Editing Fred Astaire (section)

====Innovations====
Astaire revolutionized dance on film by having complete autonomy over its presentation.<ref>The only other entertainer to receive this treatment at the time was [[Greta Garbo]].</ref> He is credited with two important innovations in early film musicals.<ref name="Mueller"/>{{rp|23, 26}} First, he insisted that a closely tracking dolly camera film a dance routine in as few shots as possible, typically with just four to eight cuts, while holding the dancers in full view at all times. This gave the illusion of an almost stationary camera filming an entire dance in a single shot. Astaire famously quipped: "Either the camera will dance, or I will."<ref name="Mueller"/>{{rp|420}} Astaire maintained this policy from ''The Gay Divorcee'' in 1934 until his last film musical, ''[[Finian's Rainbow (1968 film)|Finian's Rainbow]]'' in 1968, when director [[Francis Ford Coppola]] overruled him.<ref>Coppola also fired Hermes Pan from the film. cf. Mueller p. 403</ref>

Astaire's style of dance sequences allowed the viewer to follow the dancers and choreography in their entirety. This style differed strikingly from those in the [[Busby Berkeley]] musicals. Those musicals' sequences were filled with extravagant aerial shots, dozens of cuts for quick takes, and zooms on areas of the body such as a chorus row of arms or legs.<ref name="Guardian">{{cite news |last1=Mackrell |first1=Judith |title=A kaleidoscope of legs: Busby Berkeley's flamboyant dance fantasies |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/mar/23/busby-berkeley-dance-42nd-street-choreography-film-musicals|newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=March 23, 2017}}</ref>

Astaire's second innovation involved the context of the dance; he was adamant that all song and dance routines be integral to the plotlines of the film. Instead of using dance as a spectacle as Busby Berkeley did, Astaire used it to move the plot along. Typically, an Astaire picture would include at least three standard dances. One would be a solo performance by Astaire, which he termed his "sock solo". Another would be a partnered comedy dance routine. Finally, he would include a partnered romantic dance routine.<ref name="Eiss">{{cite book |last1=Eiss |first1=Harry |title=The Mythology of Dance |date=September 18, 2013 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=9781443852883 |page=213}}. While it would appear the passage in Wikipedia is a plagiarism of the book, the book's publication came AFTER the Wikipedia entry. It would appear the book plagiarized Wikipedia. The author is a full professor at U Michigan and the publisher is Cambridge, so it still is a reliable source.</ref>