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The term ‘filmed opera’ in no way describes this phantasmagoria. Powell & Pressburger re-envisions the Offenbach work with dance sequences refracted through a cinematic prism. It’s high art made for the movies, without the condescenscion seen in Disney’s Fantasia. The stars are Moira Shearer and Robert Helpmann. Powell perfects techniques from Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes to fuse music, theater, dance and cinema; Martin Scorsese calls it a ‘composed film.’ This full restoration reinstates footage not seen since the first previews in 1951.

The Tales of Hoffmann

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 317

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 133 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 7, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann, Ludmilla Tchérina, Anne Ayars, Pamela Brown, Léonide Massine, Frederick Ashton, Mogens Wieth, Robert Rounseville;

— And the voices of: Robert Rounseville, Monica Sinclair, Bruce Dargavel, Fisher Morgan, Rene Soames, Dorothy Bond, Grahame Clifford, Murry Dickie, Margherita Grandi, Owen Brannigan, Ann Ayars, Joan Alexander...

“Pour out the wine for drinking is divine!”

Tales Of Hoffmann (1951) screens Friday September 1st through Sunday September 3rd at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood). The movie starts each evening at 7:30pm.

This a film version of the 1881 opera by Jacques Offenbach “The Tales of Hoffmann”, however it is Not just a film of a staged performance. ‘Michael Powell’ & Emeric Pressburger work their usual magic here. The opera dramatizes the three great romances in the life of the poet-hero presented in a series of flashbacks. Hoffmann’s tales depict the struggle between human love and the artist’s dedication to his work. Hoffmann loses each of the women he loves but gains instead poetic inspiration — the ability to transform painful experiences into art.

Tales Of Hoffmann is an anthology of fantastic and romantic adventures, recounted by the fableist Hoffmann (Robert Rounseville) and featuring Moira Shearer (The Red Shoes), Ludmilla Tchérina,...

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