We finished watching Billy Elliot in class, continuing to pay attention to the sound design of the film, how it affects our emotions and especially the layering of different sounds, non-diagetic and diagetic.
There were a couple of things I noticed when I was watching the film. The first thing was when Billy and his dance teacher were dancing by themselves in that gym, the music was loud and funky and cheerful. It's very upbeat and it makes you feel like dancing as well, especially because at first all you hear is the tapping of the cymbals. The music is part of the soundtrack, and the film cuts from clips of Billy dancing to shots of what his family members are doing, with that funky music going on in the background. It makes you feel like Billy is completely oblivious to the other world and although those worlds exist parallel to each other, they're not really connected. Billy's family members can't understand his feelings and don't want to. The music goes on while they go on with their daily lives, so it's as if they're ignoring it.
Another thing I noticed is that there's a lot of moments where the music suddenly cuts off, and where it cuts off is usually when the music is the loudest or after reaching the climax. The piano starts, builds up, then when the door opens back at his house the music cuts off again. This reminds me again of the symbolism of jumping up against a wall; this wall of reality that he can't get out of, he cannot escape from. Every time the music cuts off is when he "comes back to reality", and the music in his fantasy world hits that wall and cuts off abruptly as the wall is hard and impenetrable. Another good example of that same symbolism is when his dance teacher is arguing with his brother in the house, he runs outside and the film shows him trying to jump up on the wall, trying to get out. Then he's stuck in between the two walls, like being stuck in a box; although he can see the way out, but he just can't reach it. He finally 'escapes', and the tapping sounds he makes with his shoes overlap with the music (diagetic and non-diagetic) and it's almost as if he's trying to let out all the frustration out through his dancing.
There's another moment in the film which I really liked; it's when he's dancing up the street and he keeps turning and turning and turning until he reaches the end. The important thing about this is that when you spin you have to focus on one point, so that when you spin around you won't lose balance. To me this was like he had what he wanted in mind, he had a dream of dancing, and the spinning symbolizes him trying not to lose sight of that in the face of everything. He really wants to achieve that dream, he really wants to hold onto it despite his circumstances. But at the end, he still hits the wall (that was at the end of the street), which again goes back to the symbolism of hitting against the wall of reality.
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