Australian_Idol
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Does anyone have notes on how 'Billy Elliot' shows the theme 'Into The World'?
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Anyone have notes on how Billy Elliot shows the theme 'Into The World'? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Australian_Idol
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Australian_Idol
Member
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2004
- Messages
- 82
I need it by Thursday 1st April. Thanks.
Australian_Idol
Member
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2004
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- 82
Thank you. 
The film Billy Elliot charts the transition of 11 yr old Billy Elliot, from the confined closed community of Nth English town of Everington, with its limited expectations, poverty, restrictive gender roles, stifled self expression and disintegration community structure, out into the broad horizons of the larger world.
The film begins by contrasting Billys refuge of music with violent confrontations of his wider community with the riot police and the authority of the government and its policies. The quiet close up of the stylus steadily descending to play a record is interrupted by a succession of fragmented shots of miner protesting against a busload of scabs, who, assisted by police in riot gear, break the picket line around the mine. The euphony of song is contrasted with the harsh cacophony of the protest; the youthful, venerable image of Billy against violence of the social upheaval
The following scene between Billy and Michael further established Billys character. Michael challenged Billy as to why he is trying out for boxing. The blue iron door opens and slams shut between Billy and Michael throughout the exchange as Billy, his grandfathers boxing gloves symbolically hanging around his neck confidently defends the traditional values of his community. Daldry undercuts his Im good at it when he is pushed out of the way by one of a succession of boys who enter the gym between Billy and Michael. Michael is left standing against the closed door, an outsider locked out of the accepted masculine values of the society, a concept developed throughout the text as Michael becomes aware of his homosexuality.
Billy, too is uncomfortable with the restrictions of the limited masculine gender roles of the society, highlighted by the slow tracking shot as he uncertainly walks towards the ring, a reverse shot and voiceover momentarily revealing the dancers sharing the space with the boys. It is his fathers appearance and shouting through the bars of the doors to the gym which interrupts Billys dancing and leads to his being knocked out, establishing the symbolic motif of bars as representing the restrictions and expectations of his father and his society. The bars of the communitys mindset in the later scene, foreshadowed at this point, are further exhibited in Jackies you get out here! when he interrupts the dance lesson from behind the bars and clarified in his father to son talk when he says lads do football, or boxing, or wresting, not frigging dancing yet even in the boxing match Billy dances to the music, as he later does with the heavy bag, asserting the viewers minds the close connection between the athleticism of boxing and ballet despite the contrast in appearance between the girls in their white tutus and Billy in his headgear and boxing boots. Left the key to give to Ms Wilkinson, Billy Is goaded into dancing by Debbie, and soon after his further progress is revealed by a tracking shot of the legs of the dancers showing Billys obviously male leg now in dancing shoes.
The film begins by contrasting Billys refuge of music with violent confrontations of his wider community with the riot police and the authority of the government and its policies. The quiet close up of the stylus steadily descending to play a record is interrupted by a succession of fragmented shots of miner protesting against a busload of scabs, who, assisted by police in riot gear, break the picket line around the mine. The euphony of song is contrasted with the harsh cacophony of the protest; the youthful, venerable image of Billy against violence of the social upheaval
The following scene between Billy and Michael further established Billys character. Michael challenged Billy as to why he is trying out for boxing. The blue iron door opens and slams shut between Billy and Michael throughout the exchange as Billy, his grandfathers boxing gloves symbolically hanging around his neck confidently defends the traditional values of his community. Daldry undercuts his Im good at it when he is pushed out of the way by one of a succession of boys who enter the gym between Billy and Michael. Michael is left standing against the closed door, an outsider locked out of the accepted masculine values of the society, a concept developed throughout the text as Michael becomes aware of his homosexuality.
Billy, too is uncomfortable with the restrictions of the limited masculine gender roles of the society, highlighted by the slow tracking shot as he uncertainly walks towards the ring, a reverse shot and voiceover momentarily revealing the dancers sharing the space with the boys. It is his fathers appearance and shouting through the bars of the doors to the gym which interrupts Billys dancing and leads to his being knocked out, establishing the symbolic motif of bars as representing the restrictions and expectations of his father and his society. The bars of the communitys mindset in the later scene, foreshadowed at this point, are further exhibited in Jackies you get out here! when he interrupts the dance lesson from behind the bars and clarified in his father to son talk when he says lads do football, or boxing, or wresting, not frigging dancing yet even in the boxing match Billy dances to the music, as he later does with the heavy bag, asserting the viewers minds the close connection between the athleticism of boxing and ballet despite the contrast in appearance between the girls in their white tutus and Billy in his headgear and boxing boots. Left the key to give to Ms Wilkinson, Billy Is goaded into dancing by Debbie, and soon after his further progress is revealed by a tracking shot of the legs of the dancers showing Billys obviously male leg now in dancing shoes.
