The Power of the “Dream Ballet” in Charlie Kaufman’s movie — I’m Thinking of Ending Things
It is an act of unparalleled artistic bravery to allow an audience to make of your work what they will. The audience has a burning desire to “get it” and quite often they will rifle through the attics of their experience (or the basement) to search for the lost piece of the puzzle, the one they are certain will make sense of the rest. Amongst the jigsaw pieces scattered throughout I’m Thinking of Ending Things, I found the connection that brought director Charlie Kaufman’s movie into sharper focus and led to a deeper understanding of the work: the “Dream Ballet”. More than just an homage to the musical Oklahoma!, the dance is the icy core of the film.
The “Dream Ballet” is a clever device utilized by 20th century choreographer Agnes de Mille in 1943 to solve the practical problem of actors who couldn’t dance and dancers who couldn’t express themselves verbally. Her “Dream Ballet” nimbly replaced actors with idealized dancer versions of themselves, who could work out their own meaningful solutions without the burden of words. De Mille, the niece of director Cecil B. DeMille, and a dancer/ ballet choreographer, came to the attention of the creative team Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein when they were looking to create their first joint show, Oklahoma!.
Amidst the ubiquitous Broadway musical revues featuring a disconnected collection of song and dance numbers (a formula popular since the vaudeville era), the Broadway show Oklahoma! (1943) distinguished itself by unifying all of the performative elements in order to serve the story. The show combined dramatic action with songs and dances that expressed character motivations and desires. And Agnes de Mille’s groundbreaking choreography used dance to explore the psyche of lead character Laurey, and to decisively move the plot forward. De Mille’s “Dream Ballet” filled with Freudian imagery neatly encapsulated Laurey’s quandary — choosing life with Curley or life with Jud. Curley represented marriage, social approval and a hopeful future, while life with Jud resembled a staircase to nowhere, a choice which would prostitute her — a fate she was desperate to escape. In the climax of the ballet, Laurey’s internal distress manifested itself as a visible storm as she helplessly watched Curley’s murder by Jud during a fight. Shattered, Laurey awakened from the dream as her dream self was carried off by Jud, only to find him ever-present and towering over her rocking chair on the porch of her home.
Like choreographer Agnes de Mille did all those years ago in Oklahoma!, Kaufman uses dance to unify the pieces of his unruly film and to express the life-changing choice facing the main character. The film unfolds disjointedly, like a dream. In the claustrophobic car-bound first act of the film, a couple are driving in a snowstorm to visit his parents on their farm. The man, Jake, mentions that he has seen multiple productions of the musical Oklahoma!, and that it is one of his favorites. The second act finds his girlfriend, Lucy, uneasily wandering through the barn and farmhouse, the lonely rooms of Jake’s house/mind, much like the hapless Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard’s play, intruding upon scenes already underway, laced with meaningful conversations she cannot understand, a worm’s-eye point of view. Pigs feature prominently in most of the spaces as figurines, gruesome farm stories, or even as a ham dinner. Before they leave, Lucy/Louisa/Lucia descends the farmhouse staircase multiple times in quick succession, going nowhere as she realizes her only role is validating Jake.
It is in the second act of Kaufman’s film that the audience first sees a glimpse of dancers from a high school production of Oklahoma!; teenagers performing a snippet of the love duet between leads Curly and Laurey, rehearsing a series of multiple lifts as Curley vaults Laurey in increasingly larger and higher leaps — a nod to Agnes de Mille’s choreography in the movie version of Oklahoma! (1955). Except, in this rehearsal, performed in a hallway lined with lockers, the teenage cowboy falters and the couple runs into the lockers, all while the aging janitor slowly passes by with his rolling cart.
Back in the car on the dark ride home, Jake reveals empathy for another movie character he describes as ‘powerful and horribly wronged,’ as he attempts to communicate with Lucy, who by now just wants to go home. She misunderstands or ignores many of the clues he reveals to her, and Jake chooses what he hopes will be the comfort of a familiar ice cream stand, yet another ploy to prolong the evening, as uncomfortable as it remains. Jake, like Jud, wants to be known and resists feeling like an outsider. Both of them want to fulfill the dreams ‘dancing in their heads,’ but Jake knows that, contrary to Curley’s claims earlier in the musical, no one mourns for Jud Fry when he falls on his own knife.
It is in the final act that the film reassembles the fractured pieces of Jake’s personality and the film crystalizes as a Jud’s-eye-view of Oklahoma!. In the musical, Jud’s world is filled with folks who would prefer he hang himself and the girl he wants likens his attentions to a pig salivating over a meal. Jake, too, feels the world’s coldness toward him, he regrets his wrong turns and no longer believes that things will get better or that anyone will make an effort to understand him. It is the “Dream Ballet” that makes it possible to communicate the conflicts and decisions Jake cannot bear to verbalize.
Lucy finds herself in a high school parking lot, abandoned in Jake’s freezing car. Unexpectedly, after she seeks refuge from the blizzard inside the high school, Lucy and Jake are replaced by their idealized dancer selves, choreographed by Peter Walker. Dancer Lucy (Unity Phelan) flings herself willingly into Dancer Jake’s (Ryan Steele) arms. He lifts her into the same multiple leap sequence and dip practiced by the high schoolers, this time performed smoothly and expertly as the metal water fountains shoot streams into the air and the music swells. Hands clasped, they continue their romantic duet, traveling down an abandoned locker-lined hallway, pausing only briefly to diligently shut the open lockers as their arms endlessly whip overhead in excited loops. Dancer Lucy extends a leg to the side and lunges, reaching across Dancer Jake with both arms. He tenderly lifts her arm to embrace her and carefully lifts her curled form across his body, ending the phrase on his knee in a proposal. Mirroring Oklahoma’s“Dream Ballet,” they are wed as the bridal veil drops into place on her head, but their first kiss is interrupted by a younger version of the high school janitor, standing in for Jud as he roughly pulls her away. The janitor attempts the same dance phrase, except Dancer Lucy’s response is to desperately reach away with both arms taut with fear. He grabs one of her outstretched arms and she breaks away from him only to be slung across his body before she escapes to the gym, where it is snowing.
The two men fight amidst the blowing snow, pushing and kicking each other away as Dancer Lucy watches helplessly. The janitor brandishes a knife and stabs Dancer Jake, killing him, and pulls the distraught Dancer Lucy away to an unknown fate. The original Lucy and Jake slowly approach the dead man on the floor of the gym, covered in snow, having bled red scarves, and they walk away in separate directions. The modern-day janitor dispassionately sweeps up the slaughtered remains as one would collect a mess destined for the trash.
Although connections to Oklahoma! are placed throughout the film (the farm, the pigs, the staircase), it is not until the “Dream Ballet” that it becomes clear the characters of Jake and Lucy are warring aspects of the protagonist’s personality and that the film has been building to this battle, played out in dance. There is a decision that needs to be made, a life-changing decision, and the ineffable beauty of dance allows the protagonist to face his fearsome choice. Just as Oklahoma’s “Dream Ballet” helped Laurey puzzle through her decision, the “Dream Ballet” in I’m Thinking of Ending Things clicks the jigsaw pieces into place for the audience, who realizes that the protagonist of the film is actually the aging janitor. His dream of being loved or understood is lying dead at his feet. He has no other choice but to give in to the welcoming cold.
