Ballroom Dancing?

[mlm828]

Like many others, I had -- and still have -- some reservations about the ballroom dancing story line in the final three episodes. But it did give us some nice lines and moments, such as:

• "Am I supposed to lead with my cane?"
  
• "Fred Astaire -- awesome. He was my hero growing up"
  
• Jim "dancing" into Tom in the locker room
  

In addition, I have always thought that Christie's choice of ballroom dancing was kind of inspired. Not to state the obvious, but it required them to work together in order to do it well, or at all. When they are having problems (Christie wants to lead, and Jim won't give her space) and the instructor offers to show them the dance step separately, they respond, in unison, "No!" and insist on working out the problem themselves. I wondered if this was intended to indicate that they were committed to working together to address the problems in their marriage, as well as those on the dance floor.

While I do not think Jim and Christie danced off into the sunset and lived happily ever after at the end of "Fancy Footwork," I was cautiously optimistic about their future, because I felt they were committed to working together to try to solve their problems.

[Katryna]

mlm828 said:

Like many others, I had -- and still have -- some reservations about the ballroom dancing story line in the final three episodes. But it did give us some nice lines and moments, such as:

• "Am I supposed to lead with my cane?"
  
• "Fred Astaire -- awesome. He was my hero growing up"
  
• Jim "dancing" into Tom in the locker room
  

In addition, I have always thought that Christie's choice of ballroom dancing was kind of inspired. Not to state the obvious, but it required them to work together in order to do it well, or at all. When they are having problems (Christie wants to lead, and Jim won't give her space) and the instructor offers to show them the dance step separately, they respond, in unison, "No!" and insist on working out the problem themselves. I wondered if this was intended to indicate that they were committed to working together to address the problems in their marriage, as well as those on the dance floor.

While I do not think Jim and Christie danced off into the sunset and lived happily ever after at the end of "Fancy Footwork," I was cautiously optimistic about their future, because I felt they were committed to working together to try to solve their problems.

My favorite lines from the dancing scenes are from Dance With Me right after the scene mlm describes when the instructor offers to help and Jim & Christie both reply no.

Immediately after that:
Christie says "We're off".
Jim Replies "Are you following the base?" Christie: "We're supposed to follow the base?"
Jim: "I have no idea."

(Love this playful little example of Jim's sense of humor!)

Christie then says: "OK, wait". She then closes her eyes, hums a little and then gets in step. She says "Ok, There we go. Look at us."

She tells Jim that it takes so much for him to do his job, there is nothing left for their marriage. (paraphrasing here) But I wonder if she has truly tried to imagine what Jim has to deal with on a daily basis. I think the writers wanted to use this scene as a metaphor of sorts. Christie has to close her eyes, putting herself in Jim's shoes, in order for them to get in rhythm. In this way, they do work together. And that is what it will take for their marriage to work.

[Eyphur]

kathy said:

Christie then says: "OK, wait". She then closes her eyes, hums a little and then gets in step. She says "Ok, There we go. Look at us."

I think the writers wanted to use this scene as a metaphor of sorts. Christie has to close her eyes, putting herself in Jim's shoes, in order for them to get in rhythm. In this way, they do work together. And that is what it will take for their marriage to work.

I've allways questioned the idea of Christie closing her eyes. I don't really see it as a metaphor, I just though she closed her eyes to concentrate more on the music (I do that sometimes when I'm tuning). So is the general consensus that it (Christie's eye closing) means something? Maybe I just don't read into it enough.

[mlm828]

eyphur said:

kathy said:

Christie then says: "OK, wait". She then closes her eyes, hums a little and then gets in step. She says "Ok, There we go. Look at us."

I think the writers wanted to use this scene as a metaphor of sorts. Christie has to close her eyes, putting herself in Jim's shoes, in order for them to get in rhythm. In this way, they do work together. And that is what it will take for their marriage to work.

I've allways questioned the idea of Christie closing her eyes. I don't really see it as a metaphor, I just though she closed her eyes to concentrate more on the music (I do that sometimes when I'm tuning). So is the general consensus that it (Christie's eye closing) means something? Maybe I just don't read into it enough.

I thought it was a nice moment, but I didn't read a lot into it, either. Closing her eyes could be interpreted as Christie putting herself in Jim's shoes, but I thought she did it to concentrate on the music and rhythm.

kathy wrote:
She tells Jim that it takes so much for him to do his job, there is nothing left for their marriage. (paraphrasing here) But I wonder if she has truly tried to imagine what Jim has to deal with on a daily basis. I think the writers wanted to use this scene as a metaphor of sorts.

It could be, but. . . I think Christie is the one character, other than Jim himself, who does know what he has to deal with on a daily basis. She has been there since the day he was shot and was there throughout his rehabilitation and training. She has seen how much focus and concentration are required for Jim to accomplish even basic everyday tasks. As she tells Dr. Galloway, it's Jim's ability to focus that enabled him to return to work so quickly. So I think she does know what it takes for him to get through the day, and knows what it takes out of him. She understands this, and that is why she says it takes everything he has to do his job.

[doobrah]

I just saw "Shall We Dance", the Richard Gere/J.Lo movie, and watching their hot Latin dance, I suddenly thought maybe that's what BJ was sort of going for with the dancing, but it didn't work as well.

The Gere/J.Lo dance was sultry & sexy, building with lots of tension. It was the actual actors performing all the dancing (no body doubles), and it was one of the best scenes in the movie. While it was long, it was exciting and did not seem like filler.

