Was Lenny's dance scene inspired by James Bond movies?

Was Lenny's dance scene inspired by James Bond movies? - Three Female Dancers Dancing

In Legion Season 1 Episode 6, there is this dance scene performed by Lenny (Aubrey Plaza):

This is the Goldeneye one:

And The spy who loved me:

The dance and the animations look a lot like some of the bond movies. The animation that has her body painted black or red with a different color background is really close to the bond movies.

Was this scene (especially the animation) inspired by any bond movie's openning credits?



Best Answer

I agree the dance scene looks very much like the Bond dance sequences. During my previous research I read the script of Legion is so specifically created, every detail is in there for a reason.

According to The Hollywood Reporter's interview with Aubrey Plaza:

The therapist sessions and the showdown with David aren't even Plaza's only big swings of the episode. A quarter of the way through the hour, Lennie breaks away from her office desk and embarks on a dance number set to a Bassnectar remix of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good." Lennie's silhouette dances across red and black backgrounds, before the flesh-and-blood version of the character swings through hospital rooms, shreds pillows to pieces, and eventually calmly resumes her work. Plaza says there was "a very minimal description in the script for that sequence," boiling down to a single sentence.

"It went something like: 'Lennie dances with malevolent joy — a dance of the wild things,'" she remembers. "It was something like that; I don't want to quote Noah exactly there, because I'm not sure. But it was a very descriptive sentence, and I just took that and ran with it. I came up with a mini music video in the middle of the show. I knew what the song was and I knew the sets I was going to be on, and I just worked with a choreographer and tried to let loose."

So, it is possible that Aubrey Plaza took things into her control and made the scene something out of a Bond movie dancing sequence. But it is obvious that the scene is not taken from any Bond movie.

Here is the source.

Update: She didn't know it was going to be in James Bond-style.

“I didn’t know how they were going to edit it,” she says. “I didn’t know there was going to be a James Bond-style silhouette thing either. I shot a bunch of sequences on the sets of David’s memories, and then did a dance sequence where it was just me in a green room surrounded by green screens on all sides. Our schedule was so insane, we had to fit those sequences in when we could. It wasn’t ‘One day is the dance, and then I don’t have to think about it anymore!’ It was a lingering kind of thing.”

Source from Walt's comment.




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    More answers regarding was Lenny's dance scene inspired by James Bond movies?

    Answer 2

    Actually there are A LOT of 60's & 70's British period film influences in Legion, as Noah Hawley had mentioned in early interviews -- and no doubt some of it is very James Bond inspired (Oliver Bird)---But there are other film influences also from Stephen King (It, The Shinning, Pet Sematary) to Kubric (Clockwork Orange) or even Hitchcock (The Birds = Melanie Bird) or Jules Verne (2,000 Leagues, Voyages Extraordinaries) with the idea being that Legion's reality/universe is somewhat timeless.

    The one dance scene in which Lenny "trashes" through David's memory is also in an episode that also has a flashback from Ptonomy's childhood, which is 30's-esque in aesthetic, but has a World War vibe as well, with the way the radio is used in the scene. However, the song on the radio is 99 Red Luftballoons (an anti-war protest song) from the band Nena, which was a hit and released in 1983----IMO I believe the dancing style of Lenny is a parody to Flash Dance, a 1983 film. Two songs from the film's soundtrack come to mind that would fit this scene (and character) perfectly, Imagination and Maniac.

    Links to Interviews with Some Influences or Easter Eggs Sited:

    Wikipedia (British Films, Alice in Wonderland, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, David Lynch) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_(TV_series)

    Possible Horror Film Allusions: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/watching/legion-finale-horror-movies.html?mcubz=0

    Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

    Images: Pixabay, Josh Willink, Dana Tentis, Ron Lach