Maybe I lack a special gift to fully appreciate Michael Powell and Emeric Pressbuger's "Tales of Hoffman", maybe it's all about being an opera buff or maybe there's no "maybe".
Indeed, I read some comments from opera aficionados who loved it while others experts disdained a few artistic choices and the way they interfered with the operatic vision of Offenbach... and to my defense, if I could enjoy five Powell-Pressburger offerings in a row, maybe a slight dissatisfaction was bound to happen. I didn't dislike "The Tales of Hoffman" but I wouldn't recommend it as a first movie from the Archers... and I don't know why I should feel so guilty now.
Indeed, what can you say about a movie Martin Scorsese claims to have been obsessed with ever since he discovered it as a boy? And what can you say about a movie that prompted George Romero to become a director? One additional endorsement would have turned any criticism into sheer blasphemy. Yes, it seems like "Tales of Hoffman" should be embraced by anyone who's sensitive enough about the art of film-making, or plain art.
Again, I don't think any film should be immune to criticism no matter how good its intentions are and this one had its share of decriers in Pauline Kael who said that the film confused décor with art, and Bowsley Crother (from the New York Times) who criticized the lack of warmth and fire compared to its obvious alter-ego "The Red Shoes". I'm not trying to corner this film in a sort of in-between status where both admirers and detractors would be right, but I do believe there's a general truth that can be said about Powell and Pressburger's film: it is visually breathtaking. But does that say much?
Calling it a Technicolor masterpiece is an understatement, the restoration proceeded from three original negatives made the film look as modern and lavish as if it was made ten years ago. And the set-design and scenery are magnificent to look at. But then again, I saw the same level of perfectionism in the choices of color, clothes, patterns and ornaments displayed in "The Red Shoes" or "A Matter of Life and Death". The trick with the painted stairs in the first "Olympia" segment was irresistibly clever but could it beat the legendary 'stairway to heaven'?
The problem with "The Tales of Hoffman" lies in its premise, perfectly summed up by number one fan Marty: "The Red Shoes" was filled with music and opera, this film IS music and opera. So what we've got here is the iconic ballet sequence from "The Red Shoes" stretched for two hours, spanning over three segments where Hoffman (Robert Rounseville, one of the only singers AND dancers) tells the three adventures during which he met various love interests to a crowd of wine-drinking listeners in some tavern. The film is opera from beginning to end.
Speaking of the end, I was slightly confused when Moira Shearer made a last entrance, I didn't know she was the ballerina from the interlude so I was a bit confused. But let's get back to the film, I guess in order to enjoy "The Tales of Hoffman", you've got to wonder for how long you can sustain songs and dancing. The answer is simple. If these are the kind of parts you tend to skip in a movie, this is not for you. This is why, if I had to stick to my guns, I should consider my review of "An American in Paris" where I dismissed the musical climax as too much a distraction from a plot, but the situation is different here, the "plot" is in the music?
I think "Tales of Hoffman" had better design and cinematography than Minnelli's Best Picture winner but it might have been too heavy handed in its ambitions to make music a cinematically viable language. That it inspired many film-makers is no surprise, this is a film I would study myself if I wished to become one, and there's so much to learn in the use of music, décor and lighting, how the movement of the body can match the lyrics of the melody but even with that in mind, the problem with opera is that it doesn't speak the same language than cinema.
Cinema can be silent in the sense that we understand what goes within the characters in one expression or a written text, we can be missing a few bits of information but we follow the pace of the action in the same rhythm. Opera has a rhythm of its own and it's meant as a spectacle, it takes twice of thrice more time to get us one information or a point that we would easily get to without music. In "The Tales of Hoffman" do, but the escapist value of Opera is overplayed at the expanses of the traditional dynamics of storytelling, so the film doesn't feel much a movie but one big gigantic musical interlude. And I disliked "What's Opera, Doc?" for the same reason.
That said, I really enjoyed the automaton part, which was the closest part to a story in the film and a legitimate plot, maybe it was the dazzling yellowish color, maybe the way puppets were turned into real dancers or vice versa or the whole creativeness involved in that segment, or maybe the simple presence of Moira Shearer... or even here, there's no "maybe".
After that sequence, nothing could match that feeling. The "Moon" theme which was used in "Life is beautiful" does convey a few waves of poetry but I was expecting something that goes far beyond the level of visual enjoyment.