[maggiethecat]

doobrah said:

I just saw "Shall We Dance", the Richard Gere/J.Lo movie, and watching their hot Latin dance, I suddenly thought maybe that's what BJ was sort of going for with the dancing, but it didn't work as well.

The Gere/J.Lo dance was sultry & sexy, building with lots of tension. It was the actual actors performing all the dancing (no body doubles), and it was one of the best scenes in the movie. While it was long, it was exciting and did not seem like filler.

Yeah, I liked that movie very much and I'm not a huge Richard Gere fan. Oddly enough, I thought Jennifer Lopez was excellent, really excellent, and that woman can dance! And their dance wasn't the least bit like filler since it was intrinsic to the plot.

It didn't work at all in Blind Justice (I think), because it came out of nowhere instead of the characters and the situation. (Then again, it may have been the only physical activity the writers could come up with that would hide Rena Sofer's pregnancy -- lots of head and feet shots.)

From balls of steel to ballroom dancing . . . what were they thinking?!

[hoosier]

I could not see Christie getting down and dirty in a pottery class or see either of them in couples yoga so it came down to dancing. It was something they could do together, Christie did talk to the instructor before hand and she did have experience with blind students and while ballroom dancing is not something you can just go out and do everywhere(I can't think of a single place near where I live!!!), I think she was just trying to find an activity they could do as a couple and this seemed like fun (her words). It would be the two of them in a neutral setting and since neither knew how to dance, one wouldn't have an advantage. And it wouldn't seem threatening to Jim though he definitely wasn't thrilled in the beginning but I think he did have fun by the end of the lessons.

I also think Christie closed her eyes to get back into the rhythm of the music. However, it was a sweet moment.

[kytdunne]

eyphur said:

So is the general consensus that it (Christie's eye closing) means something? Maybe I just don't read into it enough.

Just taking a moment to get into synch, imo. Nothing else.

Kyt

[bump]

eyphur said:

I've allways questioned the idea of Christie closing her eyes. I don't really see it as a metaphor, I just though she closed her eyes to concentrate more on the music (I do that sometimes when I'm tuning). So is the general consensus that it (Christie's eye closing) means something? Maybe I just don't read into it enough.

I'm with what the others have posted: she closed her eyes to get back into the rhythm of the music.

But from the first time I saw that scene, I thought it was such an obvious example of something we all do -- close our eyes when we want to get a better feel for music. Listening to music with eyes closed or in a dark room makes it seem so different.

We're simply "eliminating" one of our senses (vision) to get better in touch with another one (hearing). This is why I never found it a stretch that Jim would be able to smell things that others didn't. It's not that a sighted person couldn't smell what he smelled, it's that he had other senses more tuned in.

I'm sure that many of the Blind Justice critics have probably done what Christie did completely unconsciously. If they only stopped to analyze things a bit more, perhaps they would not have been as quick to criticize Jim smelling the cordite (Pilot) or the dead dog (Four Feet Under).

[bump]

One thing on the black & white part of Fancy Footwork. Did anyone else notice that toward the very end of that sequence when they're filming Jim and Christie from further away, it doesn't seem like Rena Sofer?

The hair on the person dancing at that point seems a lot thicker and with curlier ends than Rena's. I hadn't noticed that until recently.

It's hard to tell if it's Ron or not.

Becky

[shmeep]

rmiro13 said:

One thing on the black & white part of Fancy Footwork. Did anyone else notice that toward the very end of that sequence when they're filming Jim and Christie from further away, it doesn't seem like Rena Sofer?

The hair on the person dancing at that point seems a lot thicker and with curlier ends than Rena's. I hadn't noticed that until recently.

It's hard to tell if it's Ron or not.

Becky

That's the cheesiest thing about that sequence, in my opinion. They obviously had doubles in there for Jim and Christie for all the more difficult moves. I think it weakened an already dubious scene. The man is leaner than Ron and his hair looks like a bad wig. I will never understand why the series ended on that note, but since they seemed to feel it had to, couldn't they have just had the actual actors do their own dancing? They could have been a tad bit less fancy but much less distracting than the doubles.

[doobrah]

Oh yeah... those are body doubles with cheesy wigs. That's why it's shot sorta out of focus with faces deeply shadowed.

Joel Segal, the movie critic, said it best last week: When you get a continuous shot of an actor doing something, it's them, not the stunt double. When there's an edit in the action, it's to cut in the stunts (and in BJ's case the expert dancers).

How many edits in dancing sequence? 75? I'm not going to count....

[bjobsessed]

I wish Ron and Rena had done the whole scene. If Ron can do such an amazing job playing a blind guy, surely he could have learned to ballroom dance well enough to film that scene. As Shmeep said, it didn't have to be so complicated, but at least it would have been the real thing. That would have made the whole sequence a little less cheezy. A little more Ron is never a bad thing.

[housemouse]

bjobsessed said:

I wish Ron and Rena had done the whole scene. If Ron can do such an amazing job playing a blind guy, surely he could have learned to ballroom dance well enough to film that scene. As Shmeep said, it didn't have to be so complicated, but at least it would have been the real thing. That would have made the whole sequence a little less cheezy. A little more Ron is never a bad thing.

Oh he can dance, he proved that in Father's and Sons. I had to take a cold shower after the scene of him dancing with his character's lover.

[kenina]

housemouse said:

Oh he can dance, he proved that in Father's and Sons. I had to take a cold shower after the scene of him dancing with his character's lover.

The WIGGLE!!!! One of my favorite Ron moments. Oh, that tight little...okay, I'll stop now.