Dirty Dancing
ENG225: Introduction to Film
Instructor: Michael O'Donnell
August 27, 2012

DIRTY DANCING Dirty Dancing came out in 1987 and they didn’t have the technology they do today to make it fancy, but they didn’t need to. It was supposed to show the transition of a girl becoming a woman by falling in love with someone no one saw as her equal, according to society. Although the movie was made 25 years ago, it still brings a good message to the audiences that watch it. It has become a classic movie that no amount of technology could change. It takes so much to make a movie, and no one realizes it, but in this paper, it’s going to analyze what made Dirty Dancing become such a classic movie.
Storytelling
The narrative structure of the movie is told from Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman’s point of view as it was the summer she fell in love. The storytelling in Dirty Dancing is told in chronological order because she sees the dancers, wants to be one, then the female dancing lead, Penny Johnson, became pregnant. Baby fills in for her and Johnny teaches her dance in her place. The story takes place at Kellerman’s country club where she goes on vacation for the summer with her family. The conflict in the story is that Baby comes from a respectable family and falls in love with Johnny, the dance teacher, and Baby’s father does not like Johnny because he believed that Johnny got Penny pregnant and then moved on to be with his daughter. The conflict is resolved when Robbie, the man that got Penny pregnant, lets it slip in the end that he was the one to do it while thanking Dr. Houseman for helping her out. The symbolism in the moving is dancing. It shows that it doesn't matter where you come from, you can connect and get away from your problems. The irony in the film begins with her dad telling her she’s going to change the world, yet he didn’t mean for her to change the average person’s, he meant for her to change the world “by becoming a doctor or a lawyer,” as Baby said in the scene “You lied too.” The story helped you relate to the characters because you wanted that to happen to you. The audience wished to be able to go away to a summer country club and fall in love with someone. And some people would lay everything on the line for someone they loved. The film faces the universal truth in that you can't help who you love and you can do anything for that person. No matter what people tell you or what your parents think, you're going to love who you love. Also it shows that you can fall in love at the most unexpected time with the most unexpected person.
Acting
As Bill Goodykoontz, and Christopher P. Jacobs said “Acting is what sets the tone of a film and goes a long way toward establishing whether or not we will like it.” Patrick Swayze is in the movie playing the male lead as Johnny and Jennifer Grey is playing Baby. The type of actors present is character acting and interpreters. Patrick Swayze is the character actor, because he has adapted to this movie along with many others such as Ghost, Point Break, etc. Jennifer Gray is the interpreter because she reads her lines, yet still manages to add herself to the lines showing that she really cares about the movie. The acting style present in Dirty Dancing is realism, because you live the summer with Baby and Johnny as they discover their love for each other as well as dancing. The actors convey the story’s meaning by showing that they could in fall in love with each other without other people influencing their decisions. The actors placing and movement in the movie show that it’s a summer love that changed Baby, a young girl into a woman and changed Johnny into believing that people are willing to do things for others no matter the consequences.
Cinematography
The mise en scène shows how Baby and Johnny progress in falling in love with dancing and each other. The camera reveals the intensity of the situations going on at any given point during the movie whether it is a serious scene between Baby and her father, or a humorous scene between Johnny and Baby while he’s teaching her how to dance. The kind of lighting that is used is three – point lighting, because there are a lot of shadows, yet they’re controlled. The color that’s used is desaturation because the colors are as vibrant as they would be in real life, and the colors have been toned down to make it more realistic. The camera shots are long distance and short distance shots. In the scene “Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner,” the shots are long shots to show the audience how they’re dancing and then the cameras zoom in on their face to show their love and affection for each other and dancing.

