The Dream Ballet: Golden Age to Modern Day Hollywood Movies and Musicals
This is a timeline of some of the most notable dream ballets throughout film and movie musical history spanning from the 1940s to present day.
I have always grown up watching old movies. My dad would flip through the channels until landing upon to the oldies station where I would watch The Pirate or Covergirl, my small body sat in front of the TV screen bouncing along to the songs and staring up in wonderment at the beauty of moving pictures. I liked the singing, but I always loved the dancing so much more. Whether it be ballroom, ballet, tap, or modern dance, I was mesmerized by the actors’ athleticism and their artistic abilities on screen.
Now, it is safe to say that I was not alone in my love for dance onscreen. Especially when paired with the singing and incredible acting from famous actors in Golden Age of Hollywood movie musicals. Movie musicals have been a staple of the entertainment industry for generations, showcasing incredible singing, dancing, and outlandish production numbers. Among the many elements that went into creating some of the most memorable movies and movie musicals to date, dream ballets have been a most popular device.
Dream ballets are dream sequences within a movie that combine dancing, music, and other visual elements to create a surreal dream landscape. Oftentimes a dream ballet will be used to visually represent a character’s inner psyche to the audience. It provides the audience with a visually stunning representation of emotion and usually does not move a plot along but rather gives weight to the choices a character might continue to make. Below I will explore some of the most memorable dream ballet sequences to date, as well as some more recent dream ballets from the past few years.
Oklahoma! (1943 and 1955)
The term “dream ballet” was coined after one of the most famous dream ballet sequences premiered on Broadway in 1943. Agnes de Mille’s dream sequence from Oklahoma! is an iconic example of this. In 1955, the staged musical was converted to the big screen, and much of the original choreography from the staged musical stayed the same as Agnes de Mille worked on both the staged and screen version. The director utilized fog and other incredible stage designs to give the choreography a dreamlike backdrop. De Mille’s choreography tells the story of a love triangle between Laurey, Curly, and Jud. Laurey’s dream delves deeper into her conflicting feelings between the two men, and helps the audience realize her underlying fear surrounding Jud’s violent nature.
It begins as Laurey drifts to sleep singing “Into a dream of you” as she imagines herself walking towards a dream or body double version of herself. The two women circle each other and the dream double replaces the actress onscreen. Across from the Laurey double, the actor who plays Jud appears and his double replaces him onscreen. From there, the two doubles begin to dance, setting the dream sequence in motion. During the seventeen-minute-long dream sequence, the doubles dance around the stage until they begin a wedding onscreen which expresses Laurey’s deep want to be married to Curly. When Jud unexpectedly shows up onscreen as the groom of the dream wedding, Laurey is shocked and frightened. The Jud character begins to fight with Curly for Laurey’s love and Jud ultimately kills Curly, lifting Laurey away from her dead lover. This is the end of the terrifying dream, as Laurey wakes to find Jud standing above her.
The Red Shoes (1948)
One of the most famous and most notable dream ballets in any movie would have to be from The Red Shoes. As this movie is one of my personal favorites, I may be biased in my description of it. The movie follows aspiring ballerina Victoria Page as she is forced to choose between her love of dance and her love of a man named Julian. The 1948 film is based on the Hans Christian Anderson story for which the movie is titled. In the story, a young girl is given a pair of red shoes that if worn, force her to dance forever. The girl is then made to amputate her feet which continue to dance on their own after they are cut off. The story from which the film gets its name has incredibly dark undertones and the movie shares that same undertone of darkness. The seventeen-minute-long dream sequence sits at the middle of the movie and was choreographed by Robert Helpmann.
The dreamlike sequence begins as Victoria Page, played by Moira Shearer, takes the stage in her principal role of The Red Shoes. As Victoria dances along the stage, the ballet begins to become more and more magical as jump cuts, fog is introduced. It becomes a nightmare come to life as the dream world begins to shape around Victoria, showing the audience the dancer’s worrying subconscious. As Victoria wears the red shoes, she dances frantically, pleading with the other dancers to remove the red shoes which will not budge. In the middle of the ballet, Julian, her lover, steps up from the orchestra pit to great her. Unexpectedly, Page’s director, Lermontov, takes Julian’s place and Page’s frantic dancing begins again. At the end of the dream ballet, Victoria collapses to death from exhaustion, and the shoes are removed from her lifeless frame. The curtain closes which signifies the end of the ballet for the audience and the end of the dream sequence.
This dream ballet gives a deeper insight into the subconscious of the dancer Victoria Page, as she struggles with the inherent pressures of being a ballet star. Though she loves dancing, her heart is conflicted between her love for Julian and her love for the art form. Her director, Lermontov, informs her that she “cannot have it both ways,” insinuating that she cannot have love and pursue a career. The pressure to choose between two of her loves is emulated onscreen through the dream ballet as her psyche is revealed to the audience. The ballet dream sequence is a colorful display that has the grandeur many films that have succeeded it have attempted to copy.
An American in Paris (1951)
This 1951 MGM film directed by Vincent Minnelli is a staple of the dream ballet. The dream ballet sequence is arguably a main reason as to why An American in Paris won an academy award that year. The dance sequence that was choreographed and performed by Hollywood star, Gene Kelly, took inspiration from past dream sequences from The Red Shoes (1948) and Oklahoma! (1943). The inspiration for the famous dream ballet itself came from the producer, Arthur Freed. Freed had attended a concert where George Gershwin’s tome poem “An American in Paris” was performed and the idea for the movie’s name was born. The story follows Jerry Mulligan played by Gene Kelly, an American artist living in Paris, who falls in love with a Frenchwoman, Lise, played by Leslie Caron.
