That's Dancing! (1985)

Gene Kelly: Self - Host

Photos 

Quotes 

• Gene Kelly : [First lines]  Long before the dawn of history, long before he could sing or even speak, man danced. Moving to his own internal rhythms, the pounding in his heart, the beating of his pulse, primitive man discovered dance. It is within us. Always.

• Gene Kelly : On a cold, winters day in New York City, these youngsters know how to keep warm. This is the newest craze. It's called break dancing! It was born about 10 years ago, here in the streets and the playgrounds of the South Bronx.

• Gene Kelly : They say dancing is as old as love. Stepping. Swaying. Turning. Bodies moving in rhythm. Alone, with others. That's dancing!

• Gene Kelly : It's the primal art. The most physical. The most personal of them all. Instead of using our hands to daub paint on a canvas or to chisel a shape from a block of stone, dancing requires the use of the entire body - moving through the space around us.

• Gene Kelly : In the late 1800s, a new fangled contraption, a novelty designed to amuse the public, gave movement, gave life, to the allusive art of dancing: the motion picture camera.

• Gene Kelly : The first dancers to appear on film where attractive young ladies who, generally, demonstrate more energy than training. But, a glimpse of a shapely leg seemed to more than make up for the lack of polished choreography. The amateurs soon gave way to the professionals who came from vaudeville, burlesque and staged musicals.

• Gene Kelly : Among film historians, the early sound musicals are known affectionately as - the stone age of movie dancing. The chorus girls seemed to have spent more time at the dinner table than in a rehearsal hall. And the choreography was usually second rate.

• Gene Kelly : To save the movie musical, something drastic, something daring had to be done. One man seemed to have all the answers. He was a successful Broadway dance director who came to Hollywood and immediately laid down his own rules. "My girls must be beautiful and shapely," he insisted. "And I want close-ups. Lots of close-ups of those lovely faces." His name was Busby Berkeley and his arrival meant the movie musical would never look the same again.

• Gene Kelly : Berkeley began to take the camera places it had never been. To see through it's lens, wonders only he could conceive. His overhead shots became his trademark. Rather than choreograph his dancers, Berkeley maneuvered them, placing them in geometric patterns that unfolded as if seen through the whirl of the largest kaleidoscope.

• Gene Kelly : There seemed to be no bottom to Busby Berkeley's bag of tricks.

• Gene Kelly : Dancing on film is nearing its 100th anniversary - and the innovations through the years have been remarkable. Now, its no secret, dance follows music - and, as music changes, dance changes with it. The music of the 80s has had a profound influence on movie dancing - and the changes we've seen continue to hold an exciting promise for the future.

• Gene Kelly : In 1983, film dancing entered a new era. Music videos began to play on television and in motion picture theaters, offering audiences a stylized and exhilarating form of dancing on the screen. The most innovative and certainly the most successful exponent of this new medium is a young and gifted composer, singer, dancer and choreographer, who obviously will be leading the way for some time to come: Michael Jackson.

• Gene Kelly : [Final line]  And that's dancing!