The series A posteriori le cinéma is intended to be an opportunity to celebrate the 7the art by revisiting flagship titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
A North American city where music and dance are not only denounced by religion, which sees it as the work of Satan, but prohibited by law? Frankly ! This sums up the critical reaction to the film’s release. Footloose, in February 1984. However, such cases existed, particularly in Oklahoma. Huge popular success, this ode to youth and the freedom to have fun remains, 40 years later, as irresistible as its theme song.
On the subject of reception, Gary Arnold’s review, in the Washington Post, is representative. Arnold then advised the public to “flee quickly, at the risk of being swallowed up by imbecility”.
No matter: the film took the lead at the box office. As for the album bringing together, among other hits, Footloose, Let’s Hear It for the Boy, Holding Out for a Hero And Almost Paradisehe downgraded Thrillerby Michael Jackson, at the top of the music charts.
Moreover, for an entire generation, the earworms in question do not fail to evoke the memory of a host of emblematic scenes: Kevin Bacon dancing alone in a warehouse or challenging an opponent in a tractor duel (! ), Lori Singer cheating death by balancing between a car and a moving van…
But it was just a matter of Footloose instead featured… Tom Cruise and Madonna. We will come back to this.
Designed by Dean Pitchford, the Academy Award-winning lyricist for the musical drama’s theme song Fame, Footloose was to be directed by Michael Cimino, hired despite the resounding flop of his western Heaven’s Gate (Heaven’s Gate). Faced with the filmmaker’s extravagant financial demands, however, the studio judged it wiser to fire him.
A seasoned director who started as a dancer and then as a choreographer on Broadway, Herbert Ross was thus hired. One of his past successes, The Turning Point (The turning point of life), was nominated for 11 Oscars and took place in the ballet world.
A danced medley
In The Directors: Take TwoHerbert Ross remembers: “We used to call [Footloose] “a musical in the closet”, because musicals were out of favor at the time, but it was clearly a musical. So no one talked about it like that, but my experience in musical theater helped me a lot […] What’s interesting about this film is that the songs that you hear, I didn’t have access to while I was making the film. »
In order to compensate for this lack, Ross developed a very precise technical breakdown and used “temporary” songs. Ultimately, it fell to Paul Hirsch, the ace editor of Carrie (Carrie at the Devil’s Ball) and Star Warsto merge the direction of Herbert Ross, the choreography of Lynne Taylor-Corbett and the different songs.
In the documentary about the making of the film produced for the Blu-ray release of the film, Taylor-Corbett explains: “It was a special situation: the young people in the film had never been allowed to dance, but had undoubtedly seen dancing on TV, or even perhaps ventured out of town to try. So we came up with a composite of all the dance styles from the previous ten years, then mixed them with some new styles, creating a sort of potpourri. »
Note that Kevin Bacon received help for the, let’s say, more extravagant dance passages. As Herbert Ross points out in The Directors: Take Two : “We not only dubbed him in the film, we tripled Kevin. There are three different versions of him: a dancer, a gymnast and an acrobat. »
Bacon by default
It was in this case thanks to Herbert Ross that Kevin Bacon obtained the main role of Ren, this teenager from Chicago who decides to educate his new classmates about the joys of pop music and dance, to the great dam of the local reverend.
At the time, Bacon was not well known. He was vaguely remembered among the bloodied victims of Friday the 13th (Friday 13), in 1980.
In fact, the studio wanted Tom Cruise after seeing him wiggle in his underwear in Risky Business (What a story !), in 1983. Faced with Cruise’s unavailability, Paramount opted for Rob Lowe, who was injured before filming.
Because he liked the way he moved, Herbert Ross paid out of his own pocket for a camera test with Kevin Bacon, and the studio resigned itself to giving him the star.
Obviously unaware that this role would make him a star, Bacon, 24, feared for his part that he would not be credible when he finished high school. So he decided to spend a day incognito, as a “new student”, in the school in the small town in Utah where the filming of the film would take place shortly.
In the audio commentary he recorded for the DVD release of the film, the actor remembers encountering as much hostility among students and professors as his character in the film. And, like in the film, a strong student took him under his wing, dissipating the surrounding animosity. Chris Penn, Sean Penn’s late brother, is delicious in this role of protector to whom Ren teaches to dance: a real “ bromance “.
Fight against oppression
Not forgetting Ariel, the reverend’s daughter. Madonna and Jennifer Jason Leigh were considered before Lori Singer landed the role, which was very interesting for the time.
Indeed, Hollywood films led by a hero, and intended for an audience of adolescents or young adults, would hardly hesitate to flesh out the female character serving as an “object of affection”. In conflict with her father’s narrow values, and very independent of mind, Ariel has more narrative depth than, for example, Ali (Elisabeth Shue) in The Karate Kid (The moment of truth), also released in 1984.
On the show The Today ShowLori Singer confided in 2008, for the 25th anniversary of the film: “ [Footloose] speaks about what is best in America: freedom, and the desire to fight against any form of oppression, no matter how small. »
Of course, the demonstration is not subtle. In that, through Ren and his association with a metropolis, the film opposes urbanity and rurality, liberal and conservative values, openness and closed-mindedness.
Although, since the ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States and the imposition of social conservatism on the Supreme Court, Footloose could be back on display today (better to forget the 2011 remake). This means that Herbert Ross’ film has had time, in forty years, to resonate with the public, then to be considered tacky, before acquiring renewed relevance. In short, we will come back for “imbecility”.
The film Footloose is available on VOD on all platforms.