The dream ballet comes at the end of the film after Jerry finds that Lise plans to marry another man. Jerry stands alone on a balcony and as he picks up a single rose, the painted backdrop materializes behind him. In his heartbroken dreamlike state, Jerry follows Lise in his imagination through sets and imaginative dancing sequences. The backdrops for the dream ballet were inspired by Paris and famous painters that inspired Jerry’s artistic work in the film. At the end of the dream ballet, Jerry picks up the original rose left by Lise as she leaves him one last time. The dream fades to black around the rose in Jerry’s hand and he is thrust back into reality.
Throughout the dream sequence Jerry and Lise have movements that pull from styles such as jazz, tap, modern and ballet. Never before had there been so many styles meshed into one long dance sequence like An American in Paris had done. Just like in Oklahoma! and The Red Shoes that came before it, this dream ballet was just as colorful, utilizing smoke, painted backgrounds on larger-than-life sets, and multiple extra dancers to create the dreamlike choreography. Much like the other dream ballets created prior to this one, An American in Paris looks deep into Jerry’s subconscious mind as he deals with the grief of watching the woman he loves leave him.
La La Land (2016)
Almost a lifetime after the famed American in Paris (1951) premiered, a new dream ballet came to life on the modern-day Hollywood screen. In 2016, La La Land, directed by Damien Chazelle premiered. Much like many of the classic Hollywood movies throughout the 40s, 50s, and 60s, La La Land also showcased its own dream ballet at the end of the movie. This was an incredible moment in movie musical history as a dream ballet hadn’t been used much in the past 70 years. Being able to watch this in theaters when it premered was an incredible expreience for me as someone who grew up watching movie musicals from the Golden Age of Hollywood. This monumental moment signified the rebirth of the dream ballet in modern movies and movie musicals.
The dream ballet begins at the end of the movie when old lovers, Mia played by Emma Stone and Sebastian played by Ryan Gosling, lock eyes across Sebastian’s jazz club as he begins to perform onstage. The two past lovers imagine the life they could have had together if they had continued to date, and dancing between the two actors begins. Colorful sets are brought to life to emulate the old Hollywood magic and the vibrant Californian atmosphere. At the end of the dream ballet sequence, a montage of what could have been plays on a screen between the two former lovers. It ends as the two are transported back into reality, staring at each other across the club. La La Land’s dream ballet is different from its predecessors as it follows not one but two characters’ shared emotions of longing and heartache.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
This is the most recent dream ballet to date is from the 2020 Netflix thriller, I’m Thinking of Ending Things. The movie is based off of Ian Reid’s thriller novel by the same name. It is movie with dark sinister undertones much like The Red Shoes that came before it. Much like the title of the movie, Lucy, the protagonist, is thinking of ending things with her boyfriend, Jake. But these feelings of doubt in their relationship come at a bad time as she is invited to Jake’s family home over the winter. Director Charlie Kaufman pulls from the very first and most notable dream ballet sequence in movie musical history: Agnes de Mille’s dream ballet from Oklahoma!.
The dream ballet which comes later in the movie is foreshadowed when the janitor at Jake’s old high school passes by a couple in the locker-lined hallway attempting and failing to execute the rehearsed choreography together for their high school production of Oklahoma!. A janitor passes by the couple and the scene disappears. Later when Lucy finds herself abandoned and freezing in Jake’s car, she seeks refuge in the high school where she meets the janitor from earlier in the film. It is from there that the dream ballet begins. Dream doubles replace both Lucy and Jake much like Laurey and Curly were also replaced by dream doubles. As the doubles enter the scene, the real Lucy and Jake exit, and the dancers begin to move with one another. Lucy is then ripped away from Jake by the janitor in the dream and like Curly and Jud, the janitor and Jake begin to fight. The dream ballet ends as Jake’s double is stabbed by the janitor and the original Lucy and Jake stand over the dead double. The dream-like scene comes back to reality as it follows behind the janitor as he cleans the gymnasium floor and high school hallway of the fake snow and red scarf used as visual effects.
The movie has clear connections to the Broadway show and movie musical Oklahoma!. The dream ballet delves into the psyche of Jake, not Lucy, throughout the dream sequence. Although Lucy is the protagonist throughout most of the movie, the narrative shifts towards the end of the movie. Jake becomes the focal point of the relationship as he longs for a connection with his girlfriend whose love seems to be slipping from his grasp. The dream sequence from I’m Thinking of Ending Things gives homage to its predecessors of the dream ballet narrative.
In conclusion, the dream ballet has been and continues to be an important device for filmmakers and musical lovers alike. Dream ballets provide insight into the minds of characters through dance and other visual elements. From the dream ballet that started it all in Oklahoma!, to the to the to the colorfully-painted landscapes in An American In Paris, to the rebirth of the dream ballet in La La Land, and the thrilling tribute to past works in I’m Thinking of Ending Things, dream ballets are a unique and powerful way to delve deeper in the minds of characters. Some dream ballets can be unsettling, tragic, or stunning, but all dream ballets are important devices to help the audience understand the psyche of a character. As a film lover and dancer myself, I am excited to see how the rebirth of dream ballets in films and movie musicals continues to grow over time.