White Nights (1985 film)

White Nights
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Taylor Hackford
Produced by	William P. Gilmore Taylor Hackford
Written by	James Goldman (story) James Goldman Eric Hughes (screenplay) Nancy Dowd (uncredited)
Starring	Mikhail Baryshnikov Gregory Hines Geraldine Page Helen Mirren Jerzy Skolimowski Isabella Rossellini
Music by	Michel Colombier
Cinematography	David Watkin
Edited by	Fredric Steinkamp William Steinkamp
Production company	Delphi IV Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release dates	November 22, 1985 (USA)
Running time	136 min.
Language	English Russian
Box office	$42,160,849

White Nights is a 1985 American drama film directed by Taylor Hackford and choreographed by Twyla Tharp and stars Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, Jerzy Skolimowski, Helen Mirren and Isabella Rossellini.^[1][2] It was shot in Finland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and Austria.

The film is notable both for the dancing of Hines and Baryshnikov and for the Academy Award winning song "Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie in 1986, as well as "Separate Lives" performed by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin and written by Stephen Bishop (also nominated).

Taylor Hackford met his future wife, Oscar Award-winning actress Helen Mirren, during the filming of White Nights.^[3]

Plot

Nikolai 'Kolya' Rodchenko (Baryshnikov) is a Soviet ballet dancer who had defected from the Soviet Union. The plane carrying him to a next performance in Tokyo has to make a forced landing in Siberia, and he is recognized by KGB officer Colonel Chaiko (Jerzy Skolimowski). Chaiko then contacts African-American tap dancer, Raymond Greenwood (Hines), who has defected to the Soviet Union, and gets them both to Leningrad. Chaiko wants Rodchenko to dance at the season's opening night at the Kirov, and Greenwood to babysit Rodchenko. To convince Rodchenko, Chaiko uses Galina Ivanova (Mirren), a former ballerina who never left the Soviet Union and is an old flame of Rodchenko. After an initial period of racial and artistic friction, the two dancers (and defectors in opposite directions) become strong friends. When Raymond finds that his wife Darya Greenwood (Rossellini) is pregnant, he decides he doesn't want his son to grow up in the Soviet Union, and together with Rodchenko they plan an escape, with the help from Galina, who still has feelings for Rodchenko. While the escape plan is going on, Raymond chooses to stay behind to delay Chaiko, gaining time for Nikolai and Darya to get to the American Consulate at Leningrad. Even though Raymond is incarcerated when the whole plan is revealed, he is finally traded by the Soviets for a political prisoner from America, and reunites with his wife and Nikolai.

Production

The opening ballet sequence, Le Jeune Homme et La Mort, originally choreographed by Roland Petit in 1946 and performed anew by Baryshnikov and Faure, was filmed at the Bristol Hippodrome. The gentleman paging the curtain for Baryshnikov is John Randall, the theatre's technical director at the time. The following backstage scenes were filmed at the Albery Theatre in London.^[4]

For the crash sequence at the start of the movie, a rebadged Air Lingus Boeing 747 performed a touch-and-go landing at RAF Machrihanish. The actual plane crash sequence was filmed at Campbeltown Airport on the south west coast of Scotland, mainly due to its remoteness and that the runway is around 2.5 miles long.^[5] Usually, at a time when most movies would use models to crash-land an aircraft as expensive as a real 747, the production team purchased an older Boeing 707 from South America. This was converted with the famous 747 hump, a painted cockpit and a small vision slit on the original cockpit, so the stunt pilots could perform the live action crash-landing.

Due to the size differences, forced perspective was used to give the impression of a larger aircraft and short actors used in a short sequence where a vehicle is almost hit.

The film contains an early-career performance by Maryam d'Abo, later to star as a Bond girl in the James Bond film The Living Daylights.

In 1985, many western cold war movies supposedly set in Russia would use locations in the Finnish capital Helsinki with an architectural style resembling Leningrad. For White Nights, a team of travelogue filmmakers from Finland, who previously had done work in the Soviet Union, were hired to film a number of locations in Leningrad, such as the Kirov Theatre and the Lenin monument, as well as a Chaika state-limousine. These scenes were then inserted into the movie, some being in-car scenes. Hackford was disappointed with critics who wrote negative reviews based on their belief that Helsinki had been used once more, but at the same time, he couldn't correct them and thereby damage the reputation of the Finnish travelogue company and their chances of further work inside the Soviet Union.^[6] A part of the movie was filmed at the Finnish island of Reposaari.^[7]

Cast

Mikhail Baryshnikov as Nikolai 'Kolya' Rodchenko

Gregory Hines as Raymond Greenwood

Jerzy Skolimowski as Colonel Chaiko

Helen Mirren as Galina Ivanova

Geraldine Page as Anne Wyatt

Isabella Rossellini as Darya Greenwood

John Glover as Wynn Scott

Stefan Gryff as Captain Kirigin

William Hootkins as Chuck Malarek

Shane Rimmer as Ambassador Larry Smith

Marc Sinden as Charles

Josephine Buchan as Caroline

Maryam d'Abo as French Girlfriend

Daniel Benzali as Dr. Asher

Florence Faure as Ballerina (Death)^[8]

Reception

White Nights received mixed reviews from critics, as it currently holds a 42% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the film was a commercial success at the box office, grossing over $42 million in the United States.

See also

• White Nights (soundtrack)

References

External links

• White Nights at the Internet Movie Database
• White Nights at the TCM Movie Database
• White Nights at Rotten Tomatoes
• White Nights at Box Office Mojo