A wave of fear. What am I doing? Why am I going? What if this whole thing is one big illusion, which will vanish if I look too closely at it, if I try to touch it, the end of the rainbow which isn't there when you get to it? What if I go and it's not what I want, what if I wake up and find it was all a dream, what then, what else is left? What if I'm chasing a mirage?
Heh. As I was writing this I remembered hearing 'Pick yourself up' on the radio the other day, and went to YouTube it. And lo and behold, it cheered me up. So, I guess I just have to trust that whatever happens I'll be able to pick myself up. And maybe develop some leet tap dancing skills along the way.
Why do I love Astaire and Rogers so much? Why do these movies have something that no modern movie does? And how on earth is she keeping those shoes on? They must have some invisible straps or something.
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9 comments:
Dearest Psyche,
Why did it take me a month and a half to discover you had a tango blog, too? I need to pay more attention to things.
So since I've just "discovered" you, I'm looking forward to catching up on the previous posts up until now.
This post caught my attention immediately because of the Astaire/Rogers clips you have here. I agree with you...no one can match these two and just watching them dance can lift your spirits immediately. This is a fantastic dance number.
My favorite dance routine is with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth in You Were Never Lovelier. On my blog, I have two versions of them dancing: one straight from the film, and the second one is a mix of two of their movies but nicely set to a modern song. If you haven't seen them yet, I think you'll really enjoy them.
;-)
Helloo! *waves* Welcome! Feel free to raid the fridge and put your feet up on the furniture!
It's only a proto-blog at the moment, like when tadpoles sprout those tiny not-quite-arms. But it will grow.
I haven't seen You Were Never Lovelier, and actually didn't realise that Rita Hayworth could dance! I'm off to investigate immediately.
OMG!!! If that means that I have turned you on to one of the most delightful musicals in movie history, then I can just dissolve into sheer joy right now!!!!
And I am a total classic movie fan (silents, precode, you name it) so anytime you want to talk flicks, let me know! Can't talk tango ALL the time, right?
First of all, you should know that Rita Hayworth was an exceptional dancer. That was how she started her career, as Rita Consuelo. Her father was a dancer and knew Fred Astaire and that was how they ended up dancing together.
Fred Astaire has been quoted that Rita was his favorite dance partner, of all of them, including Ginger. (But no slight against Ginger. I love her too.) You will see the happiness and connection they have in You Were Never Lovelier.
The story is thin (amusingly set in Buenos Aires, of all places) but you won't care. The amazing musical score with lots of great songs you'll recognize, plus gorgeous dresses on Rita AND their exquisite dancing... god, I just want to hop on a plane right now and watch it with you!!!
Let me know how you liked it. I can't wait! YAY!
Oh, you're right, that *is* sweet! Less choreography than other sequences, but more feeling (hm, sounds like a familiar tango conversation...). I'll have to rent the whole thing - I was just at the video place, if only I'd known!
Noone will ever replace Ginger for me, though. She has a kind of edge that I love. (And a big feathery frock.)
Strictly Come Dancing is on again here at the moment (I think the US version is Dancing With the Stars?) and there've been some really lovely American Smooths and Foxtrots - very old Hollywood. (We won't speak of the 'tango'.)
You know, I don't watch those shows. They just don't appeal to me for some reason. And I don't have a TV, which is a complication.
;-)
The tango routines just kill me. If you wanted to torture me, you could just make me watch ballroom tango and I'd tell you everything.
Actually, I kind of have those shows to thank for taking up tango. Not directly - ballroom tango makes me shudder, and it was before they started trying to do tango tango on them. But watching those shows reminded me how much I love dancing in general. I've done quite a lot of different kinds of dance in the past, and however much I liked the classes I always felt like we were constantly rehearsing for something that never happened, and so I always gave them up eventually, and at that point I hadn't done much dancing for a while. Watching Strictly, I realised there was a dancing-shaped hole in my soul, and that I needed to do something about it. Shortly afterwards, I was parking the car one night and the sky was absolutely full of stars, so I made a wish, to find the perfect dance class for me. And the next day I heard someone on the radio talking about a beginner's tango class, so I went along, met the teacher who is now my teacher, and the rest is history.
i just discovered this lovely "tango with wings" via tangobaby. and i just wanted to hop in here to say hi & that i adore both ginger & rita.
i don't know why currnet films lack the penache of these older ones ~ perhaps because their all about special effects & distancing the viewer from reality rather than giving a personal quality to uplift reality?
btw, ginger wore shoes a 1/2 size too small in such numbers too keep them on. similarly, audrey hepburn wore shoes a 1/2 size too big so her shoes looked less "lived in".
Not that I'm an expert or ANYTHING, but what we see with Ginger and Rita are professional dancers with years and years of experience. Nowadays you mostly see actresses that take crash courses in dancing to learn certain routines. They don't have dancing ingrained in their bones.
Also, the editing of these films is extremely important. Look at every Astaire film, and all the other classic musicals. The dancers are filmed full-frame, with no cutaways and no MTV stuff. Astaire had it as part of his contracts that he would be filmed that way.
Nowadays, dance sequences are edited so heavily (perhaps to compensate for the lesser dancers' abilities?) that the viewer doesn't get the satisfied feeling of seeing a true dance number. Think about all of the tango videos we watch, shot with one camera from beginning to end. And contrast that with Sally Potter's film, where the dancing is all cut up.
Psyche, like you, I came to tango because of something I saw: The Tango Lesson. I didn't even know that such a dance existed before. But now that I watch it again it doesn't do the same things for me.
Hi, Studio Wellspring!
Yikes, a half size too small? The things girls will do for a good pair of shoes. I'm always amazed by the amount of discomfort professional dancers are accustomed to, and yet never show.
Tangobaby, I think you're right, the fullscreen shots have a lot to do with it. It lets us watch what *we* want, not what the director wants.
I really can't remember where I first saw or heard of tango. Actually, I think the first place I can remember *seeing* tango was in the Evita movie, but that was so long ago that I can remember nothing of it except the slight triangular shape, top together, feet apart, of a couple in silhouette. I haven't seen it since, so have no idea whether any of it was actually proper tango! I'm guessing probably not...
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