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The Tales of Hoffmann

The Tales of Hoffmann

Watching “The Tales of Hoffmann,” screening in glorious vastness at Cinerama this week, feels like walking through a Technicolor field of poppies; you’re happily immersed in it and often a bit lost within, eventually emerging a bit dazed and dazzled by the experience. The film, originally released in 1951 and now back in theaters thanks to a lovely new restoration, is from that great filmmaking team known as the Archers. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, an Englishman and a Hungarian, teamed up in the 1940s to make a series of vivid and unique films, among them “Black Narcissus,” “I Know Where I’m Going!,” “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” and their gossamer ballet masterpiece, “The Red Shoes.”

“The Tales of Hoffmann” was one of many bold experiments by the Archers: in this case, to film an opera using (mostly) dancers in the leading roles, with prerecorded singers and orchestral score. (The conductor, briefly seen late in the film, was Sir Thomas Beecham — music director of the Seattle Symphony for several years in the 1940s.) In the Jacques Offenbach opera they chose, a storyteller (played and sung by tenor Robert Rounseville), in love with a ballerina (Moira Shearer, the heaven-sent heroine of “The Red Shoes”), gathers an audience at a tavern to hear “my three tales of the folly of love.”

And off we go, on a fantastic voyage to Paris, Venice and a Greek island — all within the walls of a studio, where Powell and Pressburger made their magic. Never mind the stories: you watch this film for the swirling music (particularly the instantly recognized, gently swaying “Barcarolle”); the dancing camera; the paintbox hues of emerald green, velvety purple, primrose yellow; the mad passion for art that colors every shot. In one scene, ballerina Ludmilla Tcherina poses in arabesque, and you think of a dewdrop hanging from a leaf — something that you know can’t stay forever, but whose beauty seems perfect, and unending, in the moment.

“Tales of Hoffmann” ends with a moving, never-before-released epilogue (found by the restorers) in which the dancer/singer duos emerge, seemingly from the wings of a stage, and bow to us and to each other; each acknowledging the other half of their performance. Most if not all of these performers have since died; here, they live on.

— Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times

The Tales of Hoffmann

Fri November 20, 2015, 7:30 only, Muenzinger Auditorium

UK, 1951, English, Color, 128 min, 1.37:1,NR, DP

recommend

Tickets

10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission. $7 w/UCB student ID, $7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.

Parking

Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.

RTD Bus

Park elsewhere and catch the HOP to campus

International Film Series

(Originally called The University Film Commission)
Established 1941 by James Sandoe.

First Person Cinema

(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.

C.U. Film Program

(AKA The Rocky Mountain Film Center)
First offered degrees in filmmaking and critical studies in 1989 under the guidance of Virgil Grillo.

Celebrating Stan

Created by Suranjan Ganguly in 2003.

C.U. Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

Established 2017 by Chair Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz.

Thank you, sponsors!
Boulder International Film Festival
Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

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