Like Billy, Mrs. Wilkinson emphasizes the incongruity of the dancers in this setting as she walks between them smoking and calling directions in her broad accent and gruff voice. This is reinforced when she asks Billy to pay for the lesson. This inability of each of the characters to express positive emotions is one of the ways in which dialogue is used to establish the harshness of the world Billy must escape. Billys sense of achievement at completing a pirouette is immediately undermined by Mrs. Wilkinsons criticism about his hands; Debbys discussion about her parents relationship reveals no sense of romance and her offer to show Billy her fanny emphasizes the lack of innocence and hope in this world, Billys attempt at thanking Mrs. Wilkinson by saying Ill miss you is met with, no, you wont and Tonys belated attempt to tell Billy he will miss him when Billy is already on the bus, Billy cannot hear him, they are separated by the glass of the window. Only in the refuge of the private lessons is Billy able to express his feelings of loss for his mother, when he and Mrs. Wilkinson share the reading of his mothers letter to him and only Michael when he says to Billy I think youd look smashing about how Billy would look in a tutu seems openly able to show his feelings to bill. This lack of self-expression suggests a fear of showing weakness and the sense of failure of dreams and aspirations common in the community.
For Billy however, as he says in his interview, dance becomes a means of escape from his surroundings, a refuge, a form of self-expression and, ultimately, a way out of this closed community and into the world at large. When Billy begins his private lessons with Mrs. Wilkinson, the gym is bathed in an ethereal light glowing through the window suggestion a realm of dreams, in stark contract to the dreary weather, austere colours and dull lighting of the setting of the town. After his father has discovered his dancing and banned it, his dancing becomes his means of self expression, as suggested in his aggressive, dance, a la Tap Dogs, where his moves seem to be punishing the industrial cityscape, his sense of frustration expressed when he breaks out of the confined space f the toilet; his kick smash down the door symbolically representing the capacity for dance to set him free. At this point, though, his quest for freedom ends in a dead end of rusted corrugated iron.
The symbolic capacity of doors and doorways to represent both a barrier separating and a means of escape are explored in many scenes. When Mrs. Wilkinson first suggests to Billy he try out for the royal ballet school, Billy listens outside the door, through the window and opens the door to get back into the car. In his futile attempt to escape from the anonymous violent authority figures of the police, Tony runs through doorway after doorway, but for him there is no escape. As his fathers sledgehammer smashes the piano to provide wood for the fore at Christmas, Billy cowers behind the toilet door, which swings against him at each discordant twang. When Billy tells Jackie he wants to back out of the audition, the next scene shows him opening the door into the audition room. When Billy reads his acceptance, he is separated from his family by the sliding foot of his room.
For Billy however, as he says in his interview, dance becomes a means of escape from his surroundings, a refuge, a form of self-expression and, ultimately, a way out of this closed community and into the world at large. When Billy begins his private lessons with Mrs. Wilkinson, the gym is bathed in an ethereal light glowing through the window suggestion a realm of dreams, in stark contract to the dreary weather, austere colours and dull lighting of the setting of the town. After his father has discovered his dancing and banned it, his dancing becomes his means of self expression, as suggested in his aggressive, dance, a la Tap Dogs, where his moves seem to be punishing the industrial cityscape, his sense of frustration expressed when he breaks out of the confined space f the toilet; his kick smash down the door symbolically representing the capacity for dance to set him free. At this point, though, his quest for freedom ends in a dead end of rusted corrugated iron.
The symbolic capacity of doors and doorways to represent both a barrier separating and a means of escape are explored in many scenes. When Mrs. Wilkinson first suggests to Billy he try out for the royal ballet school, Billy listens outside the door, through the window and opens the door to get back into the car. In his futile attempt to escape from the anonymous violent authority figures of the police, Tony runs through doorway after doorway, but for him there is no escape. As his fathers sledgehammer smashes the piano to provide wood for the fore at Christmas, Billy cowers behind the toilet door, which swings against him at each discordant twang. When Billy tells Jackie he wants to back out of the audition, the next scene shows him opening the door into the audition room. When Billy reads his acceptance, he is separated from his family by the sliding foot of his room.