Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Flashdance... What a Feeling" in English language version.
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I was in California, working on an album and trying to find a producer. Paramount Pictures called me out of the blue and said that Giorgio Moroder, who was writing the music, needed some lyrics. I agreed to help out.
With Irene, I personally knew exactly what to do, but sometimes the artist will say, 'I want to redo it,' and you can't say, 'No, no, you can't.' The second time, I don't think she improved it that much, but the third time, especially towards the ending, she brought in more emotion and it elevated it.
At first I was not interested, because I was so busy with some other stuff. I was in the studio day and night.
But interestingly enough for the women who perform it, flashdancing constitutes a kind of non-performance. Ignoring the audience, they dance for each other and for themselves. Alex(andra) is embarrassed when her boyfriend, Nick, catches her dancing in an unguarded moment, but the ogling at Mawby's leaves her unfazed
'I never see them. You go out there, and the music starts, and you begin to feel it. And your body just starts to move. I know it sounds really silly. But something inside you just clicks, and you just take off. You're gone. It's like you're somebody else for a second.' Echoing the lyrics of the film's title song, 'Flashdance… What a Feeling,' Alex celebrates the physical liberation of the dance: 'When I hear the music, Close my eyes, feel the rhythm Wrap around, take ahold of my heart, What a feeling!'
We follow Alex to the steel mill where she works as welder. However, the film has not yet formally introduced Alex as a character. No representational communication within the film's diegesis has taken place. Communication only takes place through the sequence of images set to the song, which is personifying the images.
The song is still playing over the sequence and the interior of the mill seems to pulse with mechanical machinery to the rhythm, reflecting, in physical form, the symbolic significance of the lyrics, "In a world made of steel, made of stone".
In a sense, Alex is finally reflected in the movie as the interpreter of her own story (her song) through dancing. The song remains the same as it was in the opening sequence but the reflection of the image is defined by the physical expression of her body in dance.
From the position of the selection committee, Alex gives presence to the song as art, and therefore, they see it as non-representational. But it also signifies Alex's ability to be evaluated as a real dancer.
Because she is dancing as herself rather than as a character in a show, the song is also representational of her story for the film audience.
Alex's performance signifies 'Flashdance' as representational of her story rather than as a track exclusive to the movie and which its producers are selling to the audience.
And I said, 'Well, you know, I'm not in this movie. I'll agree to sing the theme song if I also write it.'
..."Flashdance… What A Feeling" works as powerful evidence that disco never really went away.
Little known is that Esposito recorded the original version of 'Flashdance… What a Feeling', but the song was rerecorded by Irene Cara after the producers thought the song should be sung from the female perspective.
