The film Billy Elliot directed by Stephen Daldry, is the sensitive story of Billy Elliot’s (Jamie Bell) journey away from a boy imprisoned by the expectations of his father, Jackie (Gary Lewis), and a society where ideals and thinking are passed down from generation to generation, set during the 1984 Miners Strike. Billy’s journey is towards an unfamiliar and daunting new world — the ballet world. Jackie an ex-boxer intrinsically, inarticulately and simultaneously angry and devastated at loss of his wife, his job as a miner and any semblance of control, is a product of the town of Everington’s societal and generationally accepted male values. Within these values lie the crux of Billy Elliot’s dilemma, his father and his society reject emotion
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Though he tries to fit in with the norm and follow his father’s footsteps by partaking in boxing, he is categorically unable to do it. It may be part of his father’s identity but it is not part of his own. They tell him “You’re a disgrace to them gloves, your father, and the traditions of this boxing hall”. Throughout the movie boxing gloves are a motif for the values of Everington, just like the values are passed down from generation to generation, so are the boxing gloves. When Billy exchanges the boxing gloves for ballet shoes it is about more than joining the ballet world, it is about rejecting the old one. Close ups of Billy’s boxing shoes amongst ballet shoes matures into long shots of him dancing alongside his ballet teacher, displaying his transition into to ballet world. Once Billy completes this transition Daldry’s clever use of close ups draws a comparison to the opening scene of Billy’s smiling, dancing, face to the final scene of Billy’s face also smiling and also about to dance, suggesting that ballet was always inherently apart of him. Daldry uses extreme long shots to show the tight, cramped, high-walled houses of Everington and the open spaces of the Royal Ballet School where Billy auditions to contrast the entrapment of his home to emancipation of
Though he tries to fit in with the norm and follow his father’s footsteps by partaking in boxing, he is categorically unable to do it. It may be part of his father’s identity but it is not part of his own. They tell him “You’re a disgrace to them gloves, your father, and the traditions of this boxing hall”. Throughout the movie boxing gloves are a motif for the values of Everington, just like the values are passed down from generation to generation, so are the boxing gloves. When Billy exchanges the boxing gloves for ballet shoes it is about more than joining the ballet world, it is about rejecting the old one. Close ups of Billy’s boxing shoes amongst ballet shoes matures into long shots of him dancing alongside his ballet teacher, displaying his transition into to ballet world. Once Billy completes this transition Daldry’s clever use of close ups draws a comparison to the opening scene of Billy’s smiling, dancing, face to the final scene of Billy’s face also smiling and also about to dance, suggesting that ballet was always inherently apart of him. Daldry uses extreme long shots to show the tight, cramped, high-walled houses of Everington and the open spaces of the Royal Ballet School where Billy auditions to contrast the entrapment of his home to emancipation of