DVD Review: Flashdance (Special Collector's Edition)

By Adnan Tezer Sep 18, 2007, 17:09 GMT

Alex Owens is a female dynamo: steel worker by day, exotic dancer by night. Her dream is to get into a real dance company, though, and with encouragement from her boss/boyfriend, she may get her chance. The city of Pittsburgh co-stars. What a feeling! ...more

One of the greater things about film is that we are all entitled to guilty pleasures. Some are based on sheer thrills while others are based on what appeals to us as men and women at certain points of our lives.

The 1980s practically defined guilty pleasures for those of us that grew up and experienced adolescence during it.  Some 80s movies may be ridiculously inane and as shallow as a kiddie pool, but there is going to be some element that resonates with you so strongly that you’re willing to overlook it.

Funny how the majority of those guilty pleasures were films produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. Flashdance just happened to be the first film that they produced. 
 
Ask a guy what a guilty pleasure is from the 80s and he might say The Cannonball Run or Cocktail. Ask a girl what a guilty pleasure is from the 80s and she might say Flashdance or Dirty Dancing.

When guys would have gym class, we’d be out running around on the playground pretending we were Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The girls would be in the gym dancing and working out pretending they were Alexandra Owens in Flashdance. After an initial BARE bones DVD release with ZERO extras, Paramount has wisely released Flashdance with some decent extras.
 
Flashdance, released in 1983, became one of the iconic films of the decade as well as a fashion trendsetter.  It was the female Rocky, the ultimate “go for your dreams” picture that had girls wearing cut off t shirts, leg warmers and (thank you) learning how to take their bras off without taking their shirts off. It helped, along with Jane Fonda’s workout videos and Olivia Newton John’s “Physical,” to popularize aerobic workouts and placed it firmly in 80s pop culture history.
 
I was only six when it came out but it quickly became an important film in my life for one significant reason: the girl that I was in love with swore by it. She was a gymnast/dancer that much like the heroine of the film; longed to be a professional dancer. Unfortunately the film was R so that was off grounds to me. That didn’t stop the girls from my age seeing it and it didn’t stop guys like me, who wanted to impress said girls by watching it, from seeing it either.
 
Fortunately for me, Flashdance was also the favorite movie of my babysitter at the time. So, lo and behold one night when the parents were out and that fascinating contraption called a VCR was in fashion, Stephanie brought it over and let me watch it under the strict guidelines that I not tell the parents about it. I knew there was something different about this film when during the opening credits, Stephanie got up off the couch and started dancing. As a matter of fact, Stephanie was dancing throughout the majority of the film. Curious I thought.
 
After having watched it, I realized (A.) Where that “What a Feeling” and “Maniac” songs I heard all the girls rocking out in gym class or dancing to at talent shows came from (B.) Why the older girls in my school started dressing like 18 year olds by wearing ripped t-shirts/sweatshirts that exposed one bare shoulder and consequently got suspended for it (C.) that the f word was not just a word written on the bathroom wall that my friends and I would giggle at but rather one that was, remarkably, used by girls and had a connotation to something called “sex” and (D.) That Jennifer Beals gave me a “What a Feeling” in my lower abdomen at a remarkably young age that felt strange but curiously nice especially when she danced, ate lobster or rubbed her foot in a guy’s crotch.
 
Flashdance tells the story of blue-collar girl Alex (Jennifer Beals) who lives in Pittsburgh. She works at a steel mill as a welder by day but at night she is an exotic dancer or Flashdancer (no clothes come off at Mawby’s Bar) that dreams of studying at the local dance conservatory.

Her boss at the mill, Nick (Michael Nouri), who drives a Porsche and is twice as old as Alex by the way, spots her handiwork at the bar and is immediately smitten.  The rest of the film is basically a music video set-up for the question “Will Alex find the courage to audition at the prestigious dance conservatory?”
 
If the plot sounds simple, that’s because it is. Flashdance was the first film that could be categorized as “MTV infused.”  Under the direction of Adrian Lyne, who cut his chops in commercials, and the eyes of Simpson and Bruckheimer, the film was basically cut to resemble a 93-minute music video that tapped into the youth market like few films ever. 

The use of film sequences shot in the style of pop music videos was a novel one at the time. You get one dance sequence or montage set to music after another so that if you have ADD, you’re sure to follow along just nicely. Add to that scantily clad girls and some nice cleavage and you have your film. What the film sorely lacked then and now is any sense of depth to the characters. The credited screenwriters Tom Hedley and Joe Eszterhas were not too concerned with character development.  Strange but I missed the ubiquitous lesbian scene that is always prevalent with Eszterhas scripts.
 
Alex has a lot of “details” that are thrown at you but they are more clichés then details and there is never any sense of depth to her. Would you believe that she has an ugly mut that gets angry whenever another man comes around? How about that she lives in a loft big enough to be a club complete with its own dance studio? Her mentor/conscience is her saintly aunt who only talks in “inspirational” speak and her friends at the bar are also aspiring dancers and stand up comics. Alex is so blue collar that she rides a bike all over town.  And she’s the most developed character in the film.
 
The script basically follows the outline of 3 to 5 minutes of random plot exposition then quickly cutting to a stylishly shot dance sequence or workout scene or montage. This is where ultimately the film fails to be in the same league as Saturday Night Fever (1977) or Footloose (1984). Those films were heavy on the dance sequences to be sure, but they were especially heavy on the people in it. You know what Tony Manero or Ren McCormick are about and why they do what they do.

