Flash Dance 

Set in the working class mid-west, Flashdance is ultimately a fairytale to the sexiest degree. Jessica Beal who played "Alex" a struggling mine worker and who moonlighted at the local strip club, was really just a dedicated dancer at heart. When Flashdance came out, it had women everywhere ripping their sweatshirts and wanting to give stripper poles a whirl. Romantic, high energy and well constructed dance scenes solidified Flashdance's place securely in dance history.

Fame

Fame was released on May 16, 1980, and was built upon the theme that "If they've got what it takes, it's going to take everything they've got". A High School for the Performing Arts in the middle of New York City. Students strive for higher creativity, fine-tuning God-given skills and hope that their individuality can lead them on the way to stardom. "Fame! I'm going to live forever". Inspiring and moments that are genuinely moving. Irene Cara was introduced.

Dirty Dancing

The story follows 17 year old "Baby Houseman" and her time spent in her family's usual getaway spot in the Catskills. What follows is the schooling into womanhood in the truest sense of the meaning. The resort's resident bad boy and hired dance instructor takes Baby on a journey of slow seduction. Oh yeah, and the dancing isn't bad either. Patrick Swayze proved to be as smooth on the dance floor as he was in delivering his lines to his adorable co-star Jennifer Grey.

Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantine paints a satirical portrait of Los Angeles in all it's underground complications and inner turmoil. Gangsters run amuck. Sarcastic and full of irony, John Travolta plays "Vincent Vega" and the beautifully cool "Mia" is played by Uma Thurman. Their unforgettable dance scene takes place after deciding to enter a dance contest. The chemistry between the two was undeniable and a piece of iconic history was born.

Scent of a Woman

Al Pacino plays a grumpy and arrogant Kernel, who years after serving in the army was left blind and suicidal. During a forced but somewhat planned trip to New York City to accomplish a list of things he'd like to do before he dies, he directs his caretaker played by Chris O'Donnell to take him to an old favorite restaurant. There he sees an unsuspecting beautiful young woman sitting alone. They strike up a conversation where she tells him, she always wanted to dance the tango but didn't know how. Frank seizes his opportunity and asks her to join him on the floor for a proper lesson. The dance nearly steals the whole movie and showcases enormous passion and seductive charm.

Risky Business

Tome Cruise plays an average young teen named "Joel Goodson", left for a few days while his parents are out of town to fend by his own devices. To celebrate his new found independence, this famous dance scene combines Tom Cruise, underwear and an air guitar. What follows is a series of events that brings hookers, loosing the family furniture and his father's ferrari that's suddenly gone "missing".

Footloose

A city kid named "Ren" played by Kevin Bacon moves to a mid-western town that seems stuck in time. The towns people outlaw rock and roll music and dancing which leads Ren in deciding to take matters into his own hands. Becoming somewhat of a hero, Ren takes on their backward ways in order to help his fellow repressed peers. Although, the dancing is somewhat dated, the movie had a lot of heart and there's buzz that a remake is on the way.

Grease

Big man on campus, "Danny Zucko" (John Travolta) meets Aussie Innocent "Sandy" (Olivia Newton-John) on a summer fling right before school starts. Danny, assuming his "love 'em and leave 'em" strategy is carved in stone is shocked when his brief encounter shows up as the new student "Rydell High". His domain. Entertaining characters, vivid scenery, poodle skirts, leather jackets and unforgettable music that stands the test of time. Grease is the word. Grease was released in 1978 and became the most successful musicals of all time.

Singin' in the Rain

A film set in the 1920's that takes us on a historical journey of the transitioning period between the silent film era, and it's evolution into the world of movie talkies. Gene Kelly lights up the stage like no other and conveys through one of the most brilliant dance scenes of all time feelings of unadulterated joy. A back drop of pouring rain and a simple umbrella as his dancing partner and there is no wonder why "Singin' in the Rain is considered one of the best musicals of all time.

Saturday Night Fever

One of my all-time favorite movies, Saturday Night Fever Transcended limitations. John Travolta played Tony Manero, a Brooklyn teen who worked at a dead-end job in a Hardware store, but finds his ultimate happiness and true calling on the dance floor surrounded by adoring fans and the glare of disco lights.

