The Tales of Hoffmann (film)
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| The Tales of Hoffmann | |
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 DVD Cover |
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| Directed by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Produced by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Written by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Starring | Robert Rounseville Moira Shearer Ludmilla Tchérina Robert Helpmann |
| Music by | Jacques Offenbach |
| Cinematography | Christopher Challis |
| Editing by | Reginald Mills |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films |
| Release date(s) | April 4, 1951 U.S.A. May 17, 1951 |
| Running time | 128 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
- This article is about the film. For the opera see Les contes d'Hoffmann.
The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) is a British film adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's opera Les contes d'Hoffmann, made by the filmmakers Powell & Pressburger.
In a tavern in Nuremberg, the young Hoffmann (Robert Rounseville) tells three stories of past loves (played by Moira Shearer, Ludmilla Tchérina, and Anne Ayars). He recounts the stories during the interval of a ballet, which stars his new love Stella (also played by Shearer). Ballet dancers Léonide Massine and Robert Helpmann have roles in each story.
This is not just a film of a staged opera, but a truly filmic opera that makes use of cinematic techniques not available to a staged opera.
The production team included cinematographer Christopher Challis, Sir Thomas Beecham as musical director and Hein Heckroth as production and costume designer. Heckroth was nominated for two 1952 Academy Awards.
The Tales of Hoffmann is widely regarded by many Powell-Pressburger fans as their last great film together.
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[edit] Plot
For a detailed summary on the narrative of the original Offenbach opera, see Les contes d'Hoffmann.
The film is highly faithful to the traditional adaptations of Offenbach's last opera and incorporates his unfinished score, as conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham with the thread of the plot.
There are however certain key changes made.
The tale of Antonia (Anne Ayars) was originally intended as the second tale rather than the final tale as shown in the film and also transferring the location from Munich to a Greek Island. The practice of re-ordering the structure of the opera was common in later adaptions of the Offenbach opera and was presumably made to achieve a more emotional climax as it is considerably more tragic than the earlier two tales although the setting generally remained unchanged.
The other change comes in the Tale of Giuletta (Ludmilla Tchérina) where she dies accidentally after taking poison intended for Nicklaus while here she is shown to betray and manipulate Hoffmann out of his soul only for him to recapture it at the end of the tale.
The most crucial change made by the Archers is shortening the role of Nicklaus (Pamela Brown) who in the original play serves as Hoffmann's muse for his writings and tries to (in the end successfully) convince him to reconcile his broken heart in his writings. Here, her importance as his 'muse' is never explicitly revealed and she serves as some sort of conscience or comrade who watches ruefully as Hoffmann is disappointed and disillusioned again and again. This change makes the ending considerably bleaker than the original cathartic finale as the spectre of evil (Robert Helpmann) succeeds in stealing away Stella (Moira Shearer) while Hoffmann drowns himself in alcoholic despair.
[edit] Production
The Tales of Hoffmann was not a well liked film both before and after its production. Alexander Korda who was often sympathetic of the duo's earlier movies was skeptical about this film and went as far as to slash nine minutes of the original cut(which was subsequently restored). The cut scenes included portions of the Dragonfly ballet performed by Stella in the prologue under Lindorf's lustful gazes.
In the later years of their partnership, Powell began toying with what he had called, 'a composed film'. A marriage of image to operatic sounds. The finale of Black Narcissus and the celebrated 'ballet' sequence of The Red Shoes were his earlier forays to achieve this goal. The Tales of Hoffmann is an achievement of this ideal as the entire soundtrack was pre-recorded and sung and the movie was edited to the rhythms of the music. The production of the film was akin to that of a silent film as it is completely without dialogue and with the exception of Robert Rounseville and Ann Ayars none of the actors did their own singing. The acting (especially by Helpmann) is highly stylized and similar to the silent film acting. Because of the unusual production, George A. Romero, who is one of the film's greatest champions, has likened it to a music video and he even compares Helpmann's characters as similar in both performance and characterization to Dracula.
The film is also highly regarded for its production design and cinematography. Each tale is marked by its own individual primary colour denoting each of its repective themes. 'The Tale of Olympia', set in Paris has yellow contours highlighting the farcical nature and tone of the first act. 'The Tale of Giuletta' set is a hellish depiction of Venice and dark colours, especially red are used. The final tale set in Greece uses different shades of blue, alluding to its sad nature. The set design is deliberately made out to look artificial and the sets are similarly stylized. In the opening scene of the 'Tale of Giuletta' where Giuletta performs 'Bacarole' (the most famous theme of the opera) is done on a gondola that moves through deliberately artificial Venetian canals and the gondola does not seem to move on water.
[edit] Response
- "For the first time in my life I was treated to Grand Opera where the beauty, power and scope of the music was equally matched by the visual presentation." — Cecil B. DeMille, in a letter to Powell and Pressburger [1]
- "This is one notch out of alphabetical order, but I decided to give it the status of last position because it's my favourite film of all time; the movie that made me want to make movies." — George A. Romero, while explaining the list he submitted for the 2002 Sight and Sound poll. [2]
[edit] Literature
- Monk Gibbon (1951). The Tales of Hoffmann: A Study of the Film. London: Saturn Press, 96pp (illus).
- Ian Christie (1985). Arrows of Desire: the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Faber & Faber, 163pp (illus. filmog. bibliog. index.). ISBN 0-571-16271-1.
[edit] External links
- The Tales of Hoffmann at the Internet Movie Database
- The Tales of Hoffmann reviews and articles at the Powell & Pressburger Pages
- Criterion Collection essay by Ian Christie
- The Tales of Hoffmann at the BFI's Screenonline. Full synopsis and film stills (and clips viewable from UK libraries).
 |
Powell and Pressburger The films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger |
|---|---|
| 1930s | The Spy in Black | The Lion Has Wings |
| 1940s | Contraband | An Airman's Letter to His Mother | Forty-Ninth Parallel | One of Our Aircraft is Missing | The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | The Volunteer | A Canterbury Tale | I Know Where I'm Going! | A Matter of Life and Death | Black Narcissus | The Red Shoes | The Small Back Room |
| 1950s | The Elusive Pimpernel | Gone to Earth | The Tales of Hoffmann | Oh... Rosalinda!! | The Battle of the River Plate | Ill Met by Moonlight |
| 1960s | Peeping Tom (not Pressburger) | They're a Weird Mob | Age of Consent |
| 1970s | The Boy Who Turned Yellow |
