Flashdance (1983)

Directed by Adrian Lyne

Released April 15, 1983

Screenplay by Thomas Hedley Jr. & Joe Eszterhas

Story by Thomas Hedley Jr.

Movie Synopsis Courtesy of IMDB

"A Pittsburgh woman with two jobs as a welder and an exotic dancer wants to get into ballet school."

How do movies normally start? At the beginning, yeah obviously. What I mean is the credits. There are many different ways of doing credits and the style in which they are done have changed over many generations. You have the running credits with just a title graphics and music playing. You have the delayed credits, where you play the opening scene and then go to the title graphic followed by some credits. You have credits that play out as the movie starts, that are hidden at the bottom of the screen. There are hundreds of others, but the one we see in Flashdance is the credits that follow the main character. They sort of act as a scene setter. We see what the character does on a daily basis, where they live, how they dress, and we even sometimes get a feel for their mannerisms. While the credits are running, normally we just hear music in the background and no dialogue. With that said, we still are introduced to the character and feel like we have an idea of who this person is, even before they give their first line.

I figured, what better way to start this blog than by talking about starting credits. Okay, now on to Flashdance.

This movie has many iconic pieces to it. The first, and most recognized, would be the "pulling the cord" scene. This is when Alex is dancing in the bar. She sits down in the chair and pulls a cord that drenches her in water. It is not a hard scene to repeat, which is why people mimic this gesture in other movies, shows, and other forms of entertainment. It is one of those scenes where even if you have never seen the movie, you most likely know that the reference comes from Flashdance.

The other most iconic part of this movie is the soundtrack. There are so many classic 80s songs in this movie that it is hard to not recognize at least one song. Songs like "Flashdance...What a Feeling," "He's a Dream," and of course "Maniac." A movie sometimes is only as good as its soundtrack. So with a soundtrack this loaded with classic and famous songs, no wonder it is still a movie that is referenced and relevant even today.

Brief 80s moment. Can we just talk about Alex's hair for a second. I don't think there could be a more iconic 80s hair style than the one we see in this movie. It is almost a mix of an afro and a mullet all in one. Makes me wonder how people's hair used to be that curly and how they styled their hair that way. I don't see anyone walking around with hair that curly these days. Well a few people, but not nearly that often.

Alex is the kind of women that everyone should strive to be. She is independent, determined, strong, and she doesn't care about being anyone besides herself. Alex isn't ashamed of her jobs or how she lives her life. We see this when she brings Nick to her apartment and he clearly thinks that she lives in a dump (which she kind of does), she doesn't care when she changes into sweats instead of staying in her more girly clothes, she doesn't think twice about sitting with her legs open and taking off her bra right in front of him.

She is so carefree and herself that more women should look to her as an example of how to be confident. I think if more women were this comfortable with being themselves, women would start to outnumber men in the workforce. Basically, we would take over the world if we could all have that much confidence in ourselves. It is all a mental game and right now, Alex outnumbers everyone else in this movie.

The dance portrayed in this movie is interesting. First of all, it does show the brutal nature of the dance world. When Alex enters the dance school and you see a bunch of tall, thin, and young girls it is showing the contrast of Alex compared to the standard of dancers that people are generally looking for. We also see all the sweat and work that is put into training as a dancer. Alex works out all the time to stay in shape and to improve her dance technique. Then there is Alex's audition. Three things with this. One, there is no way you could enter an audition for a ballet school and manage to get by with this audition.

Ballet is very specific with the body type and the type of dancing that is done. So break dancing and skipping around the room would not impress any true ballet school. In fact, doing a (we will call it Jazz) piece would not cut it either. Two, that is clearly not Jennifer Beals during the audition. While she did have multiple body doubles doing the routine, which makes sense, they didn't do a good job hiding it. You can clearly see that the body double has a wing on that is at least three shades darker than Beals' hair color. In fact, the wing looks almost black compared to her dark brown hair. Third, during a real audition, no one would let you restart your audition. If you mess up, you should just keep going and hope that they will not stop you. In dance auditions, there are hundreds if not thousands of people auditioning, so they do not have time to let you restart. Dance is brutal. They want you at your best, all the time, so if they see you mess up right away, then chances are they will not give you a second look. They will tell you thank you and have a nice day, as you walk out of the door.

The only big negative I have with this movie is that I feel like it leaves a lot of loose ends. What happens to Jeanie? Did Richie ever really make it in comedy? How was Alex and Hanna's relationship started, which then leads me to ask did Alex have to help with the funeral? Did Alex get into the dance school? What happened to the men at the other "dance club"? There just were a lot of questions that I had at the end of this movie. It almost felt like a rush ending that didn't get the chance to finish what it wanted to say. Ending because they didn't have the budget or time to bring a full ending to the movie. It left me feeling underwhelmed right at the ending.

Overall though, it is a good film and has a lot of 80sness to it that makes it a classic.

Nick: "When you give up your dream, you die."