When Tony falls in love with an older woman, with whom he feels a kindered spirit, her words shatter his fragile confidence by summarizing his life on a park bench "You live with your parents, you hang with your buddies and on Saturday night you burn it all off at 2001 Odyssey. You're a cliche. You're no where, going no place." The look on Tony's face is stunned emotion, and the sadness that follows is in the sense that he believes she may be right.

This film is memorable in so many ways. John Travolta's performance is vulnerable, yet sexy at the same time. The dance scenes are electrifying and spell-binding. Watching him get dressed in his room, amid posters of Al Pacino, Rocky and Farrah Fawcett perfectly sealed a piece of history. Saturday Night Fever is one of those iconic films that leaves a permanent print on dance and catapulted John Travolta into superstardom.

Bollywood is an industry focused upon the main leading men like Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan. These men and a handful of well known others make it big to almost literally monopolize the Bollywood movie industry. They are the “Stars” of Bollywood. The women of Bollywood have had it much harder for succeeding in making it big to carry their fame through the years of a long-term career. There is always so much worry of growing older and being pushed out by the younger fresher ones that are constantly being brought into the Bollywood industry and the fact of Bollywood still being a male dominated industry.

In the book “May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons”, by Elisabeth Bumiller, three of Bollywood’s leading women open up to reveal their own personal Bollywood experiences, and since there is no such thing as a private personal life when in the spot light of any kind, especially in Bollywood, we get it all. Besides, in Bollywood “getting it all” on the stars is almost more important than their movie flops and successes. This seems to be especially true in Mumbai and in the Bollywood industry.

During the late 80’s and early 90’s, three of the most popular actresses in Bollywood were Rekha, Dimple, and Sredevi. But there are also a handful of others who would dance in and out of the starlight when they were on a role in Bollywood successes. Smita Patil is one of these successful actresses. In an interview with Elizabeth Bumiller, Smita speaks of how hard it truly is to be an actress in Bollywood, professionally and personally. “Women who work in this industry have no time for any kind of normal life”, she said. “You’re working ten or twelve hours a day with different men all the time. “You’re constantly demanded to emote, and it tends to become a very high-strung existence emotionally, which leads into your personal involvements. The line is very thin”.

Although Smita was a college educated woman who was aware of worldly issues and a feminist mind set, she was well known for the typical rape scenes and demeaning roles often written into many of the Hindi films. To be an actress within the Hindi film industry, the actress was given little choice but to accept these types of roles unless they chose to make less money and less fame playing in roles for the upper class art films. In commercial Hindi films, there are certain audience expectations, and one is of the man being the one who needs to save the woman from some sort of terrible event. There must be a hero and a victim, and the abuse of a woman gives a good dramatic reason for the man to come along and be the woman’s rescuer. This is quite often the excuse looked for to also throw in a good bloody beating of the bad guy or guys trying to hurt the weak woman.

While Hindi films are infamous for their well known weak and demure roles for the women actresses, they are also just as popular in portraying the woman into the passive sex object. As the woman dances around in the expected sultry overtone, the man gazes at her in an over exaggerated glare. Almost always in a semi trance, he does not hide his desires from all of those who are also watching with a collective approval upon their smiling faces. This dancing young goddess may be dancing around in revealing clothes in the beginning, but three hours later you almost always can count on her being fully dressed in a traditional sari happily playing the role of the demure wife to the man who had been almost drooling over her original seductiveness.

There have been a few bollywood films with a heroine instead of a hero. In “Frames of mind: Reflections of Indian Cinema”, Maithli Rao describes a heroine role played by Dimple Kapadia in the film “Zakhmee Aurat”. Dimple plays the role of a woman police officer who is dedicated to capturing men who rape, and then is subjected to rape herself. In the end, her and the other rape victims lure the rapists to a doctor who castrates them.

These heroine roles for the commercial Bollywood actresses are few and far between, they when do come along, they tend to make the heroine choose between her feminism an the duty at hand for the greater of all as a whole. Maithili Rao also points out that it most common for the proper and moral woman to wear the traditional sari and for the role of heroine, the clothing changes to the westernized styles. Through these drastic differences in roles, the clothes must to change. Giving the subconscious connections of drastic and dramatic changes through visual associations. Where an Indian woman in a sari would not dare be so bold and defy her traditional womanly expected role, a woman in western style clothing would.

