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Strictly Ballroom

directed by Baz Luhrmann

This unit was prepared by Lorraine Bowan, Narrabeen Sports High School

The relationships and attitudes established in the communication of images

Primal myth

Scott and Barry

Scott and Doug

Fran and Scott

Primal myth

Two primal myths provide the basis of the plot for Strictly Ballroom: Scott’s triumphant defiance of the Dance Federation has its roots in the David and Goliath story, Fran’s transformation from the ugly duckling Frangipani de la squeegee mop to the proud and passionate flamenco dancer is the story of Cinderella .

These stories transcend national boundaries with their universal familiarity, but they are told in an uncompromisingly Australian setting. There was no attempt to universalise the setting; it is anchored firmly in tacky Australian suburbia through signage, dialogue, accent and image.

Furthermore, the manner of the storytelling is quintessentially Australian. Neither of the two primal myths is traditionally comic but Luhrmann’s and Pearce’s screenplay called for a gently satirical approach.

Tiefholz notes that this is a characteristic of contemporary Australian cinema: “While borrowing heavily from cross-cultural ideas and stories that are part of human experience per se, Australian cinema adds local flavour to universal ideas, and uses this to poke fun at itself.” (Astrid Sonia Tiefholz, 1996)

Scott and Barry

The relationship between David and Goliath, Scott Hastings and Barry Fife, is that of protagonist and antagonist from their first appearance. The audience is positioned to sympathise with Scott who is the image of youthful beauty, grace, endeavour and vulnerability, the antithesis of Barry Fife.

At 6.55, the camera dollies in to a low angle close up of Barry locking eyes with Scott as he raises his chin, narrows his eyes, turns down the corners of his mouth and glares at Scott. The camera cuts to Scott for a reaction shot looking defiant and pans to Liz, her face contorted in frustration and despair.

The conflict between Barry and Scott develops through the plot and unfolds through the dialogue but is represented through image metaphorically in the sequence of shots from 44.06.

As Barry confronts Scott in the kitchen of the RSL Club, the shot is tightly framed by the stainless steel kitchen shelving, emphasising the tight spot Scott is in. Steam shoots from the dishwasher, suggesting through image the heat of Barry’s anger and the effort he expends trying to control the tear-a-way, Scott.

While Barry is in full flight spitting out, “there won’t be a mark on the scorecard low enough for you...” the cook reaches forward in the centre of the shot and grabs a cut of meat with his bare hand, taking it back past Barry’s face shot in big close up and slightly low angle. This is metaphor where there is a transference of the relationship between the cook and the meat on the one hand to Barry and Scott on the other. This serves to increase the audience’s disapproval of Barry and heighten the impact of Scott’s line “out of a job.” which tips the power scales abruptly in Scott’s favour. Devices like this metaphor are used to ensure the director’s preferred reading of the scene is shared by the audience.

Activity

1. How does the director visually emphasise the reversal of fortunes of Scott and Barry in the final sequence from scene 109 (Tape counter: 112.35)

Barry is allowed one final scene in which he is in control and Scott is putty in his hands. Barry’s attempt to sway Scott to follow the rules by telling him a dishonest version of Doug and Shirley’s past opens with modality markers which position the audience to read what follows as another fairy tale.

Barry’s dialogue “once, once, ah once” echoes the fairytale “once upon a time...” and the red plush curtain opens again on a proscenium arch stage with a flat two dimensional set.

Doug’s performance begins with a Chaplinesque homage to the silent movies played out against a garish set lit with high key lighting and with the actor’s made up in a caricature of the vibrancy and vitality of their youths.

Barry’s voice-over has all the inflection of a reluctant revelation of the truth which the images comically undercut. While the dialogue purports to tell a great truth, the images simultaneously confirm that it is a colossal lie. The effect is to give the audience the intellectual pleasure of irony and at the same time, the emotional release oflaughter.

Scott and Doug

Flashback Doug

The Scott and Barry relationship is juxtaposed against the relationship Scott has with his father, Doug. This brow-beaten asthmatic is the classic mystery man who has a dark secret locked away in the basement. In the sequence from 14.51 on your tape counter, Doug is seen in medium close up dollying to big close up as he watches feelingly, the film he shot of Scott’s unorthodox dancing.

At 15.15, the high camera angle adds a strong sense of his vulnerability and a mood of mystery and suspense as we wonder about the significance of the photograph he holds and why he keeps it locked away.

When Scott later walks down the stairs and jemmies open the cabinet, the scene has all the ambience of a Hitchcock classic, enhanced by the soundtrack (108.15).

Doug’s story adds a poignancy to the film, best manifested in the montage of secret dancing shots from 26.00. His futile rehearsal in the circle of the spotlight as he capers grotesquely gives expression to his repressed desire to dance his own steps. This sequence is movingly inter-cut with Scott and Fran’s secret rehearsals for competition and for life.

Doug’s nocturnal rehearsals serve one useful purpose; they keep alive his passion for individual freedom and he is the vehicle through which Scott ultimately finds the strength to dance his paso doble and avoid his father’s “life lived in fear.”

