Flashdance [Adrian Lyne, 1983]:
It's essentially a fairy-tale, and like most fairy tales there's an element of wish-fulfilment here around considerations of class and aspiration. Our protagonist, Alex - the industrial welder-by-day, exotic-dancer-by-night, who dreams of being accepted as a professional dancer at the Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance and Repertory - is imprisoned by economic circumstances. She meets prince charming in the form of Nick, her boss at the steel mill where she works, and this becomes a means for escape. Unlike Cinderella however, Alex still works hard for her escape, giving the film a Rocky (1976) like aspirational quality, where we see (through extended musical montage) the journey and progression of the character as defined by her work. As a contemporary of filmmakers like Tony and Ridley Scott, director Adrian Lyne's commercial sensibilities and hyper-stylized approach to the varied dance sequences give the film an incredible visual identity. Critics at the time lazily termed this style "MTV cinema", but it's much closer to what French critics at the time termed "Cinéma du look," as the filmmaker's quick, rhythmical cutting, expressive scenes of emotional conflict, lived-in locations and extensive use of backlight and diffusion, really helped to establish a new language in American filmmaking, which dominated the next two decades.