The film is a good Archers' production, but not the bull's-eye from the opening!
Indeed, I read some comments from opera aficionados who loved it while others experts disdained a few artistic choices and the way they interfered with the operatic vision of Offenbach... and to my defense, if I could enjoy five Powell-Pressburger offerings in a row, maybe a slight dissatisfaction was bound to happen. I didn't dislike "The Tales of Hoffman" but I wouldn't recommend it as a first movie from the Archers... and I don't know why I should feel so guilty now.
Indeed, what can you say about a movie Martin Scorsese claims to have been obsessed with ever since he discovered it as a boy? And what can you say about a movie that prompted George Romero to become a director? One additional endorsement would have turned any criticism into sheer blasphemy. Yes, it seems like "Tales of Hoffman" should be embraced by anyone who's sensitive enough about the art of film-making, or plain art.
Again, I don't think any film should be immune to criticism no matter how good its intentions are and this one had its share of decriers in Pauline Kael who said that the film confused décor with art, and Bowsley Crother (from the New York Times) who criticized the lack of warmth and fire compared to its obvious alter-ego "The Red Shoes". I'm not trying to corner this film in a sort of in-between status where both admirers and detractors would be right, but I do believe there's a general truth that can be said about Powell and Pressburger's film: it is visually breathtaking. But does that say much?
Calling it a Technicolor masterpiece is an understatement, the restoration proceeded from three original negatives made the film look as modern and lavish as if it was made ten years ago. And the set-design and scenery are magnificent to look at. But then again, I saw the same level of perfectionism in the choices of color, clothes, patterns and ornaments displayed in "The Red Shoes" or "A Matter of Life and Death". The trick with the painted stairs in the first "Olympia" segment was irresistibly clever but could it beat the legendary 'stairway to heaven'?
The problem with "The Tales of Hoffman" lies in its premise, perfectly summed up by number one fan Marty: "The Red Shoes" was filled with music and opera, this film IS music and opera. So what we've got here is the iconic ballet sequence from "The Red Shoes" stretched for two hours, spanning over three segments where Hoffman (Robert Rounseville, one of the only singers AND dancers) tells the three adventures during which he met various love interests to a crowd of wine-drinking listeners in some tavern. The film is opera from beginning to end.
Speaking of the end, I was slightly confused when Moira Shearer made a last entrance, I didn't know she was the ballerina from the interlude so I was a bit confused. But let's get back to the film, I guess in order to enjoy "The Tales of Hoffman", you've got to wonder for how long you can sustain songs and dancing. The answer is simple. If these are the kind of parts you tend to skip in a movie, this is not for you. This is why, if I had to stick to my guns, I should consider my review of "An American in Paris" where I dismissed the musical climax as too much a distraction from a plot, but the situation is different here, the "plot" is in the music?
I think "Tales of Hoffman" had better design and cinematography than Minnelli's Best Picture winner but it might have been too heavy handed in its ambitions to make music a cinematically viable language. That it inspired many film-makers is no surprise, this is a film I would study myself if I wished to become one, and there's so much to learn in the use of music, décor and lighting, how the movement of the body can match the lyrics of the melody but even with that in mind, the problem with opera is that it doesn't speak the same language than cinema.
Cinema can be silent in the sense that we understand what goes within the characters in one expression or a written text, we can be missing a few bits of information but we follow the pace of the action in the same rhythm. Opera has a rhythm of its own and it's meant as a spectacle, it takes twice of thrice more time to get us one information or a point that we would easily get to without music. In "The Tales of Hoffman" do, but the escapist value of Opera is overplayed at the expanses of the traditional dynamics of storytelling, so the film doesn't feel much a movie but one big gigantic musical interlude. And I disliked "What's Opera, Doc?" for the same reason.
That said, I really enjoyed the automaton part, which was the closest part to a story in the film and a legitimate plot, maybe it was the dazzling yellowish color, maybe the way puppets were turned into real dancers or vice versa or the whole creativeness involved in that segment, or maybe the simple presence of Moira Shearer... or even here, there's no "maybe".
After that sequence, nothing could match that feeling. The "Moon" theme which was used in "Life is beautiful" does convey a few waves of poetry but I was expecting something that goes far beyond the level of visual enjoyment.
The film is a good Archers' production, but not the bull's-eye from the opening!