You also know about where they live, where they come from, what their family is like and why they are so desperate to break out of their dreary surroundings. You never get anything close to that kind of depth in Flashdance.  There’s plenty of style but little substance. You hear Alex talk about why she loves dancing but, much like Nick, we’re a little preoccupied with her talent for removing her bra under her shirt while she’s talking. 
 
Another particularly disturbing element back when the film came out and now, is the key fact that Beals does NONE OF THE DANCING. A professional dancer, Marine Jahan, did the majority of the dance sequences for Beals and when revealed, caused a bit of a stir that only helped the film financially. Good rule here is that if you don’t see Beals’s face, it’s Jahan.

Never is this more obvious than in the infamous ending where Alex dances for the stuffy adults at the conservatory. No less than four dance doubles were used for this sequence including Jahan and a MALE BREAKDANCER who was dressed up in a black wig and tights and refused to shave his mustache. So obvious and embarrassing is the fact that there are numerous people doing the dance moves here that you find yourself laughing at the film’s key emotional moment. You would think Lyne and the editors would have gone to greater lengths to at least not make it so obvious.
 
To its credit, the iconic dance sequences save for the ending are still entertaining to watch. Whether it’s the still erotic opening dance that Beals performs along with the help of a bucket of water (most recently homaged by Jennifer Lopez ‘s I’m Glad video in 2003 that is a shot for shot remake of it), Cynthia Rhodes doing the “Manhunt” dance with a baseball catcher’s mask and running up the walls doing back flips, the breakdance street scene that was the first time the up until then underground New York dance had been introduced to the mainstream and Beals’s kabuki/goth, strobe light infused dance sequence. 
 
The music, which is more significant than the majority of humans here, still holds up rather well. Giorgio Moroder’s brooding, electric score reminds one of his best work in Midnight Express, American Gigolo and Scarface. A few of the songs on the soundtrack including the timeless “What A Feeling” that Moroder wrote and Irene Cara sung, can still get you pumped up and having 80s flashbacks.
 
The film was trashed by critics but was well received by audiences. The fashion and dance trends as well as the music would go on to help define the early part of the 80s. Unfortunately, what little there is left in the film after that has not aged well.  It is worth watching if you haven’t seen it in years but if you weren’t a fan of it then, you probably won’t want to buy it.
 
You know that the film was more a product of stylish editing, glossy back-lit scenes, well placed pop music and directing when the ones that emerged the most successful from it were the filmmaker and producers. Jennifer Beals, although she is excellent here and exudes a sexual magnetism seldom matched, never had the kind of A-list career that one would’ve thought following a hit like this. Lyne would go on to direct other stylish but much more intelligent adult films like 9 ½ Weeks, Fatal Attraction, Jacob’s Ladder and Unfaithful.
 
Simpson and Bruckheimer would go on to define the 80s decade with more music infused, quick edited MTV style, testosterone/cocaine addled rides like Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 2, and the culmination of that style in 1986’s Top Gun. Simpson and Bruckheimer would continue their union of film excess into the early 90s with Bad Boys, Crimson Tide and The Rock before Simpson passed away after a lifetime of drug abuse and Bruckheimer went solo.
 
The extras come in the form of a five-part making of documentary directed by the great Laurent Bouzereau that runs around 50 minutes. The segments are The History of Flashdance, The Look of, Music and Songs, The Choreography and Releasing the Phenomenon. There are interviews with Lyne, Bruckheimer, Lynda Obst who cut her producing chops here, and Michael Nouri but curiously NO Jennifer Beals.

I know it’s an actor’s prerogative whether or not to take part in these retrospective pieces but it’s saying someone when the STAR of the film doesn’t even want to talk about the biggest hit of their respective career.  Also included is a teaser and theatrical trailer.
 
A bonus CD containing six songs from the soundtrack including “What A Feeling” is thrown in as an extra marketing ploy. You almost want to wince when you look at the DVD cover that proudly boasts “Academy Award Winner” since it won the Oscar for “What a Feeling” as Best Song. 
 
It’s not a completely awful film as the eternal theme of following one’s heart and going for your dreams is always an inspirational one. As an artist I can appreciate any film that tries to move people towards a more fulfilling life. It furthers the belief that film is the greatest art form because it is so accessible to the world and can reach a greater audience.

To the film’s credit it does make that point clear, if not annoyingly so. And having lived through that period I can attest to its effects on young girls at the time. There is a passion that infuses the film and it is inspiring up until a point.

But the lack of depth with the characters and some truly awful dialogue cannot save it. The film and the people in it are ultimately shallow and just scratch the surface. That would be why even the most fervent of Flashdance fans would admit that it’s a guilty pleasure.
 
The film would remain a fixture at female slumber parties and young girl’s fantasies until Dirty Dancing replaced it four years later. For those girls out there who are now women and mothers and still adore this film for nostalgic reasons, this version is a no-brainer buy and upgrade over the previous DVD. But for those who want similarly themed films that are emotionally intelligent AND have great dancing/soundtracks, better you go for Saturday Night Fever or Footloose.

Flashdance (Special Collector's Edition) is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.