For the ballet fan, this is a brilliant movie. It's likely the first ballet movie to give the viewer an authentic sense of what ballet is really like behind the scenes, day-by-day, in a performing company. In this case, the company is the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, whose dancers participated in the picture. The movie is magnificently produced, filmed, and performed, and the Joffrey gains from it the best of all possible advertisements.
Neve Campbell, the film's star, had been a professional ballet dancer, who gave up dancing because the last of a long series of injuries coincided with an acting opportunity. Eventually, the acting took over her career. Her contributions to the picture are staggering to contemplate. Briefly (and over-simplified), she conceived it, wrote the story, sold the idea, nursed it through a three-year gestation period, spent long months of eight-and-a-half-hour days dancing herself back into performing shape, and more long months performing, as both the film's dramatic and ballet star (she did all of her own dance scenes). Her acting and her dancing in "The Company" are equally superb.
The dance sequences are sensationally good and sensationally well filmed. Perhaps the best of a most memorable lot is Campbell's (and partner's) performance of "My Funny Valentine" in an outdoor Chicago venue as a summer storm rolls in, lending its thunder, lightning, and rain accompaniment to the Lar Lubovitch choreography.
The audience for the movie may be rather narrow, because the film is all about ballet, and a ballet company, and the way those associated with that company lead their lives; in many cases, in a state of near poverty (Campbell's character has a second job as a waitress to help pay the rent), which is tolerable in exchange for the opportunity to dance. "The Company" has the flavor of a somewhat fleshed-out documentary because its focus on dance and the culture and ambience of dancers' lives does not permit an elaborate problem-solution or beginning-middle-end story line. But for fans of ballet, it is the best ballet movie ever made. There is nothing phony or artificial or sentimental about it. The message is simply: this is the way it is in the ballet world.
But it is beautifully cast and wonderfully acted in those segments where there is the opportunity for acting. Malcolm McDowell, as the company's artistic director is splendid. James Franco, as Campbell's love interest of the moment, is as completely a beautiful person as she. And Campbell is heroic in any dimension one cares to name. One measure of that: when the film concluded its shooting, Gerald Arpino, the real artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet, offered Campbell a real job as a Joffrey dancer.
Neve Campbell, the film's star, had been a professional ballet dancer, who gave up dancing because the last of a long series of injuries coincided with an acting opportunity. Eventually, the acting took over her career. Her contributions to the picture are staggering to contemplate. Briefly (and over-simplified), she conceived it, wrote the story, sold the idea, nursed it through a three-year gestation period, spent long months of eight-and-a-half-hour days dancing herself back into performing shape, and more long months performing, as both the film's dramatic and ballet star (she did all of her own dance scenes). Her acting and her dancing in "The Company" are equally superb.
The dance sequences are sensationally good and sensationally well filmed. Perhaps the best of a most memorable lot is Campbell's (and partner's) performance of "My Funny Valentine" in an outdoor Chicago venue as a summer storm rolls in, lending its thunder, lightning, and rain accompaniment to the Lar Lubovitch choreography.
The audience for the movie may be rather narrow, because the film is all about ballet, and a ballet company, and the way those associated with that company lead their lives; in many cases, in a state of near poverty (Campbell's character has a second job as a waitress to help pay the rent), which is tolerable in exchange for the opportunity to dance. "The Company" has the flavor of a somewhat fleshed-out documentary because its focus on dance and the culture and ambience of dancers' lives does not permit an elaborate problem-solution or beginning-middle-end story line. But for fans of ballet, it is the best ballet movie ever made. There is nothing phony or artificial or sentimental about it. The message is simply: this is the way it is in the ballet world.
But it is beautifully cast and wonderfully acted in those segments where there is the opportunity for acting. Malcolm McDowell, as the company's artistic director is splendid. James Franco, as Campbell's love interest of the moment, is as completely a beautiful person as she. And Campbell is heroic in any dimension one cares to name. One measure of that: when the film concluded its shooting, Gerald Arpino, the real artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet, offered Campbell a real job as a Joffrey dancer.
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