Dance scenes in movies can be tricky, but sometimes magical
In film, you can do is use the camera to convey emotion in a dancer in ways you can't onstage
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Oscar front-runner “La La Land” opens with a bang, or should we say a burst — of leaps and pirouettes, not to mention bicycles sashaying along the roofs of automobiles. It’s not easy to stage a successful dance scene for the cameras — especially on a highway interchange — but when such a scene works, it can be memorable.
One secret, says “La La Land” choreographer Mandy Moore, is not to compete with the camera, but in a sense, to find a way to dance WITH it. “When it’s done right, it’s this perfect marriage of how the camera is moving in conjunction and collaboration with the movement of the dancer,” she says.
Dancing on a stage is three-dimensional; on a screen, you lose an entire dimension. But what you can do is use the camera to convey emotion in a dancer in ways you can’t onstage. “You can see how dance changes the person — that’s a key,” says Wendy Perron, former editor in chief of Dance Magazine and author of “Through the Eyes of a Dancer.”
Because everyone has their favorite dance moments in movies, and because the Oscars are coming, and because, hey, it’s just fun to remember this stuff (all available online), here are a few scenes where the cameras helped create dance magic:
Yep, it was heaven
“I’m in heaven,” Fred Astaire sings to Ginger Rogers, warbling Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek” in the 1935 film “Top Hat.” And so are we. “Fred is so cool and she’s so coy,” Moore notes, adding that the scene is so successful because it tells a story through movement. “They’re almost a little icy the way they start, and then just this beautiful way that they open up through the performance, and they’re just so free and gorgeous through dancing together,” she says. Check out those swoon-worthy twirling lifts toward the end.
Log-spinning and arm wrestling
There’s some real gymnastics in the rip-roaring choreography by Michael Kidd in the 1954 film, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” The big dance in the barn — with guys competing for the gals — is a showstopper. Moore loves that this dance story is told without lyrics. “These days, we’re so used to being spoon-fed what we’re supposed to feel,” she says. Check out that guy on the spinning log, not to mention what can best be described as a balance beam routine that includes arm-wrestling.
Dancin’ in the rain
Of course, Kelly’s rain-drenched virtuoso performance in the title song of “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) is a wonder — especially when you consider that, according to movie lore, he had a bad cold and fever. Then there are Donald O’Connor’s athletics — including wall-climbing somersaults — in “Make ‘Em Laugh.” But let’s consider the recently departed Debbie Reynolds, who at age 19 had no dance training, and somehow held her own, expertly tapping away with Kelly and O’Connor in the joyous “Good Morning” — which she has said made her feet bleed.
Mambo in the gym