- Ginger Rogers as quoted by Roger Ebert
If anything suffers from the modern practice of editing every action into tiny bite-sized chunks it is the cinematic dance scene. The appeal of dance exists in watching real people moving in real time. You can frame it and light it and do whatever you want on the soundtrack but ultimately it is all about capturing the performance. Fred Astaire, for one, was adamant about having as little cutting in his dance scenes as possible.
All the big dance moments we remember from Singin' in the Rain happened with a minimum of cuts. Donald O'Connor's legendary flips off the wall happen in an unbroken 10 second shot. If there had been a cut there that would have been the death of the scene. Everyone would assume trickery.
Or take what is probably my favorite shot from Singin' in the Rain from the "You Were Meant For Me" number, which begins at the 2:40 mark of this video and lasts a full 30 seconds.
That doesn't seem like very long (I didn't consider it long enough for my recent post about the great under-appreciated long takes in film history) but by modern movie standards it's an eternity. I seriously doubt you could find one unbroken shot of equal length in all of Chicago.
My favorite thing about it is that directors Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly essentially makes it into several shots by keeping the camera in motion and continually reframing the dancers, moving them in and out of shadow. This keeps it visually arresting while preserving the integrity of the dancers. Look at these stills and try to tell me that they wouldn't all be separate shots if the film was made today:
Great post, though I'm not sure it should be attributed to modern vs traditional/classic editing as much as the influence of Gene Kelly himself. As the (well, *a*) director, he was in the unique position of being able to protect the choreography and artwork that was so important to him.
ReplyDeleteA similar issue arose in Saturday Night Fever, when they tried to do John Travolta's famous dance solo in close-ups. He was able to fight the studio to get in longer shots from farther back.
Maybe editors in general see dance as a plot device, rather than an end unto itself, so they choose to focus on the character's face instead of his or her movements.
I can't resist reiterating Tippi's point: "My favorite thing about it is that director Stanley Donen..." Wait just a darn minute! You mean Donen and Kelly, right? Co-directors. ;-)
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed your post! I try to point out these long takes to my students as much as I can. I show them something like the scenes you cite above and then Richard Gere's "tap dance" from CHICAGO. Geez.
OMG. This post is magical and I 100% agree. Just let the dancers dance, future filmmakers!
ReplyDeleteTippi and Kelli -
ReplyDeleteYou are, of course, correct. Thanks for the heads up on my goof. That Gene Kelly was a co-director is a great additional point for why his dance scenes were so well filmed.
The post has been updated accordingly.