soundtrack, but thematically, it might as well be)\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not what you look like when you\u2019re doin what you\u2019re doin, it\u2019s what you\u2019re doin when you\u2019re doin what you look like you\u2019re doin.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"flashdanceboots\"
\n

\nFlashdance<\/a> (1983)
\n<\/b>Written by Thomas Hedley Jr. and Joe Eszterhas
\nDirected by Adrian Lyne<\/p>\n

When mentioning having recently seen this for the first time, more than anything I hear, \u201cToo bad you didn\u2019t see it in the \u201880\u2018s\u2014it was great then, but now it doesn\u2019t hold up.\u201d\u00a0 Even people who like it seem to only like it ironically, for its leg warmers and soundtrack.\u00a0 Few take it seriously\u2014it\u2019s got a 30% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the screenplay got a Razzie.<\/p>\n

Did we see the same movie?\u00a0 Because to me, Flashdance<\/a> is a cohesive and universally relatable work of art.\u00a0 In fact, I was so impressed by it that I watched it again a couple days later.\u00a0 What gives?<\/p>\n

I think it has to do with it being so iconic to its era that people have become blind to its timeless themes and legitimate beauty.\u00a0 It\u2019s mistaken for a glamorous romp about a girl with high heels on, when really, it\u2019s the struggle of a woman alternating between bare feet and work boots.\u00a0 It\u2019s remembered as an \u201880\u2019s movie\u2019 for silly, surface reasons, but really, it’s a human<\/i> movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,3267],"tags":[4314,4317,4316,3272,4315,4311,4313,104,185,4312],"class_list":["post-4947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts","category-chloes-reviews","tag-adrian-lyne","tag-charles-wright","tag-charles-wright-and-the-watts-103rd-street-rhythm-band","tag-chloe-pelletier","tag-express-yourself","tag-flashdance","tag-joe-eszterhas","tag-smug-film-2","tag-smugfilm","tag-thomas-hedley-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4947"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5086,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4947\/revisions\/5086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}