Degas and The Dancer

It's amazing how the booby complex affects us all, when the older sibling hates the younger sibling and the parent forced into an ugly situation and the situation eventually falls into an abyss to that life is like a living hell.

I recently watched a movie on Edgar Degas, called Degas and the Dancer. Edgar was very emotional about his art and is asked to do illustrations for a publisher for money (commissioned). He, however, enjoys watching the ballet class for his pastel and oil paintings, and is scorned for painting the "opera brats" in the ballet. He primarily focuses on drawing the one that is constantly tripping and messing up in front of class, while her older sister smirks at her.

Meanwhile the mother is in an unfortunate situation with little money and is forced to take one of her two daughters out of ballet class. She takes the younger one out because she needs to help out at the home and the older sister takes ballet to gain a living as a dancer.

When Degas comes to the ballet class to sketch the younger sister, he is surprised not to see her there. He watches her in the window, dancing beautifully alone. But she remembers how she can't take ballet anymore and stops. Degas is amazed.

He goes over to her mother's house to ask if she could be his model, and then he'd give her enough money to allow her daughter to take dance lessons again. When the older sister hears that her younger sibling is going back to dance, she gives the younger sibling a glare that says everything: "I hate you".

Degas and the younger sister learn together from each other about people. Degas teaches the younger sibling after she collapses of the feeling of being hopeless that she has to take criticism to become a better dancer. But after being told he was a horrible artist with a bad attitude in the newspaper plus blowing off the commissioned illustrations, he falls apart. The younger sister tells him that ignoring criticism is important to your confidence too.

They both grow better, with the younger sister being considered for the play, and Degas' growing confidence. But they still both have their nemesis that will do anything to tear them down.

I found this movie very revealing about the family relationship. When one monster is in the house, all are affected. A financial situation causes even more damage. The older sibling wanted all the attention, and the mother couldn't handle the situation.

The artist also learned that he has to learn to ignore comments meant to tear him down.

I think this movie has a very good moral and teaches us about how there will always be monsters in the world that we must learn to deal with.