{"id":5395,"date":"2015-03-19T11:16:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T10:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=5395"},"modified":"2015-03-19T11:24:44","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T10:24:44","slug":"the-tales-of-hoffmann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2015\/03\/19\/the-tales-of-hoffmann\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tales of Hoffmann"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Tales of Hoffmann<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> DVD + Blu-ray

\nDate:<\/B> 23 March 2015

\nDistributor:<\/B> Studiocanal

\nDirectors:<\/B> Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

\nWriters:<\/B> Dennis Arundell, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

\nBased on the French libretto for Jacques Offenbach\u2019s opera by:<\/B> Jules Barbier<\/i>

\nBased on the stories by:<\/B> E.T.A. Hoffmann<\/i>

\nCast: <\/B>Moira Shearer, Robert Rounseville, Ludmilla Tchérina

\nUK 1951

\n138 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger\u2019s 1951 film of Jacques Offenbach\u2019s opera The Tales of Hoffmann<\/i> \u2013 newly restored to its full 138-minute glory, including a delightful curtain call for all the performers as seen through the film\u2019s magic spectacles \u2013 is eternally astonishing. That such a gorgeous, daffy, erotic, demented Technicolor pageant could emerge from the British film industry at a time when the dominant mood was black and white, emotionally and economically austere and inclined to drab realism remains a bizarre mystery. The makers must have been aware of this because they have conductor Sir Thomas Beecham defiantly stamp \u2018made in England\u2019 in gilt over the end title.<\/p>\n

Mounted in the afterglow of the success of The Red Shoes<\/i>, partly to find another showcase for red-headed ballerina Moira Shearer, Hoffmann<\/i> is an entirely stage-bound fantasy based on an 1881 opera (which Offenbach didn\u2019t live to see performed) based on a play based on the stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). By default, it\u2019s a key horror anthology and an early instance of metatextually incorporating an author into his own world by mixing up his fantasies and his life. Offenbach and librettist Jules Barbier tease the historical Hoffmann by making him the fall guy of his own biography: the poet (Robert Rounseville) falls in love with a robot, is seduced by a Satanic harlot, can\u2019t save a doomed singer and gets so drunk on his own storytelling that he lets the love of his life fall into the clutches of his shapeshifting arch-enemy Councillor Lindorf (Robert Helpmann). With highly stylised sets that play tricks with the eye and non-stop music, it has the feel of a Cabinet of Dr Caligari<\/i><\/a> in colour and sound\u2026 and similarly slips between levels of reality in the telling of these tales.<\/p>\n

The plot has Hoffmann passing the time before an assignation with Stella (Shearer), the ballerina he loves, in a Nuremberg beerhall where he entertains boozers with episodes from his own life (\u2018Olympia\u2019, \u2018Giulietta\u2019,\u2019 Antonia\u2019), which are actually versions of his most famous stories (\u2018The Sandman\u2019, \u2018The Lost Reflection\u2019 and \u2018Rath Krespel\u2019) and find him involved with women in Paris, Venice and a Greek Island. Hoffmann was one of the first great horror writers, and these stories influenced Mary Shelley, Poe (a lot), Sheridan Le Fanu and others. Each of these tales stands at the head of a sub-genre \u2013 lifelike doll\/mad scientist, soul-selling pact with the Devil, Usher-like recurring family tragedy \u2013 and showcases a beguiling, yet strange woman. In the prologue, Shearer\u2019s Stella dances in an insect costume tighter and more revealing than any female superhero has ever dared\u2026 but her role as Olympia, the life-size wind-up doll Hoffmann sees as real through magic specs, is one of the cinema\u2019s great inhumans, along with Brigitte Helm in Metropolis<\/i><\/a> and Boris Karloff in Frankenstein<\/i>. Dancing and singing with impossible virtuosity, until she runs down and has to be wound up, Olympia is an unresponsive love object \u2013 she may not be real but the feelings she inspires are. At the climax of her dance (the aria is \u2018Les oiseaux dans la charmille\u2019, also known as \u2018The Doll Song\u2019), as her creators argue over her, she literally comes apart\u2026 that blinking severed head sprouting copper springs is a nightmare punchline for a joke that Powell takes seriously. Note the aside of \u2018half-man, half-puppet\u2019 Cochineel (Frederick Ashton) fetishising a severed hand.<\/p>\n

In \u2018Giuletta\u2019, Hoffmann is ensnared by a courtesan (Ludmilla Tchérina) in Venice, who is collecting souls for the devilish Dappertutto (Helpmann). This story runs to an amazingly explicit orgy, a fast and peculiar duel in a gondola, the haunted Schlemil (Leonide Massine) sporting silver double eagle epaulettes, the stately yet creepy barcarolle (\u2018Belle nuit, \u00f4 nuit d\u2019amour\u2019 \u2013 the hit of the show) and the seductress\u2019s bare feet treading on the sculpted faces of damned victims. \u2018Antonia\u2019 is a precursor of the Corman<\/a>-Poe films, especially \u2018Morella\u2019 from Tales of Terror<\/i> and Tomb of Ligeia<\/i>, with a consumptive heroine (Ann Ayars) led by sinister Dr Miracle (Helpmann) to sing herself to death under the influence of her dead mother. It\u2019s a strong story, but the weakest episode because Ayars, who acts and sings, isn\u2019t as inhumanly desirable or exotically terrifying a presence as Shearer or Tcherina. Pamela Brown, in drag as Hoffmann\u2019s devoted (but slightly unhelpful) friend, is another weird, sexually confusing player, while Helpmann (who might be auditioning for a great unmade Dracula movie as the multi-faced villain), Massine (who does comedy and horror) and Ashton (funny yet poignant as broken-hearted jesters) show why dancers often make great screen performers. <\/p>\n

This is a one-off, even in the extraordinary Powell-Pressburger filmography \u2013 there\u2019s just so much<\/i> in it. Make the effort to see this on a big screen.<\/p>\n

Kim Newman<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n

Watch the trailer:<\/B><\/p>\n