Not only do the many songs thrown into a Hindi film make Indian films so unique from all the other large industry films around the world, but they also allow no sexual content what so ever. It wasn’t until recently that direct kissing between men and women were allowed on screen. Censorship is tight in this area for many reasons. It is not all just because of the Indian film industry board being so prude and traditional in their beliefs, but it is also the vast majority of the Indian audiences who view these commercial cinema films every year.

Mother India as a whole tends to sway very little from its traditional moral value system. In the book “Indian Cinema Today”, by Kobita Sarkar, there are the explanations as to why sex and kissing (until very recently) is not permitted or even desired to be permitted within Indian films by the overall Indian society as a whole. “It is not merely censorship not permitting a kiss that spurs film-makers to ingenious by-passing. It is also the in-built resistance from the audience its-self, which has denied the sexuality of its womenfolk on the fanciful assumption either that saintliness is an ingrained female characteristic, or that women might abandon their morals entirely if they are kissed in an Indian film”.

So instead of sexual content, Indian films contain ‘romance’ and many other forms of creative and sometimes worn-out over exaggerated ways to express and or suggest sexual desires and content. Rape scenes and any other form of sexually explicit content are also done in these types of various ways of expressing to the audience what ever effect desired without actually going to the extreme of intentionally showing the act. So between the creative visual metaphors and symbolism, anyone can figure out without even having to painstakingly think too hard or long of what just happened.

I do know that there are some very popular well-known Indian films that have gone slightly further to push the limits in their visual metaphors and symbolism. Where the Indian film “dream sequences” and somewhat sexually explicit music of yesterday’s films were as far as slight vulgarity was taken, the very latest Hindi films of India and films made by Indian filmmakers in other countries like Canada, America and England for example, tend to leave a little less to the audience’s imagination. After personally viewing many Indian made films through the years, these differences of time periods and production locations become more obvious. A Bollywood film is like no other compared to other Indian made films outside of India.

The Bollywood film industry very easily could be a full topic for a paper on its own. As a matter of fact, the industry is so unique and compelling that I had no trouble finding several books on the Indian cinema. Although I only touched upon a slight portion of how and why the Indian film is the way it is, this should be enough technical background to carry on to the main topic at hand.

As I had mentioned before that many actresses of Bollywood come and go. But for those who have been desired strongly enough and have pushed hard enough to stay working within Bollywood for so many years, it has been far from easy and glamorous. So many of these women start off in the industry at very young ages and not always by their own personal desires. In the book “Indian Cinema”, by K. Naresh Kumar, a chapter called ‘Women In Indian Cinema-Marginalised and Exploited’ speaks of the female invasion of Bollywood searching for money, fame and fortune within the commercial Indian film industry.

“Bollywood- it is the Everest any sensible starlet could aspire for. The ultimate dream factory which churns out strikingly similar products from studios, the Hindi films has no equal, be it money, glamour or fame that one is in search of.

Little wonder then that femme fatales from various cinematic backgrounds have invaded the Hindi film industry with monotonous regularity. Propped up by over- ambitious mothers or recommended by smitten superstars, lissome lasses have taken a shy at Bombay’s moviedom”.

Many of these actresses may ambitiously search out fame and fortune in Mumbai, but as K. Naresh Kumar pointed out, some are pushed and coaxed as children by mothers or found by very influential men like Amitabh Bachchan or Rajesh Khanna within the Bollywood film industry. These young fresh girls are found and desired without forethought to what the young girl may have wanted. It is not unusual for these young girls to be 13 or 14 years old and even younger, when pushed or encouraged by others to be a part of the industry. Rekha was 13 when found in Southern India and pushed into the commercial bollywood scene. In an interview to “Movie” magazine, Rekha speaks candidly on how she felt at the age of 13 when first brought to Bombay.

Rekha recalled, “I was too young to think about my situation. The only thoughts That did go through my mind were, “Why me? Why not my other sisters who were far more beautiful and for more fond of acting than me?’ I didn’t know the language. I didn’t know anybody here. And I didn’t want to be in films. I didn’t want to act. Period! And then again, ‘Why Hindi films? Why Bombay? And why alone? And why at a time like this when my mother was not well and in the hospital?’…” “I was pretty lost. I was missing my school and friends. But I didn’t really know what was happening. There was just too much distraction. Too much happening, too fast.’…” “And if I look back at it today, it must’ve been pretty devastating actually!”

