Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

Bob Fosse on the set of All That Jazz (1979). EVERETT
COLLECTION. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.
The First Wives Club (1996). Fosse’s Broadway musical
Chicago finally reached the screen in 2002, directed and
choreographed by Rob Marshall (b. 1960).
NONMUSICAL FILMS
For a dramatic film, a dance director’s task is to develop
period-appropriate movement, most often for social settings.
For example, in costume dramas characters might
be seen meeting each other at balls, and in film noir
in nightclubs. In the studio era credit for work was
not consistent, even when crucial elements of the plot
occur in a dance setting. Agnes de Mille was named as
choreographer of George Cukor’s (1899–1983) Romeo
and Juliet (1936), but no one is credited for the 1938
Jezebel.
In action films the responsibilities of dance directors,
fight directors, stunt coordinators, and special-effects
staff often overlap. According to contemporary press for
The Warriors (1979), each group of actors developed
signature movements to distinguish it from the rival
gangs. The monumental impact of Hong Kong filmmaking
on Hollywood has elevated the role of the fight
choreographer, who stages stunts but maintains each
character’s individuality. The most influential fight choreographer
is Yuen Woo Ping (b. 1945), a veteran whose
Hong Kong credits go back to the 1970s. His period
work has been seen in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon (2000), both volumes of Kill Bill (2003, 2004),
and the Matrix trilogy (1999–2003). In the latter films
he created spectacular hand-to-hand combat, leaps into
nowhere, and fights with ‘‘cloned’’ copies of actors that
were then computer manipulated for pace. Corey Yuen
performed similar tasks in the X-Men films in 2000 and
2004, developing individual movement styles for each
character’s personality and mutation. The House of
Flying Daggers (2004) credited action directors, a martial
arts coordinator, and the choreographer Zhang Jianming.
SEE ALSO Dance; Musicals; Theater
Choreography
FURTHER READING
Altman, Rick. The American Film Musical. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1987.
Delamater, Jerome. Dance in the Hollywood Musical. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1981.
Feuer, Jane. The Hollywood Musical. 2nd ed. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1993.
Stearns, Marshall, and Jean Stearns. Jazz Dance: The Story of
American Vernacular Dance. Revised ed. New York: Da Capo
Press, 1994.
Thomas, Tony, and Jim Terry, with Busby Berkeley. The Busby
Berkeley Book. New York: NY Graphic Society, 1973.
Barbara Cohen-Stratyner
SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM 283