Ballets Russes
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Movie Reviews of Ballets Russes
Movie Review: "Let's remember the old days."
Summary: 5 Stars
Today practically every one-horse town in America has a ballet studio: One room affairs with tinkly piano music and an aging grand dame leading rows of tu-tu-clad little girls. We take it for granted, but at the beginning of the last century ballet was almost nonexistent in the US, and elsewhere in the world it was in serious danger of dying out. When two banker-types decided to restart a legendary dance troupe and give the art of ballet a new, modern face, they single-handedly resurrected the art form and changed the world of dance forever.
"Ballet Russes" documents the golden years of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and its offshoot, the Original Ballet Russe. Through wonderful archival footage and delightful interviews with surviving dancers (of which there are a surprising amount; dancing is very good for your health) we witness incredible athleticism, heartbreaking artistry, and enough drama to fill ten seasons of "Desperate Housewives".
There's the machinations of warring choreographers Massine and Balanchine (he of the "baby ballerinas"), the love affairs and feuds of the dancers ("The Russians weren't very nice to each other," recalls Fredrick Franklin, still delightfully gossipy in his eighties) and of course recollections of playing a Salvador Dali ballet in Middle America ("Strange people dressed in strange costumes doing strange things", as one dancer puts it.).
These were some spectactular-looking people, as the photos attest. Three ballerinas, now pushing ninety, get all giggly remembering the hunkiness of George Zoritch (who is still alive and looks at least twenty years younger than he is). Zoritch and his old partner Krassovaska dance out a scene from Giselle for the cameras in what has to be the documentary's most adorable moment (he later recalls Krassovaska's six week marriage to a Hollywood musician with a roll of his eyes). Every interview snippet with spitfire Tatiana Riabouchinska is also a treat. Her story of how she started taking ballet classes is hilarious ("No one said no to my Mother.").
As they toured across America, the dancers ignited the love of ballet in young people of every background. The filmakers interview Native American Maria Tallchief (who inspired me to take up ballet), as well as the company's first black ballerina, Raven Wilkinson (whose career was cut short thanks to the Klu Klux Klan). The troupe made a brief stop-off in Hollywood, where they casually cranked out a couple of films. None of them really stayed, though. Dancing was their love and their life, and even though they were treated more or less like circus animals, they all had the bug. Sixty years later, many of them tear up when they remember their time on the stage for the greatest ballet company in the world.
You don't have to be a ballet nut to enjoy this film, and you don't have to understand why a person would want to dedicate their entire life to prancing around in tights. The passion of these still-spry dancers will explain it for you. They did what they were born to do, and they had a blast doing it. We can all understand that, can't we?
GRADE: A
NOTE: Watch for my favorite moment in the film, a clip of the Rita Hayworth film, "Tonight and Every Night" with Ballet Russe dancer Marc Platt. You think Gene Kelly was the greatest dancer in film? Think again.
Movie Review: "What will I do, sell fruit? This is my life."
Summary: 5 Stars
The good news is that in Ballets Russes, viewers don't need to know anything about ballet to enjoy this electrifying documentary by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, This is a lovingly and confidently made documentary that brings to life an era of unequaled artistic excitement. Equally heart-wrenching, and riveting and thoroughly entertaining the Ballet Russes unwinds like a historical thriller, laying bare the politics, rivalries, tremendous egos, and creative appetites that produced two of the world's greatest ballet companies.
Weaving actual historical footage of the companies with interviews of these dancers today, the film starts with a first-ever reunion of Ballets Russes dancers in New Orleans in 2000, and juxtaposes this with the various permutations of the troupes that started with impresario Serge Diaghilev's legendary Paris-based Ballets Russes. When Diaghilev died in 1929, ballet came to a standstill until a pair of entrepreneurs began Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo two years later.
What follows is a beguiling journey through the intoxicating twists and turns of the next 30 years of ballet history, which involved competing companies, the legendary choreographers George Balanchine, Leonide Massine and David Lichine, and almost every major dancer you can think of, including dancers such as Alicia Markova and Alexandra Danilova. The guides through this world are the dancers themselves, many white-haired and elderly, offering up sharp and often-funny anecdotes. Some were barely in their teens at the time, from families who had lost everything in the Russian Revolution.
These men and women, many of them now in their 80s and 90s, are still totally alive and articulate, including the regal Markova, the coquettish Nathalie Krassovska, and the red-convertible driving octogenarian Tatiana Riabouchinska, who continues to teach because "what will I do, sell fruit? This is my life." These dancers, choreographers, and impresarios were shamelessly passionate in pursing their professional and personal lives, and the result is a story filled with enough backstage intrigues, romantic rivalries and unlikely assignations to make it the juiciest of artistic soap operas.
The male dancers are equally compelling, there's Frederick Franklin, who talks movingly of his nearly 20-year partnership with Danilova and also the 90-year-old Marc Platt, who had his name changed to Platoff because everyone had to seem Russian, and the vital George Zoritch, captured reliving the past with Krassovska in a moment from "Giselle." Their grainy performance clips give us an emotional quality that is not to be matched, and their interviews reflected an era of excitement, novelty, innovation, and yes, even sexiness!
