text added by Kaye Spencer
I am the featured blogger on the first and second Wednesdays of each month on the Blogger platform for Western Fictioneers and Prairie Rose Publications. I will repost a truncated version of those articles for my #HelloFriday! and #FridayFavorites posts on those two weeks with a link to the full article. Today’s full article is on the Prairie Rose Publications’ blog.
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Name of Movie: Cinderella – live action film 2015
Historical Time Period: 1963
Location: c. l9th century – rural France
Occasion/Purpose: Cinderella and Prince “Kit” dance at his kingdom-wide ball
Type of Dance: ballroom waltz
Cinderella, a timeless classic fairytale, was remade and reimagined in 2015 as a live-action film directed by Kenneth Branagh and Disney. Lily James portrays Cinderella. Richard Madden is Prince Kit.
Set-up to the dance scene:
Ella, is a generous and kindhearted daughter of loving parents. When Ella’s mother becomes ill, on her deathbed, the mother’s last words to Ella are to be kind and have courage. Years later, Ella’s father remarries a woman who brings two daughters with her into Ella’s home. All does not go well. Stepmother and stepsisters are not kind to Ella. Jealousy abounds.
After Ella’s father dies, Ella no longer has a buffer between the stepmother/sister’s nastiness toward her. Ella is relegated to servant status. Ella, in a moment of complete and utter despair, leaves the house on horseback and encounters Prince Kit. He is on a stag-hunting excursion. In the few minutes they have alone, they realize a common attraction.
Prince Kit can’t get the mysterious woman off his mind. He announces a kingdom-wide ball in which everyone is invited. This is his strategy to see Ella again. The stepmother forbids Ella from attending the ball. Ella is reduced to hopelessness at not being able to attend the ball, but her fairy godmother appears and helps Ella.
Ella shows up to the ball…
Dance Scene on the YouTube Clip below:
>Everything…I mean everything about this scene is fairytale magnificent.
>Their smiles at seeing each other.
>The dress…oh my gosh…the dress.
>The music.
>The ballroom.|
>The meeting at 1:35 in the clip…their gazes…
>He touches her for the first time, and she gasps – 2:24
>They become progressively more comfortable with each.
>At 3:24, he is bold enough to touch her with both hands, and she accepts, and they move into the waltz itself.
>At 4:26, they do a partial lift-twirl, which is followed by a full lift-twirl, and THIS IS THE DANCE MOMENT WE’VE WAITED FOR.
>Her dress billows.
(Oh my gosh…the dress)
>Prince Kit twirls her again,. They part, come together, gaze deeply into each other’s eyes, then he bends her back. This, my friends, is swoon-worthy. This is an example of how a dance shows us that the couple is in love. Dialogue alone could not have accomplished what this dance did.
I suspect this video link isn’t going to work for many of you. It is blocked from playing on websites off YouTube. The video will pop up with a black screen and text that it isn’t available. If clicking on the Watch on YouTube option doesn’t work, and you want to watch the clip, here is the url – https://youtu.be/r-qOgm1sLP0
Until next time,
Kaye Spencer
Lasterday Stories
writing through history one romance upon a time