Ballets Russes
by Daniel Geller, Dayna Goldfine
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Actor: Alan Howard, Frederic Franklin, Irina Baronova, Yvonne Chouteau, Yvonne CraigDirector: Daniel Geller, Dayna Goldfine
Brand: Zeitgeist Films
Producer: Daniel Geller
Writer: Daniel Geller
Writer: Dayna Goldfine
Producer: Celeste Schaefer Snyder
Writer: Celeste Schaefer Snyder
Writer: Gary Weimberg
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-09-12
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Zeitgeist Films
DVD Reviews of Ballets Russes
DVD Review: The history of the companies calling themselves Ballet Russe after Diaghilev died in 1929
Summary: 5 Stars
The Ballet Russe of Serge Diaghilev. Alexandre Benois, Leon Bakst, and many others is important to many lovers of the arts. For me, as a classical musician, it was vital because of the start it gave Igor Stravinsky, and the famous pieces from Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Poulenc, Prokofiev, and so many others. For designers, the sets and designs by Benois, Bakst, Picasso, Braque, Dali, and others are still studied and widely admired. For dancers, this legendary dance company had some of the greatest dancers: Nijinsky, Fokine, Ida Rubenstien, Pavlova, Karsavina, and many others. However, this film is NOT about this company. While it refers to this company, it does so only briefly and quite superficially. This movie is about those companies that were formed out of the original Ballets Russes when Diaghilev died at 57 in 1929.
In 1932, Renee Blum and Colonel Vassily de Basil picked up the sets and pieces of the Ballet Russe, which had stopped performing in 1929, and formed a new company they called the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. This movie is the story of the forming of this company, its choreographers, dancers, and its division into two competing companies.
When the new company was first formed, its dances were done by Balanchine, but after one year he was replaced by Leonid Massine who created a vast body of high quality works for the company. Blum quit the partnership with de Basil in 1936. In 1938. Massine wanted his own company and he and de Basil reached a compromise where Massine would keep the name Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and de Basil's company would be called "The Original Ballet Russe" and kept Massine's dances. Massine's new backer was Serge Denham who kept the company going at various artistic levels until it stopped performing in 1962.
How all this is told in the movie is fascinating, especially with the vignettes told by of all the dancers. They are all amazing characters. While some of them began dancing in the troupe as 14 and 15 year olds, many are still staying involved with the stage in various ways.
What is also fascinating about this film is that so many of the original dancers are still alive in their eighties and nineties! There was a reunion of those living and healthy enough to make the trip in 2000 (several have since died) and they were interviewed about their work with the various incarnations of the Ballet Russe, the choreographers, impresarios, tours, their own careers, and what they remember about the other dancers.
Some of them even had careers in Hollywood during the 1940s, both companies fleeing to America during World War II. Sol Hurok was the impresario in North America during the war years and afterwards. He and de Basil had a falling out (de Basil was quite a difficult man) and his company ended up touring South and Central America and Australia while the Massine company became an American troupe and began hiring American dancers, even if they fancied up their names to sound Russian. "The Original Ballet Russe" of de Basil ended with his death in 1952.
A fascinating movie for those interested in this artistic form and its history. There is a great deal of archival footage and pictures that are all the more amazing when put into context by the dancers still living when the film was made.
One of the realities that will come to you as you see the lives these great dancers lived off stage is that artists usually have to draw their satisfactions from their art. They certainly didn't get rich from the stage and their lives afterwards weren't all that easy either. At least that is how it looks to me when I see how they live, the kinds of cars they drive, and so forth. I am sure some lived well, but certainly not all.
Description of Ballets Russes
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