Dancing on the silver screen
Shall We Dance?, a Japanese movie released in 1997 about a humdrum businessman who finds inspiration in ballroom dancing, was great. Now I read that it will be remade next year with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. Ugh. Not to disparage their talents, but this is exactly the kind of sweet, delightful movie that works so well in part because of its “everyday-ness”—the idea that our everyman protagonist, or you or me, can find ourselves capable of something beautiful and powerful (and fun), like dance. I don’t need or want star power to come in and make an overblown production of it. Anyway. Go rent Shall We Dance? before the remake comes to theaters. It’s cute, and deftly touches on aspects of both ballroom dancing and Japanese life.
Check out today’s Times article on dance in film. Some of the other upcoming movies it mentions look more promising.
[Update (15:37): In the comments, Stephen notes the recent intrigue regarding production of the remake. Wow, I had no idea.]
This reminds me: there is a volunteer program at Stanford in which students design and teach classes to local high-school kids on weekends. When I was a junior, I planned a course on this very subject, dance in film, but how many kids signed up for it? Two. (Those were the pre-Moulin Rouge/Chicago days.) It might have been interesting, very tutorial-like, to have just two students, but I decided to cancel it. Pity.