English
Home > English > Area of Study - Belonging > Belonging > Strictly Ballroom
Strictly Ballroom
directed by Baz Luhrmann
This unit was prepared by Lorraine Bowan, Narrabeen Sports High School
Terms, techniques and references
Textual features of the medium and mode of communication
Visual language
A language is a system of codes of communication. Visual language as it is used in the syllabus refers to the use of images as one such code of communication.
In relation to the text, Strictly Ballroom, it is the exploration of the nature of filmic images and the way they shape meaning which is the focus of this elective.
James Monaco heralds film as “the first significant general means of communication since the invention of writing more than seven thousand years ago.” (James Monaco, How to Read a Film, Oxford University Press, New York 1977 p125)
Christian Metz, a film semiologist, identifies five “channels of information” in film: image, print and other graphics, speech, music, and noise or sound effects. (Note: semiology or semiotics is the study of communications phenomena as a whole and provides a method of analysing the language-like features of film.)
In Strictly Ballroom, of the Metz’s five “channels of information”, only image is continuous throughout the film. It remains the dominant narrative and descriptive channel as each of the other four channels is switched on and off.
The director of a film manipulates images in many different ways to position the reader and to elicit the preferred reading of the text. Studies of the physiology of perception show that images must be “read”: the eyes move constantly from point to point of an image in what are called saccadic patterns in order to see it rather than simply look at it. We read an image physically as well as mentally and psychologically, just as we read a page.
Monaco explains, “The irony here is that we know very well that we must learn to read before we can attempt to enjoy or understand literature, but we tend to believe, mistakenly, that anyone can read a film. Anyone can see a film, even cats.”
Like language, film can be analysed in detail to show how meaning is conveyed through the aggregation of discrete units. The author of a novel exploits not only the denotative meanings of the words, but also their connotations and the syntax of the sentences to suggest the meaning. The reader of the page creates a mental image based on the text to complete the process of communication. Meaning is the product of the interaction between author, text and reader. The director of a film, likewise, exploits not only the denotative meanings of the images but also their connotations and the syntax of the sequences of shots to show meaning. The viewer of the film draws on his/her understanding of filmic codes and conventions to complete the process of communication, uniting the director, film and viewer in the process of deriving meaning.
Textual features of the medium and mode of communication
The director of a film uses the skills of the cinematographer working with the camera to capture the images he or she will combine through the editing process to construct the narrative. The choices the cinematographer makes in terms of camera techniques are determined by a code which film goers from the same culture understand. It is not only the action in front of the camera that conveys meaning, but also choices of the shots, angles, movement, focus, and speed of the camera itself which the viewer unconsciously interprets according to past experience of filmic codes: the camera dollying from behind towards the shoulder of a character will be interpreted by the viewer as being the approach of a threatening character/thing.
Sites such as
Film
terminology 
and
Film
Script Terminology have comprehensive explanations of the way
film making techniques convey meaning. Stills from Strictly
Ballroom illustrate Baz Luhrmann’s use of such
techniques.
You will need to make sure that you understand the film vocabulary indicated in this unit in bold print.
Camera Techniques
Distance and Angle
“As Fran’s household dances...the camera consigns it to a corner, and fills the other half with a slow, snaking train. Someone must be driving that train, you think; there is after all, a life elsewhere. Anthony Lane, “Gotta Tango!” in The New Yorker, August 15 1993.
Try to locate sections in the film where there are examples of the following techniques
Long Shot: an image of the train.
High angle shot: Doug surreptitiously watching the home movie of Scott dancing his own steps emphasises his vulnerability and conveys through image the fact that he has a dark secret.
"Just occasionally, Luhrmann pulls his camera back, and takes the long view – nothing to distract our attention, just a moment for the breathless world to compose itself, and us with it.” Anthony Lane
Low angle shot: Barry Fife tells us that here is a man of power, but this sense of power is undercut by Bill Hunter’s facial expression and the hyperbole of the context which we interpret to mean here is the bad guy.
“I’ve chosen to say that the bad guys have the blonde hair and the good guys have the dark hair. It’s very simple graphic cartooning.” Baz Luhrmann quoted by Lewis Segal, “Strictly Big Time” in Los Angeles Times, February 1992
Movement
The tracking camera in the scene where Scott becomes blocked and breaks away improvising non Federation steps accentuates the movement and the freedom Scott demands. The open framing here as Scott dances out of frame conveys the sense of anarchy through juxtaposition with the closed framing of the “strictly ballroom” waltz in the scene immediately before the samba.
“The action slows and quickens like a pulse, switching between the druggy and the breakneck, and the camera swipes pure colour across the screen... as it fights to keep pace with Scott.” Anthony Lane
Editing Techniques
Editing can be thought of as a process of reduction by which unwanted shots are discarded and the film rejoined, but there is more to it than this. It is a process of construction by which film sequences shot in real time are condensed and assembled with meaning rather than time used as the organising principle.
Monaco explains: “All the editing practices of the Hollywood grammar were designed to permit seamless transitions from shot to shot...Invisible cutting was the aim.” (James Monaco, How to Read a Film, Oxford University Press, New York 1977 p184)
In an expressionistic film, jump cuts andaccelerated montage function asalienation devices, reminding the audience that they are watching a story, not a slice of life.
The scene where Liz tells Scott that what she really wants is for Ken Railings to walk in and say “Pam Short’s broken both her legs and I want to dance with you” is followed immediately by a jump cut to the car crash and then a jump cut to Ken saying, “Pam Short’s broken both her legs and I want to dance with you”. The comic effect is partly derived from the fact that the script of Luhrmann and Pearce breaks the rules of naturalistic editing.
“Although borrowing heavily from genre films of Hollywood, Australian cinema of the 90’s is forging its own style. It is brash, unafraid, ‘in-your-face film making’ with quirky techniques highlighting daily absurdities.”
(Astrid Sonia Tiefholz)
Tiefholz, “Cultural Specificity in Strictly Ballroom and Muriel’s Wedding” 1996 Oct. 1 1998
The way cuts segue (linking without interruption) into each other is like punctuation in writing. Luhrmann has also used wipes that were popular in Hollywood films of the thirties and forties for a nostalgic effect. Note the spiral wipe in this scene as well as the twirling newspapers (35.18) and Scott’s twirling wipe to the Doug flashback (102.10)
In the same way, the abrupt cutting to a current affairs style interview to camera with Shirley in the opening minutes takes the audience by surprise and is comic in spoofing the expose style pseudo documentaries of commercial television.
“The editing duels with [Scott’s] flying figure, jabbing at him from every angle...Then right in the middle, Luhrmann slams to a halt and cuts to an interview: two middle-aged folk sitting on a sofa... Luhrmann pushes it right in our faces, camped up and cut for laughs.” Anthony Lane, The New Yorker February 15 1993.
References
There are many web sites that can be consulted for film terminology and definitions. You will need to find one that suits you.
Back to Strictly Ballroom
|