Chapter 21 Can't stop, all in this space: Ballroom, 1985

Can't stop, all in this space: Ballroom, 1985 1936, 1940, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1956, 1968, 1983.A group of people dance continuously. Same actors, different roles; same ballroom, different times. There is no line, only different styles of music and dance. In this way, half a century has passed, and two hours have passed, without feeling dull and lengthy. Silent film-style acting, comic-style character modeling, and dramatic mise-en-scène. In love, in despair, in war, in liberation, in sports, disco is popular... The ridiculous, the cute, the sad, the hateful, the pathetic, all in this space.

As a public space, the dance hall seems to have never disappeared in our lives.We can recall that in the 1980s, ballroom dancing swept across major cities in China, and countless middle-aged dance fans squeezed into ballrooms that cost a few yuan a ticket to find the legendary high-end pastime; when "break dancing" was popular, teenagers across the country It seems that they are all practicing dance, wishing to use classrooms and playgrounds as dance halls; throughout the 1990s, university cafeterias became a sea of ​​dances on weekends, and everyone crowded together to enjoy the yet-to-come physical liberation.Even now that the dance halls have been replaced by disco bars, Chinese screens have never stopped reverie and nostalgia for Shanghai dance halls in the 1930s: any movie about that era, no matter the color or gesture, will almost Unanimously, a "Paramount" style dance hall scene appeared.The ballroom always makes people think of it as a place to release pleasure, but "LeBal" (LeBal) shot by Italian Ettore Scola carries more sustenance.All the scenes in this movie are a ballroom, telling eight story segments, all the characters appear here, all the stories happen here, there is not a single line, but it spans half a century.Later, on a train trip, I suddenly remembered this movie I saw not long ago, probably because of a certain feeling in the car: it is a relatively static space in a flowing geographical trajectory; The same is true for the dance hall in the film, which is like a relatively closed world in the flowing historical track.

A Cheng mentioned in it that "Ettole Skola's film "La Famiglia" (La Famiglia) has been going on for eighty years, and it has been watched by dozens of people in five generations. Take it lightly." It can also be used in this "Dance Hall". "Dance Hall" uses wonderful performances and excellent scheduling to outline an era and how many worries, the atmosphere jumps out, making people feel emotionally unstoppable... so much so that after watching "Dance Hall", I immediately re-watched "Dance Hall" Singin' in the Rain, the most outstanding musical film created by a generation of superstar Kim Kelly.The background uses the background of the transition period from silent films to sound films to tell a piece of film history.Kim Kelly borrowed everything that could be borrowed, such as props on the set, furniture in the apartment, water beaches and umbrellas, to express the "true joy" in his heart to the fullest.The outdoor shots use "sharp lifting shots", which are bright and atmospheric.The last "Broadway Song" presents a daydream scene within a daydream.The core songs and dances are really enjoyable and never tire of watching. "Musical and musical films" were originally one of the representatives of Hollywood genre films in the 1940s and 1950s. The carnival scenes of singing and dancing, and the daydreams of sudden singing and dancing, all represented the idealized life posture of people at that time.Today, "musical film" and another classic genre film style "western film" have become a page turned in the history of film. The "musical" form seems to be reproduced only in children's Disney cartoons, and it was once a mirror that men scrambled to appreciate and imitate.

"Ballroom" also shows a certain gesture between people and between people and the times. In "Last Tango in Paris", what Paul said to Jeanne in the ballroom: "Tango is a ritual", men and women of different eras in "Ballroom" also regard dance as a ritual. ——a ritual of professing one's life in a public space.