I watched Billy Elliot last night. It always chokes me up, all the way through. So much so that, in a way, it's wrong to say I watched it. I had to keep going out to recover my equilibrium before coming back for more.
I think a lot of people say this about the film. I touches so many nerves. Here's a young person driven to a particular creative outlet. At first his father tries to crush the person he wants to be, much as the government is simultaneously trying to crush the miners. The father fails, the government succeeds. The father comes to see how wrong he was about his son. After all, all he ever wanted was the best for him.
Just to write about the film chokes me up... There. That's better.
The end is almost unbearably good. What struck me this time, listening to the swelling of the Tchaikovsky as Billy prepares to go on stage, was that good classical music can get you like that without you having to watch Billy Elliot.
What turns people on to classical music? One of the great things about music is that you don't have to read a handbook to make it work. All it requires is that one gives it one's full attention and keeps listening. With classical music, like reading novels, you have to stick with it, even when the going gets tough. The appreciation of classical music used to be taught at school but was ditched many years ago. And if people aren't turned on to classical music, ballet, art, etc. then there'll be no audience for the real-life Billy Elliots of this world, which would be a tragedy.