Hema Malini was a young middle class girl living in Delhi, when her mother Jaya Chakravarty chose for her daughter the career of being an actress in the Bombay Hindi film industry. Although there are forced choices for these young girls, there are even more who chase the Bollywood dream. Meenakshi Seshadri, Neelam, and Twinkle Khanna are some examples of actresses who chose on their on accord to be a part of the Bollywood experience, and they have made it clear to the public of their own personal career choices.

Although Rekha, Sri Devi, Neelam, and many others were found willingly or unwillingly, they all were able to carry on through to a full successful career without an abrupt career stop. Dimple hit stardom at the age of 14, but by the age of 15 she unknowingly made her career stopping decision by marrying the highly popular leading actor, Rajesh Khanna. Immediately after their marriage vows, Rajesh Khanna told Dimple that she no longer could be an actress as his wife. In an interview with Elizabeth Bumiller, Dimple says, “My husband believed that my place was at home, it was not a husband-wife relationship—it was a father-daughter.”

Dimple was married to Rajesh Khanna for 10 years and had two children with him, before she made the decision to divorce him. In India, women leaving men is legal, but not accepted to be morally right by the Indian culture as a whole. Although knowing this, she went back into the industry of Bollywood films hoping to again make it. Dimple said, “It’s a big stigma to leave a man. I didn’t expect to be accepted. But after I left him, it made a tremendous difference to me. The best part was that I was earning my own bread.”

At this point I feel the need to mention that Dimple is one of the lucky women of India. Even today in India not only stay in unhappy marriages for reasons of children and fear of poverty, but they know all too well how little change there has been in the stigmas and taboos attached to divorcing her husband. This includes affairs, emotional and physical neglect and sometimes abuse on his part toward his wife. Although in the larger cities with higher educated populations; these stigmas are slowly being eased, but not completely forgotten. The mass villages of poor and or devoutly traditional populations rarely budge at all in acceptance of a woman divorcing. Dimples was one of the fortunate ones because of her bollywood fame.

In the 80’s Sri Devi became a success that rivaled Rekha in the rank of being #1 in Bollywood’s movie industry. Although Rekha was still young and beautiful in the 80’s, the barely 21-year-old fresh new face of Sri Devi came into high priority demand. She was a pretty and plump young woman who had gained an almost instant success in Bollywood after arriving from South India. She had originally began her acting career at the tender age of five. By the age of 21, Sri Devi had been in over a hundred films. By now her schedule consisted of an average workday to be around 15 hours and seven days a week. It was during this time that the movie magazines fueled any kind of real or fabricated dislikes between Rekha and Sri Devi. Which helped to contribute to both of their public forefront fame. By the 90’s Sri Devi would also be another top star actress who had to fight a little harder to stay in the public’s eye.

As I had mentioned earlier, Neelam was also a young 13 year old whom was found by chance. She had been visiting her Grandparents in Bombay during a summer vacation. While playing tennis with a friend (whose father happened to be a very successful film director), she was discovered. Her parents immediately said no to her being involved in anyway in the film industry, but they were pressured until they reluctantly agreed. “We were never for it,” sighed Neelam’s mother, Parveen Kothari. “Neelam said, ‘Let me try one.’ Well, it’s never one, really. You get stuck.”

During Neelam’s interview with Elisabeth Bumiller, she admitted how freightening and foreign to her the whole Bollywood experience was to her. “I was like, oh these people are so uncouth, so ill-mannered,” she said, “I couldn’t adjust. But after two or three films, I started getting used to it. Now it’s become a part of my life. It’s some- thing totally different. It’s hard work, but it’s nice.”

There are very few actresses who cross over back and forth between the Indian Art Cinema and the commercial Bollywood film industry. But Shabana Azmi is one such well known Indian actress who has. As of the late 80’s, she was the winner of more acting awards than any other female star in India.

She was also at the top of the list for being a conscious aware feminist when it came to her acting in Hindi films. She had not chosen to leave art films for commercial films just for the better pay, but to mostly become better known to the vast majority of different classes in India. She says, “I saw it was something that would get me stardom.”

But along with that stardom came the better pay, and the freedom to go back and forth between both industries. She truly felt that becoming popular to some extent in the Bollywood commercial industry, she would eventually be able to bring over more people to the art film industry of India. She also chose her commercial film roles carefully. She stayed with her value and belief system in choosing what she would be in and what would not be personally appropriate for her. These wise choices eventually brought her to the attention of American film directors who needed a ‘good strong Indian woman’ for acting here in American films. Overtime other European directors have also caste her in some prominent roles. But one of the most important powers that well-known fame has brought is her ability to use her actress status in serious political causes.