The Ballets Russes is one of the best documentaries of the year, a wonderful story of a grand moment in high-art culture, the archival footage so breathtaking, and the reminiscences so piquant, that even a novice can't help being swept up in this ode to one of the world's greatest art forms. Mike Leonard February 06.
Movie Review: On Your Toes
Summary: 5 Stars
People said it was good but I wasn't prepared for how good! I wonder what the talented directors will work on next. I fell in hook, line and sinker the minute the narrator, Marian Seldes, opened her mouth I fell in. And I don't even know much about ballet, though everyone has heard something about Nijinsky and Diaghilev, which is where Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine begin their story. It's a leisurely movie and, at 110 minutes, sort of on the long side, but its expert editing makes it a ride worth considering. I'd go anywhere to see Nathaniel Dorsky's work, and maybe I'm imaging things but either he was in charge of the introduction to Nina Novak, or else the directors found another editor with the meringue-light "Dorsky touch."
Ballet must be a wonderful energizer, how else is it that so many of the film's principal characters are over 80 and apparently spry as spring chickens? I suppose that some of the principals died young, but there are no Tanaquil Le Clercq stories here, and half of the fun is seeing the people old then being flashed back to their youthful selves, so filled with manic energy, back and forth, back and forth, until one feels oscillated through time and space; by the end of the movie you feel you've known these people all your life, and the title card at the end that reveals that five of them died during the making of the picture is like a little stab in your heart. Among them, of course, was Dame Alicia Markova, the only one among them who had actually lived long enough to have served under the Diaghilev regime. The heart and soul of the picture is the happily acerbic Frederic Franklin, who puts everyone down with a charming simper. Indonesian-born Nini Theilade, so gorgeous in Max Reinhardt's A MIDSUMMERS NIGHT DREAM (1935), still looks enchanting enough to make men mad.
The clips are amazing, the supertitles unobtrusive (and yet stylish if that's not an oxymoron), perfectly chosen to make whatever point Geller and Goldfayne feel like making. I did feel they must have been simplifying one or two points in Ballet Russes chronology, but it's a tangled tale they do their best to smooth out. Time has obscured the legacy of the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo, and the movie's comical ending makes it seem as though Batgirl's leaps and jumps in the 60s TV version of Batman, and the porn films of Wakefield Poole (BOYS IN THE SAND) are the leading examples of that legacy, but anyone who has been lucky enough to see this outstanding documentary will tell a different tale. It is a grand leap of the imagination, and makes you want to photograph everyone you know, especially the aged and the very young and beautiful.
Movie Review: Brilliant and moving documentary plus an unexpected surprise
Summary: 5 Stars
This is not only an excellent history of the Ballets Russes after Diaghilev. It is also a touching meditation on the vibrancy and enthusiasm of youth as it is reflected by the mature personality as it stands at the threshold of the beyond. A number of the radiant artists who were interviewed by the highly gifted film makers, Geller and Goldfine, had passed on by the time this documentary was released. What a gift of foresight to have captured these beautiful, lively and animated artists, juices fully flowing, as they recalled the liminal era in which modern art exploded on the scene.
You only have to scan the other reviews to see with what love this film was received. Ballets Russes is a precious document of an unforgettable era in the history of art. If you are touched by these artists and want a wonderful little surprise, look at the DVD Black Tights/Bolshoi 67. Like a treat in a Cracker Jack box, this otherwise dull (to me) DVD has as an afterthought a 10 minute experimental dance film called Spring Night, choreographed by David Lichine of Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.
If you enjoyed the beautiful and unique dancing of the artists of the Ballets Russes, you will thrill to see this gem, Spring Night, danced and envisioned in the style of the Diaghilev tradition. Why this short is almost non-existent is a mystery. Once you see it, you'll achieve even greater insight into this now extinct tradition.
Another treasure from this artistic era is Max Reinhardt's Midsummer Night's Dream with Nini Theilade, a Ballets Russes star.
Black Tights & The Bolshoi Ballet
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Movie Review: B rilliant with a Big Wow Factor!
Summary: 5 Stars
My review of Gaite Parisienne states the time and place when I was lucky enough to attend live performances of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. I say "lucky enough" because the company consisted of performers that have become legends in the classical dance world. I wish I could name them all but I'll never forget Alicia Alonso, Alicia Markova, Alexandra Danilova, Leonide Massine, Frederic Franklin and Igor Youskevich for starters. This DVD brings it all back in detail. Wonderful! I remember when Alicia Alonso went back to Cuba and was never to perform in the U.S.A. again. What a loss for the world of dance. But since that time we have continued to see much of her influence in the Cuban-born dancers who have joined, and are performing with, companies such as the American Ballet Theater. Madame Alonso's school in Cuba has given the world some great male dancers, in particular, who can be compared with the greatest Russian-born dancers on an equal basis. There was a time when good male dancers were in short supply and their purpose was mainly to lend support to the ballerinas. Let me not forget the dance prodigals produced by the school that Igor Youskevich established in New York - I think on Long Island. Most of today's great dancers have been trained using the foundation learned from the Ballet Russes' legendary dancers. They showed audiences what brilliant dancing and choreography could be and left everyone wanting more.
Buy this DVD if you truly would like to learn about greatness, egos, sacrifices for the love art. And the art of dance is precisely what they brought to the world of dance and the audiences who were lucky enough to have experienced their performances.