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Strictly Ballroom
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Strictly Ballroom is a 1992 Australian romantic comedy film directed by Baz Luhrmann and based on a 1986 play by Luhrmann and Andrew Bovell.
trictly Ballroom tells the story of Australian ballroom dancer, Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio). Scott comes from a family with a history of ballroom dancing and has been training since childhood. He has become very proficient but he encounters considerable resistance when he tries to dance his own steps in preference to the traditional ballroom moves.
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Encyclopedia
Strictly Ballroom is a 1992 Australian romantic comedy film directed by Baz Luhrmann and based on a 1986 play by Luhrmann and Andrew Bovell.
Plot
Strictly Ballroom tells the story of Australian ballroom dancer, Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio). Scott comes from a family with a history of ballroom dancing and has been training since childhood. He has become very proficient but he encounters considerable resistance when he tries to dance his own steps in preference to the traditional ballroom moves. Scott's steps are not strictly ballroom. His dancing partner Liz (Gia Carides) leaves him, and he eventually finds a new dancing partner, and love, with the plain and ordinary dancing student Fran (Tara Morice).
At the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix, it is discovered that the competition has been fixed by Barry Fife (Bill Hunter), chairman of the Australian Dancing Federation. Fife disqualifies Hastings and Fran, but they dance anyway and practically bring down the house dancing the Paso Doble, which they have learned from Fran's father and grandmother. In the end, it is not revealed whether Scott and Fran win or lose, as in the story, that is not an important factor.
A sub-plot involves Scott's discovery of his parents' hidden past - they too had been ballroom dancing champions until they had lost the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix after Barry Fife convinced Les, a friend of the family, and Mrs. Shirley Hastings to dance together, instead of Shirley dancing with her husband, Doug. Fife told Scott that his parents had actually lost the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix because Doug had become self-obsessed and danced his own steps, causing them to lose, but this was only a lie to keep Scott from performing his own steps, and to get him to dance with Liz - "for his father's sake". Hence Scott and Fran go back on the ballroom dance floor and as Fran's Grandmother advised to "dance from the heart". Then the film pans out to all the audience dancing freely with Fran and Scott dancing and in love.
Cast
Choreography by John O'Connell
Style
The film plays with clichés and stereotypes, mocking and embracing them at the same time. Luhrmann has also commented that the film revolves around stories similar to David and Goliath, Cinderella and The Ugly Duckling.
Original play
The film was an adaptation of an original short play of the same name created by Luhrmann and first staged in 1986. At the end of 1988, Luhrmann was approached by producer Tristram Miall to transform his play into a movie.
Luhrmann told Playbill that he would revive the play onstage sometime in 2005, but this never happened.
Awards
Strictly Ballroom was a huge hit at the Cannes Film Festival, winning the "Award of the Youth" prize in the foreign film category. It was sought after by distributors from across the world. Immediately after its showing at Cannes, it was sold to 86 countries for more than $10 million. It has been placed as the film option on the British, South-African and Irish school leaving examinations for English, alongside such classics as On the Waterfront and Ten Little Indians, and is studied for the Australian Higher School Certificate English course.
Music
Among the songs featured on the soundtrack are:
See also
External links
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