Unlike American culture thinking that it is all right for actresses and actors to get too involved in highly controversial political problems, India is not as open to this kind of action. But Shabana Azmi ignored the press’s negative responses about her interfering were she shouldn’t, and made a difference in 1986 for a good cause. She had made this difference by going on a hunger strike to convince the Maharashatra state government to make some efforts for finding housing on behalf of the slum dwellers whose paper shacks had been destroyed by Bombay authorities. She was positive of the fact that the government would not let her die on a hunger strike and that they would have to budge first. She was right, and helped some of those who needed it the most.

There is so much more to these women than what is to be seen in the average Bolly- wood film or to be read in the dozen or so movie film magazines of the Hindi film industry. On screen, they may seem all the same. There are many whom may put these actresses all in one category of wanting nothing more than the money and fame, but there is an underlying factor that not even some of these actresses have consciously realized through the years, and that is the gradual change and good that they have the ability and power to do in their position if they act upon it. Especially in making the difference as women for women in and outside of the film industries of India. I would like to close this paper with the words and thoughts of actress, Shabana Azmi and writer, Elisabeth Bumiller.

“Actresses come into power, and then they have the ability to make choices, which most women in India don’t,” she said. This was the real advantage of being an actress in India, I thought, and Azmi was one of the few with a star’s status who had the intel- ligence to articulate it. “An actress is treated like a real person,” she went on. “She’s handling her finances, she’s employing people. In a sense, she’s totally equal to a man. And you realize you have this in you, despite your sheltered existence and your cultural heritage. And you say, ‘All right, if men have the freedom, why can’t we?’”

It's All About Love is an odd title for a film that deals with almost anything you can think of; from fame to climate change, to figure skating, marriage, cloning, murder, betrayal, the disappearance of gravity, bystander apathy, and cardiac arrest. And of course, love. So it's strange that a movie that has something for everyone is not for everyone. It requires that you forget everything that you once knew about plot, and how a film should unfold, and just go along with it. Even though it brings you to a place you might not understand. The tone is like that of a fairy tale, or a fable.

We open in the year 2021. Due to climate change, the world is entering a new ice age, while in Uganda, gravity has disappeared leading to “the flying Ugandan phenomenon”. In New York, people's hearts stop beating, and they die suddenly in the streets, while pedestrians apathetically step over their bodies. This is the setting into which a young Polish Literature professor, John Marchevsky (Joaquin Phoenix) enters. John is on his way to a conference, but plans to make a stopover in New York to sign the final divorce papers with his wife, the world famous figure skater, Elena (Claire Danes). But when John arrives at the airport, Elena is not there. In her place are lackeys who bring him to her hotel. Things seem strange from the beginning. Elena is constantly surrounded by her sinister entourage/family, and when she and John are alone she confides that her life may be in danger. Elena is unwillingly at the center of an ominous conspiracy, but even she does not know the full extent of her involvement. So, John and Elena go on the lam, rediscover their love, and learn that the fate of their relationship has tremendous cosmic implications.

Many critics have attacked this film for indulging in absurd plot twists and delusions of philosophical grandeur. To this I'd say that from the first scene when we are told that the year is 2021, everything is fair game. The viewer must automatically suspend disbelief, and be willing to participate in a dream (or a nightmare). Regardless of absurdity (which may be intentional) there is certainly little to attack in the way of the performances (except for some iffy Polish accents). Phoenix's performance captures the desperation of a man trying to save the woman he loves (he particularly shines in the “ice ballet” scene). Danes' performance depends on her successful depiction of a woman whose needs are fractured by the demands of numerous people. Danes rises to the challenge. At one point we see her play four different characters. Sean Penn shines in a small role as the film's narrator “The Man in the Plane”. Vinterberg's direction draws inspiration from sources as varied as Alfred Hitchcock, Lars Von Trier, and David Lynch. Even those who take issue with the script and the actors must admit that the film is beautifully photographed.

Some people will doubtlessly come out of this film feeling cheated out of 90 minutes of their lives. Others may think about this film for days and decide to see it again. Whether you think the film succeeds or fails, you can't argue that it isn't unique and original: something that is rarely found in movies these days.