Movie Monday: The Tales of Hoffmann

This week's movie is the 1951 British adaptation of the opera The Tales of Hoffmann!

After wallowing in grade-Z movies (which are, I have to admit, my favorites) the last two weeks, I thought it'd be nice to end the year of Movie Mondays with a touch of class. So thanks to a suggestion from my friend Joseph Brian Scott on Facebook, I'm taking a look at The Tales of Hoffman, directed by none other than the classic team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger:

Now, up front I have to admit, I am not a fan of opera or the ballet. Its not that that I haven't been exposed to it; growing up I overheard a lot of opera thanks to my parents, who listened to it fairly regularly. I didn't get it then, and I really don't get it now. But the team of Powell and Pressburger are simply too good to pass up, so I was determined to pressburger on:

The Tales of Hoffmann is based on Jules Offenbach's opera Les contes d'Hoffmann, and is not merely a filmed recording of a live production. No, this film is an all-original recreation of the opera done before movie cameras, and taking advantage of all the benefits that cinema can bring.

Set during the interval of a ballet (starring a dancer named Stella, played by Moira Shearer), The Tales of Hoffman features a young man named Hoffman (Robert Rounseville) in a tavern telling three stories of lost love, each segment featuring the same actors playing different roles.

The film opens with a dance sequence from the ballet, and I have to say I was a startled by the sensuality on display, not to mention the sheer beauty of the dance:

Right off the bat, we see that the visual poetry that was Powell-Pressburger's stock-in-trade is in place here: this film is simply gorgeous to look at, even via the generally muddied, fuzzy copy I had available to me.

Hoffmann begins telling his tales of woe, and instead of trying to analyze what I was watching (I wouldn't begin to presume I could accurately explain what goes on during an opera, any opera), I'm simply going to present some stills from the film, to give you an idea how compelling this film on a purely visual level:

Each story is loosely color "coded"; the first segment is mostly in yellows, the second in reds, the third in blues, with the theme of an artist's struggle between love and dedication to his work prevalent throughout (Mea culpa: I learned most of this though reading about the movie online, not from the film itself. Like I said, I don't "get" opera).

The film ends by pulling out and showing us the conductor instructing his orchestra on the final theme. After completing it, he puts his baton down, and closes his book:

...with a hand coming in and stamping the film "Made in England", The Tales of Hoffmann comes to an end.


I may not have really "gotten" The Tales of Hoffmann, in that I only half understood what was going on at any given moment, but I guess that wasn't completely necessary--its more about how it makes you feel and react to what you're seeing. On that score, The Tales of Hoffmann is a masterpiece--its simply one of the most beautifully constructed movies I've ever seen, flawlessly executed on virtually every level. And that's saying something when you're talking about the work of Powell-Pressburger, who I don't think ever made a bad film.

While this film isn't all that well known nowadays, it certainly had an influence. George Romero--George Romero!--said this about The Tales of Hoffmann for a 2002 Sight & Sound poll: "This is one notch out of alphabetical order, but I decided to give it the status of last position because it's my favourite film of all time; the movie that made me want to make movies."

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