What, a Feeling?

Wondering what I meant by yesterday’s teaser, where I said I’d be writing about Flashdance and why Tony Scott was the sort of filmmaker you should only watch in Ultra High Definition … when the director of Flashdance was actually Adrian Lyne?

Yeah, about that.

It’s a mistake I’ve been making for decades now, mostly because I have this whole theory about how Ridley Scott, Tony Scott and Adrian Lyne are collectively responsible for the aesthetic we think of when we think of “the ’80s” – so they’re all tangled up together. On top of that, Flashdance feels like an outlier in Lyne’s career; he tends to make movies that are more psychologically loaded and aggressively sexual, and the love story in Flashdance is surprisingly tender. Not without an erotic charge, mind you, but even so.

Lyne had made Foxes before this, and 9½ Weeks, Fatal Attraction and Jacob’s Ladder afterward; with its gentler nature and triumphant story arc, Flashdance feels like a Golden Age programmer by comparison, the tale of a gifted young maverick who challenges the establishment by doing things her own damn way. The same pitch leads to Tony Scott’s Tom Cruise pictures … and Beverly Hills Cop II, come to think of it. Anyway, it’s my error and I’ll own it, but you can see how I got there. Also I don’t think Tony Scott ever shot a movie in Pittsburgh.

You kids today might not understand how prevalent Flashdance was when it arrived thirty years ago. It wasn’t the first high-concept movie, but it was the one that perfected the concept of high-concepts: “Welder by day, dancer by night.” The movie hung around for months, both in theaters and in pieces on MTV – the dance numbers were designed as music videos, to be lifted right out in three-minute segments – and of course on the radio, where Irene Cara and Michael Sembello’s singles dominated the charts. (Neither song makes a lick of sense – Sembello’s “Maniac” started out as a song about a serial killer, only to be hastily rewritten to include a dance floor and stuff – but they were catchy as hell.) And when it arrived on home video, it was priced to sell rather than rent, which was almost unheard in the VHS days. This was a big deal.

And really, why wouldn’t it be. Flashdance is a pretty appealing picture, all things considered; a solid story competently told and inventively shot, grounded in an instantly relatable class conflict and that genuinely sweet romance between Jennifer Beals’ flinty Alex and Michael Nouri’s smitten Nick. Tom Hedley and Joe Eszterhas’ screenplay is simplistic – Alex’ friend Jeanie’s fall from figure skating to stripping at Mawby’s disreputable competitor, the Zanzibar, is straight out of a ’30s cautionary drama – but it’s not stupid; all the characters have clearly defined motivations and desires, and even Lilia Skala’s generic mentor lady has an identifiable personality.

It’s better than it needs to be, and sometimes even more complex: One thing I didn’t really pick up on as a kid was the subtext of both Alex and Nick code-switching through their professional lives – Alex armoring up to work at the steel mill Nick owns (and putting on a different kind of toughness when she dances at Mawby’s), and Nick having to check his blue-collar instincts now that he’s a big deal. Watching the two of them slowly realize they can be themselves with each other is what sells the romance, and both actors play those moments perfectly: It’s pretty damn hot to realize someone is letting you see them.

It’s irresponsible to write about the success of Flashdance without crediting Beals’ dance double Marine Jahan – she’s as responsible for us understanding Alex as much as Beals is, and every time I watch the movie I think about what a small miracle it is that their performances work in tandem. For comparison, think of how Kevin Bacon’s cocksure charisma simply doesn’t transfer over to any of his dance doubles in Footloose; here, we can believe we’re seeing the same person from moment to moment – even with the added definition of a 4K presentation.

Flashdance looks very, very good in 4K, improving on the already impressive remastered Blu-ray released in 2020 … which is included here as well, boasting a new interview with Lyne and most but not all of the special features produced for a collectors-edition DVD a while back. I’m not sure why they didn’t make it over here, as the entire suite was included on the short-lived Warner Home Entertainment BD released about a decade back, but only “The Look of Flashdance” and “Releasing the Flashdance Phenomenon” are present on Paramount’s disc, along with the original theatrical trailer. They’re all pretty basic, and despite the title the “Look” featurette doesn’t spend nearly enough time on cinematographer Donald Peterman’s accomplishments; his world feels lived-in and stylized at the same time, the flashing and blazing of the steel mill contrasting with the stage lights of Mawby’s, the sleazier environs of the Zanzibar, and the softer lighting in Alex’ industrial but still somehow cozy loft.

The structure of the film even allowed Lyne and Peterman to play around with individual scenes like Alex and Jeanie’s little vignette with the traffic cop, and the workout sequence in the first act; part of the film’s lore is that Lyne and his editors swapped stuff around at random, but the finished film has an escalation of visual intensity that works really well. I honestly didn’t think I’d enjoy revisiting Flashdance as much as I have. So that’s nice!

I do still think Tony Scott’s movies should only be seen in 4K, though. Hell, “Ultra High Definition” and “High Dynamic Range” sound like pull-quotes for the posters of Man on Fire and Unstoppable.

Flashdance is now available in 4K (and Blu-ray, and DVD) from Paramount Home Entertainment. Take your passion, make it happen.

Next week: Criterion does right by Peter Bogdanovich and Céline Sciamma, and also some classic kickpunching. Stay tuned.