BILLY ELLIOTT
(by Stephen Daldry –United Kingdom ; 2000)
Being electricity.
This is, maybe, the true sense of the Dance, for Billy.
Dance is life, energy. By dancing, we can,
really, loose the dimensions of everyday life, by projecting ourselves in
another dimension, rich of energy.
Dancing, for Billy, is not only a way of
feeling, a pleasure: it’s a reason of Life. It’s a way to live, at a time,
inside Reality and outside it.
Dance and Society: Billy is in a miner’s
family. His father and his brother work in a mine. His mother dead some years
ago, very young (age 38). She played piano. And piano is framed at the
beginning of the work. Nearly to suggest us that Music is the leitmotiv of all
the story.
Nevertheless, society plays an important rule
in all the story.
English unemployment, during Thatcher’s
government, is on the background. Strikes and violence are in the scene, and we
can observe them. Elliott’s Father and brother are involved in these problems.
But society is also a way of introducing
another question: the contrast between Male and Female nature. Near the gym in
which Elliott practiced box, a sort of
canteen for miners, a Dance school was opened.
Billy was attracted by it, and started boxing
at dance rhytm. Suddenly he felt an energy, a new streght, in him new
perspective were opened, his life changed.
Male of female spirit of Dance? This is a
question in this work. Billy was contrasted by his family for his passion.
Here, the model of male, hard and strong in Spirit, contrast with Dance, in
which grace in movements can perform wonderful results, but for some people
it’s a female practice.
But, Elliott proofs that dance is upon
everything. If we think, in fact, at the effort dancers can do during some
passages, in some figures, we can thing that strength, effort is not so absent
in Dance. But it’s a different effort. And dancer has to make everything to hid
it, showing ever a smile.
In this way, nevertheless, this contrast
introduces us the theme of Homosexuality. Elliott’s best friend is homosexual,
and we can notice it. So, we have the doubt Billy is too. The Director leaves
ourselves with this one. Probably, for him, this is only a manner to show
different opportunity of living life. The distinction between male and female
is very used in Society: we often speak about “male” and “female” attitudes.
But, we can remember, and Billy remembers us, that the best dancers are, often,
men. In fact, Dance seems to be in contrast with the work of Miners.
The Director emphasizes it, by changing rhythms
in the work. Freedom of Dance contrasts with the work in mine, so obliged to
movements and schemes. Light in Dance is so different from the Dark in which
miners work. Dance arises, allows to fly over and inside life.
Dance like freedom. For Billy, dance is
freedom, total and true freedom. This may be in contrast with hard exercises,
obliged movements and so on. We taste, in fact the scene in which he dances
Ciaickowsky introducing a “tip – tap” style.
In fact, Billy dances what he feels. And he
feels dance into himself. Dance, for him, is a way of living. Dance is not a
practice, but it can get life itself. Billy becomes part of it. He seems to
have no weight. Dancing, he becomes part of the Universe, part of Nature, part
of life itself. And, for this reason, he’s appreciated, differently from people
that, maybe, built-up their way of dancing during years, but feel, dancing,
nothing but a mere technical exercise. They haven’t dance in their spirit, in
the deep of their heart. Billy has got it.
This might open a problem: Art like freedom or
constriction? For Daldry there is no contrast between these problems:
Exercises, in Art, is not in the contrast with freedom, when it allows to reach
freedom, and not destroys it. In this sense, exercises on the piano (to refer
to Billy’s mother instrument), can have a sense if they are finalized to the
expression, to improve freedom on the keyboard and not to lock creativity. For
Dance it’s the same.
Social problems are clearly revealed in dance
too. Billy’s teacher lives in a fine house, in contrast with the one of Billy.
Social difference clearly appear.
The rhythm, in this film, is all a dance. Some
moments, in the work, appears to be sad, quite melancholic. For example, when
Billy thinks of his dead Mother, or when he is with his grandmother. Melancholy
arises when Billy’s father is compelled to burn his piano to produce wood to
warm his home, for a very sad Christmas.
But, Dance and Dance spirit gives joy, and
helps to suffer every problem in life. Dance gives strength, enforces our
spirit. Gives courage to us.
And, this spirit, is shown everywhere in the
film. Billy always runs, shows his energy, his life strength, his willing of
living how he wants. He runs and goes towards the life he wants, in his
totality.
This spirit, the fantastic performance of Jamie
Bell (Billy Elliott), the environment, the style, gives of this work a very
pleasant and interesting film. Maybe, a way of telling us we can struggle to
reach what we believe in. To make our life a true light freeway, and allowing
us to live in a dream, making it true.