“The rhythmic value of editing is probably best seen in the code of accelerated montage, in which the interest in a scene is heightened and brought to a climax through progressively shorter alternations of shots between ... subjects.” (James Monaco, How to Read a Film, Oxford University Press, New York 1977)

The tension Luhrmann creates using this accelerated montage in the final scene is brought to an exhilarating climax as the camera focuses in close up on Doug’s simultaneously trembling and commanding slow hand claps. The impact of the image is here amplified by the absence of any other sound.

Fran and Scott

The Cinderella myth which is embodied in the transformation of Fran sees her initially appear as awkward, unattractive, and having little personal prestige or power. This is conveyed not only by the plot and Tara Morice’s convincing character acting but by the use of camera techniques.

When she enters the studio and watches Scott improvising in front of the mirror (tape counter 18.28), the camera switches from the point of view of the mirror to Fran’s point of view and tracks towards him with her.

As she talks to Scott and suggests that he dance with her, her subordination to him is emphasised by the double image we see of his appearing in both the flesh and in his reflection in the mirror. Even in the medium close ups, details of the studio have been masked by lighting to emphasise the people in the shot, and as the conversation becomes more intense, the medium close ups give way to big close ups.

Scott mirror image

Activity

2. Lighting is one of the most important tools a filmmaker can use to modify the meanings of an image. Consider the effect of the halo of strong light above Fran’s head in this scene.

Fran’s transformation is sealed by her removing her glasses in the scene where she and Scott retreat to the rooftop when they realise that Doug is still at the studio (tape counter 27.25).

Tiefholz comments that this is an interesting revamping of the Hollywood cliché: “It is seen as the start of her transformation from ugly duckling to swan, but it is also the beginning of Scott’s transformation. It allows him to see his culture for what it is, but more importantly, to see Fran’s culture for what his is not. The woman has the privileged gaze, and chooses to allow the man to see through her eyes.” (1996 0p cit).

For the first time, Fran is suffused with the pizzazz of the Coke sign and the romance of the sunset as she and Scott dance with both practised and spontaneous togetherness. Metonymy (a figure of speech in which an attribute of a thing or something closely related to it is substituted for the thing itself e.g. “sweat” can mean “hard labour”) is evident in the Hill’s hoist complete with socks as it represents the wider idea of the everyday, mundane world and carries the implication that Fran and Scott will draw out from this commonplace world of everyday experience, the glamour of their individual blossoming which their partnership facilitates.

Both Fran and Scott falter and stumble on their path to success. When Fran observes Tina and Nathan dancing the rumba and concedes, “I could never do that”, the sense that she is shut out from the world of professional competition is intensified by the image of her peeking at the scene from the cover of the stage curtain.

The editing cuts to and fro from this image to Fran’s point of view shot of the dancers. “The inter-cutting of the two simultaneous rumbas being danced to the same music in different locations is one of the most complex and subtle scenes in the film.” Choreographer, John “Cha Cha” O’Connell, explains this scene in the Strictly Ballroom press kit: “The “show” rumba of the ballroom dance floor with all its glamour and extravagance, is juxtaposed with the simplicity of the “backstage” rumba danced by the two lovers, where the steps have been cut to the minimum, and the accent is on the internal feelings of the dancers.”

In a comic undercutting of the tenderness of Fran’s view through the curtain of the (to her) unattainable glamour of the competition, those who happen upon Fran and Scott’s backstage rumba have a view through the curtain of the unfakeable sincerity of the authentic dance of love.

Fran’s humiliation is complete in the next scene, emphasised by the low camera angle shots of Vanessa, Liz and Shirley closing in on the fallen Fran to put her in her place.

Activity

3. Fran falls down three times in the film. How is image used in each case to show abstract ideas or emotions?

It is Scott who is confronted by the ring of hostile faces in the following scene at the Toledo milk bar as Rico and YaYa demand to see Scott’s paso doble. Rico appears initially as an angry, threatening, dishevelled small man who, true to the stereotype of ethnic fathers, wants to lock away his daughter. He then undergoes a dramatic change in stature through his transformation into the role of matador as he demonstrates his paso doble to Scott. Rico’s rise allows Fran to be seen in a new light in this scene as Tiefholz explains:

“Fran’s grandmother beats out the rhythm on Scott’s chest, the turns to Fran and says in Spanish, “Nice body”. It is a funny moment because it plays with the assumption that women, and older women in particular, are disinclined to look at the male body. The joke gives a reversal of the romance plot. Fran suddenly has the upper hand on Scott, as she knows what is being said and he does not, where previously, he had the position of master and she of ignorance.”

It is YaYa, Fran’s grandmother, who at tape counter 55.30, gives her the courage to show the world the beauty within her by being true to her culture and her nature.

The attitudes of the director are conveyed in this manner as our sympathies and antipathies are manipulated to ensure the preferred reading is secure.

Baz Luhrmann’s triumph in this regard is highlighted by the Daily Mail (UK) film critic, Shuan Usher’s comments “As a critic, very rarely do I see a film which genuinely uplifts my spirits and has me leaving the cinema a happier person than when I walked in. But just recently, I saw a film that inspired that very feeling...Its sheer delightful charm manages that most difficult of tricks, to make the cynical remember the ideal.” (11 November 1992)

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