film review- introductory task

Dirty dancing film review:

Dirty dancing is said to be an “overwhelming, white and heterosexual” based movie by critics, however it is a subversive masterpiece in reality. Dirty dancing was directed by Emilie Ardolino and written by Eleanor Bergstein. The big hit within the film is the main actors who helped make this movie a big hit. These included Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. The film was known all over the world reflecting upon winning the 1988 Oscar academy award for best music and original song, and progressed to golden globes where they won the 1988 best original song- motion picture. These awards also include Grammys, independent film awards and TV awards which ranged from 1988 through to 2008.  Dirty Dancing’s main genre for its film was to combine Drama, romance and music all together. This therefore gives the film that musical feel to it. The film was given a certificate of PG-13 due to its romantic and sexual references. Also the terms of aborting throughout the film may have effected this certificate towards younger audiences also. The budget of this film was estimated at $6’000’000, however its US gross rose to $63’954’274 in December of 1997. Leading on from that, the Worldwide gross of $170’000’000 due to its rising popularity in the modern era also. 

In 1963 Frances Houseman also known as Baby is on a summer get away with her family, hoping to enjoy her youth while it lasts. Baby has grown up in a privileged family and is set to work with the peace corps and go on to marry a doctor, just like her father. However, she is disappointed when her summer plans land on a sleepy resort in the Catskills up north New York with her parents. Her luck then turns around, however when the resorts dance instructor, Johnny, enlists Baby as his new partner. From then on the two fall in love, however when Baby’s father finds out he forbids her from seeing Johnny and refers to Johnny and his friends as “those people” but she is determined to help him perform the last big dance of the summer.

The surrounding colours of the film such as the film name and colour on the advertising of it is pink, pink connotes a genre of romance so this gives the genre away to the audience without even knowing anything about the film. Also within the colour of the film the opening sequence of this film uses black and white tones which gives the audience a sense of old school production and gives the genuine feel of the 1960’s production. This gives a contemporary audience the feel of an old production of film. The lighting of this film is commonly low key lighting but contrasts between high key and low key to set the mood. High key lighting is commonly used outside for example the lake scene and then the low key lighting is used within the personal moments of the film between Johnny and Baby. This low key lighting helps the audience focus on Johnny and baby as a couple and helps their scenes together become more romantic and you can see the chemistry between them. Also the lighting within the film is effected as they are set within an enclosed area of the camp and the low key lighting reflects the camp type scenario. 

Concepts such as feminism, gender and historical context comes into this film on a large scale. This film based in the 60’s portrays the illegal ideas of abortions and this is put across through back street abortions of Penny until she later progressed onto a safe abortion which was still illegal within this era. Also put across through sexual concepts of women is the idea of dancing being a metaphor for sex which is portrayed through the two dancing partner’s sexual relationship throughout the film. This is why Baby is given a watermelon surrounding the abortion idea, and the famous quote of ‘I carried a watermelon’ is produced from this ideology. Also within the historical context, was the idea of the civil rights movement. This film isn’t racially diverse as it is all a white based community and this film cuts out the idea that people were marching on streets to get black equality and black women weren’t allowed in schools to get an education and this film just totally blocks this out so we are completely unaware of the actual struggle within the 60’s and we are just focused on this teenage girl’s struggle. This film represents a struggle on a smaller scale than what was actually going on in reality. This may be done that way because it is a story of rife within class politics. 

Contrasting dirty dancing to other films produced by Emilie Ardolinio, she produces other films like sister act, and the gypsy which are sound track based films. Her films seem to have a running theme of the musical element and she incorporates the different genres across her film production history. They all seem to have a theme of dance and song which is identical to dirty dancing.