Word: fred
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...Someone (many people) noted that Ginger did everything Fred did, only backward and in high heels. That's not quite true. She didn't choreograph; she didn't drive the movie and the performers. And even I can see that, though Rogers was in Astaire's dancing class (as a precocious student), she wasn't in his dancing class (as an equal). His gestures are indeed larger, more precise and graceful, than hers. But ultimately that doesn't trouble me. The story of the films is one of aristocratic Fred elevating shopgirl Ginger to his level, and of Ginger bringing...
...5min.10sec. sequence (filmed in a mere six shots, and with most of the dance done in just two shots) is Fred's test to see how far Ginger will follow him - as a dancer, because in these movies to dance is to love - and how expertly she can keep up with him. Astaire's singing, Rogers' silent re-acting and the pair's dance coax each bit of drama and humor out of the lyric and music. What follows is my attempt to render complex emotions and glorious movement in prose; it's just the Cliff Notes to a blithe...
...Welcome back. The song's setting is a gazebo in a London park, to which Ginger has repaired because of threatening weather. Fred is there too; they've met before, in strained circumstances, and she feels uneasy in his presence. He wears a business suit, she's in riding gear with a cute fedora. A thunderclap sends her rushing into his arms for shelter. Chagrined at her momentary dependence on him, she retreats. Nonchalantly, he explains that a storm is Nature's way of showing how two people come together. A boy cloud and a girl cloud spark, and that...
...heard this line before; the spoiled princess has played this game before. Biting her lip, she sits down, and he sits next to her, but really behind her, so we can see her singing into her ear. She rarely looks back at him. In the first few bars Fred keeps time by lightly slapping his thigh three times. A few bars later, Ginger keeps time with her riding crop; is it a leather metronome, or a potential instrument of torture...
...vocal is followed by three dance choruses, each one faster, jazzier, each bringing the adversaries closer to detente. After singing, Fred rises, twirls, strolls around the gazebo and whistles. Seated, not yet giving in, she whistles too. He walks past her, crooking his arm where hers might slip through. She doesn't take his arm, but does rise to follow him. They take a stroll, left hand in a pants pocket, then both hands in pockets; each step is a bit springier than the last. He is luring her out of a walk and into a dance...