Best Picture #24 - An American in Paris - 1951
Where Una decides she will never be a fan of the Dream Dance Sequence.
Where Grace and Charm meet, you get Fred Astaire. Where Grace meets Athleticism, you get Figure Skating. But for Grace, Charm, and Athleticism, you need Gene Kelly. Even when the man was standing still, it was like he was dancing.
There's a great opening sequence in An American in Paris where Kelly wakes up and makes breakfast in his microscopic Parisian studio apartment. It's an amazing piece of choreography in itself, shifting items back and forth since the closet can't be opened while the chair is in place, and the bed goes up on pulleys to the ceiling for there to be floor space, etc, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhYSDgCTaPQ
(It starts at 2:50, if you prefer to skip the credits.)
Add a Parisian setting (recreated in Hollywood backlots), the music of George & Ira Gershwin, and sidekicks with great one-liners and what else do you need? Romance? Well, it's pretty standard guy-falls-for-girl-who-doesn't-like-him fare. Then he stalks her until she likes him, where you'd expect her to file a restraining order instead. Leslie Caron is adorable as the gamine shopgirl, Lise. Then there's A Complication in the form of would-be art patron/cougar who gets her fangs in a bunch over Kelly's starving painter. The relationship has all the charm and subtlety of a sexual harassment trial. But, really, were you here for a plot? I didn't think so.
Then there's that Dream Ballet. IMDB says it took half a million dollars and over a month to film. There is no dialogue in the last 20 minutes of the movie. It's an amazing piece of choreography, the dancing is wonderful, and the visuals are stunning. Each segment was designed as a tribute to a different Impressionist painter. I.... just don't like dream ballets. Especially when they have absolutely nothing to do with an already thin plot. This one did. Mostly. (Unlike Singin' in the Rain, although I'm such a fan of that movie that I hardly care.) And, okay, who can resist a bit of Spectacle and the chance to see a Toulouse Lautrec painting dancing? So even though the sequences aren't my personal cup of tea, I can recognize when they're done to perfection.
Next up: Spectacle! Melodrama! And a Train Wreck! with The Greatest Show on Earth!
Where Grace and Charm meet, you get Fred Astaire. Where Grace meets Athleticism, you get Figure Skating. But for Grace, Charm, and Athleticism, you need Gene Kelly. Even when the man was standing still, it was like he was dancing.
There's a great opening sequence in An American in Paris where Kelly wakes up and makes breakfast in his microscopic Parisian studio apartment. It's an amazing piece of choreography in itself, shifting items back and forth since the closet can't be opened while the chair is in place, and the bed goes up on pulleys to the ceiling for there to be floor space, etc, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhYSDgCTaPQ
(It starts at 2:50, if you prefer to skip the credits.)
Add a Parisian setting (recreated in Hollywood backlots), the music of George & Ira Gershwin, and sidekicks with great one-liners and what else do you need? Romance? Well, it's pretty standard guy-falls-for-girl-who-doesn't-like-him fare. Then he stalks her until she likes him, where you'd expect her to file a restraining order instead. Leslie Caron is adorable as the gamine shopgirl, Lise. Then there's A Complication in the form of would-be art patron/cougar who gets her fangs in a bunch over Kelly's starving painter. The relationship has all the charm and subtlety of a sexual harassment trial. But, really, were you here for a plot? I didn't think so.
Then there's that Dream Ballet. IMDB says it took half a million dollars and over a month to film. There is no dialogue in the last 20 minutes of the movie. It's an amazing piece of choreography, the dancing is wonderful, and the visuals are stunning. Each segment was designed as a tribute to a different Impressionist painter. I.... just don't like dream ballets. Especially when they have absolutely nothing to do with an already thin plot. This one did. Mostly. (Unlike Singin' in the Rain, although I'm such a fan of that movie that I hardly care.) And, okay, who can resist a bit of Spectacle and the chance to see a Toulouse Lautrec painting dancing? So even though the sequences aren't my personal cup of tea, I can recognize when they're done to perfection.
Next up: Spectacle! Melodrama! And a Train Wreck! with The Greatest Show on Earth!