Editing
The shots and scenes are arranged in chronological order. The kinds of transitions used are cut, fade, and dissolve. In the scene “I’m Sorry I Lied” the scene cuts from her to her father while she’s talking to him to show his and her reactions to what she’s saying to him. There’s editing to imply Baby’s father ignoring her, and becoming closer to her sister while she’s been with Johnny. The rhythm in Dirty Dancing is steady and keeps the audience from getting bored. It doesn’t focus on one thing for too long it keeps the audience interested with everything that’s going on between Baby and Johnny. There’s slow motion in the movie to show the audience what’s happening between Baby and Johnny and how they’re falling in love with each other and dancing.
Sound
The movie starts off with Baby being the voice – over narrator recalling her summer at Kellermans and the love she found there. There’s a fair mix of all the sounds throughout the movie, the main sounds though, are dialogue and music. The movie is based around Baby falling in love with the Dance teacher so the music appears when they dance when they can get away from everyone else and can relax and have fun just dancing and during the serious moments in the film is when the dialogue takes place. The kind of music used emphasizes the need to get away from the world when they’re together and to also show how the scene changes from being serious, loving, or humorous. The dialogue you hear in the movie is usually between Baby and Johnny, and also between her and her father. The sound effects appear in the movie when it’s at night and the bugs are around.
Style and Directing
The Director shows that he is technically competent because in the scene Hungry Eyes, he cuts from the feet, then to the upper body, then to the feet again, showing the audience her progress with learning how to dance and falling in love with Johnny. The director showed his distinguishable personality by having the movie a dancing production, like the other movies he had done. The interior meaning of the film and the point of view in the movie is to show that not everyone is the same, and to not judge a book by its cover. Don’t judge people from what background they come from, some of the poorest people will have kindest hearts, and some of the richest people won’t care about anyone but themselves. Baby came from money and Johnny expected her to be stuck up and to run to daddy every time something went wrong, and yes she did do that, but it was to help other people out, not because something didn’t go her way. The director showed his point of view by not making Baby the typical stereotype for people with money, and by having her help out people in need, not just herself. Emile Ardolino is known for his dancing movies, and he helped popularize dancing in the 1970’s, so Dirty Dancing is much like his other movies, because it incorporates dancing as does his other movies. It’s different because although music is incorporated in it, it still has a serious tone to it with Baby and Johnny falling in love and dealing with the controversy of it. In the movie the director uses the Italian Neorealism theory, because it’s filmed on location, but uses background music to enhance what’s going on in scenes.
Societal Impact
In the movie Dirty Dancing, Baby goes on a trip with her family to a country club in the mountains, and although the film doesn’t provide an escapism perspective it still makes the audience want a life like Baby’s where they can just go away to a country club resort and fall in love with the dance teacher. Dirty Dancing makes the audience want to be Baby, but it doesn’t make you feel like you’re escaping your life for 100 minutes. The version of the movie watched was an original so it doesn’t have any censorship in it that the versions later made have. During the movie the actors address issues going on in the world like when they’re at dinner the mother asks the question about starving children in Europe, and Baby corrects her by telling her Southeast Asia, so the movies does address some issues going on in the world, the director just doesn’t devote the whole movie to them.
Genre
Dirty Dancing doesn’t really fit into a genre. It’s a romantic movie, but it’s not a comedy, as Bill Goodykoontz and Christopher P. Jacobs say “At its most basic, the romantic comedy plot involves a romance that leads to comic situations. In recent years, however, the term has come to mean almost exclusively a film in which a hapless female protagonist finds love despite all manner of kooky odds against it.” Although it has music in the movie it can’t be classified into a musical because according to Bill Goodykoontz and Christopher P. Jacobs a musical is classified “Films that focus on songs as a major element” (Chapter 8.2) and while Dirty Dancing does have music in it, the music isn’t the main focus of the movie as it is in musicals. The relevant genres help the audience understand the movie better because by having the music in the film they know how Baby and Johnny fell in love and the music shows the progression of them falling in love with each other.
Film Criticism and Analysis
The referential content in the film is that Baby and Johnny fell in love with each other while Johnny was teaching Baby how to dance. The explicit content in the film is to not judge a person right off the bat as Johnny judged Baby, and as Dr. Houseman judged Johnny. The implicit content is that dancing can bring anyone together and maybe make them fall in love. The symptomatic content is that people will fall in love with whoever, whenever, while doing the simplest thing such as dancing, and it doesn’t matter if anyone approves, you can’t help who you love, and when the movie was made in 1972 the parents still had a say in who you married and it was big for the daughters to marry into a good family from your class, not a dance teacher that has to bounce around from job to job to make ends meet. Also back then it was a huge deal to do what father wanted and when Baby continued to see Johnny, and dance with him without her father’s approval it showed her rebellion and set the stage for women rebelling against their parents’ standards especially their fathers, on who it was okay fall in love with. While analyzing this movie the most appropriate approach would be a formalist approach because as Bill Goodykootnz and Christopher P. Jacob state it’s an analysis that is “concerned with film form, or how the basic elements are organized to convey certain meanings.”
Dirty Dancing is a classic movie. Even though they didn’t have the technology to make it action packed or put any cool spins on the movie to make it interesting, the meaning of it is clear, don’t judge everyone, and when love happens, fight for it, don’t let what other people think control the relationship, fight for it like Baby fought for Johnny. But overall the simplicity of how the movie was made and the meaning of the movie is what made it such a classic.

REFERENCES:
Goodykoontz, B and Christopher P. Jacobs (2011) Film: From Watching to Seeing San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Internet Movie Database – Dirty Dancing (1987) Retrieved from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092890/
Movie Clips – “I’m Sorry I Lied “Dirty Dancing (1987) Retrieved from: http://movieclips.com/uj5k-dirty-dancing-movie-im-sorry-i-lied/
Movie Clips – “Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner “Dirty Dancing (1987) Retrieved from: http://movieclips.com/5iHB-dirty-dancing-movie-nobody-puts-baby-in-a-corner/
YouTube – Hungry Eyes - Dirty Dancing (2/12) Movie CLIP (1987) Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sYKI4A3uhc