Billy Elliot Study Notes

Love and friendship plays a major role in everyday life. This is shown particularly well in the film Billy Elliot, directed by Stephan Daldry. It is set in Everington in 1984, during the miners’ strike. Throughout the film love and friendship is portrayed in a range of different ways as Billy, the main character, has a different relationship with each of the other characters. The effective use of symbolic and technical film codes and the narrative elements; point of view, plot and characterization positions the viewers to challenge the stereotypical understandings of love and friendship. By applying symbolic codes the director has shown the relationship between Billy and his father Jackie Elliot to be quite unique. Throughout the film the relationship between Billy and Jackie change. In the beginning Jackie is very easily worked up, about the miners strike and the loss of his wife. This anger he takes out on his sons forcing them have to act very tough. In his time Jackie was a great boxer, therefore he wanted Billy to do boxing in order to become strong and fit. What Jackie didn’t know was that Billy was suffering greatly during these lessons, he just was not fit for boxing. Whilst Jackie was involved in the miners strike
Techniques include the passing of the seasons, when he's doing that "angry dance" (u know when he dances like mad up the street when his teacher and family are fighting) the techniques are:-
Hes in the small toilet room thing and he starts to dance and cant control it, then he bursts out into the yard (this represents his move Into the world), when he finishes dancing he hits an iron fence - represents barrier.
The scene when he first begins ballet - hes on one side of the Barre and the girls are on the other is another barrier, shot of his boxing shoes in amongst the girls ballet slippers, the scenes where he was practicing dancing in the bathroom (the spin thing) represents his small world or being boxed in, but also his determination as