Character Study: Scott Hastings - Film - Strictly Ballroom Written By Neleema Craig

Title: Strictly Ballroom

Character: Scott Hastings

Director: Baz Lurhmann

The film strictly ballroom directed by Baz Lurmann is a drama/comedy about peoples attitudes towards dance and other cultures. A character that makes a dramatic change is Scott Hastings. He changes from being smug and self centred to being accepting of other cultures and that other people can be successful with the help of family and friends.

Scott is a very arrogant, self centred person before he properly meets Fran. His mother Shirley has a great influence on his behaviour. "Half of the trophies in this room were won by Scott." Shirley shows Scott that is alright to be rude to people and that the world only revolves around him. In Les Kendall's dance studio, Scott is irritated by les and Shirley because they showed their disgust about Scott dancing his own steps and rebelling against Les and Shirley. This causes Scott's partner Liz start dancing with the dancing champion Ken Railings, also Scott's arch enemy. "I don't want us to end up like that drunk Ken Railings. The director shows Scott's reaction to this by using extreme close ups to show his facial expressions and mid shots to show his body language to the people around him. At the end of the scene Fran approaches Scott and asks to dance with him. This triggers the changes that Scott starts to make.

Scott changes due to Fran approaching him and asking o dance with him, "Look what you're carrying on about? You're going to wake up tomorrow and feel like a real idiot about it." Scott decides to give Fran a chance at dancing and realises that Fran can really dance. In the Fiesta scene Baz Lurmann uses the opportunity to reveal Scott. Rico confronts Scott about the kind of dancing...