How Did Johnny's Dance Show The Ability To Love?

Dirty Dancing (1987), is a romantic film that shows how a shy girl name Baby did not really know about life, but later changed to an energetic person. This film illustrated a Jewish family that went to Kellerman’s Resort, located in New York’s Catskill Mountains during the summer, which her father worked there as a personal physician (Mcguire, 2017). Romantic comedies are movies with a “light-hearted, humorous story involving people in love” (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014). The movie Dirty Dancing shows the capacity of drama, the stem of romance, and the ability to love, which will be shown through the cinematography, lighting, movement, shots, and angles. The capacity of drama is shown in the scene when Johnny’s dance partner became ill from
an abortion. When Baby found out, she runs to her father and reminds him what he told her about helping others when they need help. She then asks him for two-hundred and fifty dollars. She later returned to Penny with the money for her abortion. The day of her appointment was the day of the dance. When Baby heard this, she volunteers to fill in for Penny. Johnny first disagrees, but later changed his mind and decided to teach her the dance routine. Later in the movie, Baby got in trouble with her father and made him disappointed in her because he found out she lied to him. This scene displayed a lot of movement, which the camera had to follow her when she was running to her father and back to Penny. This cinematography is defined as "the process of photographing motion" (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014), and it showed how important it was for Baby to help Penny, no matter the circumstances. Baby acted with personality. She was also the type of person that acted maliciously towards her sister but loved her dad. In the beginning, it showed how she did know or never experienced the world in a bad way, but later in the movie, she ended up at a prohibited party and experienced how to dirty dance. The stem of romance was when Johnny and Baby were dancing in his studio, then things led to a scene of romance. This scene illustrated their upbeat mood. The camera showed low-lighting during that scene and some close-up shots, which gave the feel of romance. The camera gave different shots during the different movements of the scene. One part showed them dancing, another part showed them taking off their clothes, and another part showed them being intimate, along with background music playing. The ability to love brought a clear picture of Johnny and Baby.
During the many times, they spent with each other, caused their feelings to grow for one another. One day when Baby decided to visit Penny, Johnny showed up. Both were acting awkward and Penny realized they were having an affair. When Baby leaves the room, Penny tried to talk to Johnny to remind him about his own advice about not getting involved with the guests. Because of the love he had for Baby, he didn’t listen. During that scene, the camera caught them cutting their eyes at each other. If the camera didn’t catch that, we would not have noticed how awkward they were acting. Another scene that showed their feelings of love was when he came back to perform and walked over and took Baby on stage. Once they made it on stage, Johnny stops the music and informed everyone that even though he was fired, he always gets the last dance of the season. He also speaks on Baby’s behalf on how she is willing to stand up for other people no matter what. The editing of this scene showed the series as being slow which referred to the pace of the song. This showed us that the music was an important convention of the film. During the time on stage, the camera showed low-lighting and some lights in the background, which gave a soft and romantic
feel. In conclusion, the techniques that were used in this film allowed you to see and feel the emotions that each character went through. It developed the humor, drama, and romantic scenes. The mise en scene is the setting or surroundings of an event or action. It includes several elements like those in theater, like actors, colors, makeup, sets, setting, costumes, props, and blocking (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014). These scenes showed how the elements worked together to show what happened in one scene to the next. The actors were in close space with each other. This signify’s the romance and desires for the audience to see. The clothing they were wearing, the music they were playing, and their style showed the style of the eighties. While watching this film, we were able to see how it was shown through the cinematography, the capture of the lighting, the movements, shots, and angles of the movie.