Czinner's film of Ulanova's Giselle

[canbelto]

Is anyone but me frustrated at the film? I am so grateful as it preserves one of ballet's most famous interpretations, but the "cuts" really bother me. They shave off about half the ballet. Moreover, they leave out most of the crucial parts of Giselle's role. The Spessivtseva solo, the moment when Giselle meets Myrtha and has to turn like a possessed dervish, and finally the beautiful first duet with Albrecht in Act 2 when Giselle touches Albrecht for the first time. I don't know if these cuts were made to accomodate Ulanova, but they really bother me. Anyone feel the same way?

[Alexandra]

Ballet films of this time (1950s and '60s) often delete dances (the Kirov "Swan Lake" cuts the pas de trois! Its Sizova-Soloviev "Sleeping Beauty" melds the grand pas de deux (solos) with Bluebird (adagio, omitting the solos of Makarova and Panov). It's not because of any insufficiency on the part of the dancers (and certainly not Ulanova!) but because ballet films intended for general audiences emphasized the story. The assumption was that audiences would be bored/confused/or otherwise disinterested in classical dancing. (All the character dances are in that "Swan Lake.")

[Mel Johnson]

Clive Barnes once referred to Paul Czinner as a filmmaker "more czinning than czinned against."

[Cliff]

Were pre-VHS era ballet films made strictly for television? Were any shown in movie theaters?

[Alexandra]

Cliff, most of the ones I know were made as movies to be shown in movie theaters: The two Royal Ballet films (The Royal Ballet and An Evening with the Royal Ballet), the Bolshoi film discussed here, the Romeo and Juliet with Ulanova. Even later ones, such as Nureyev's "I am a Dancer" and his Don Quixote.

[Mel Johnson]

Czinner also made the 1966 Romeo and Juliet with Fonteyn and Nureyev.

[Alexandra]

There were lots of Russiain films, too. The first season I went to the ballet, a theater in Washington had a week long ballet film festival. It was winter and I had to take two buses (one of them only ran every hour). I went every night, and it was worth it!

There was a "Laurencia" (Chabukiani) and another ballet whose name I do not know, in which Chaubkiani played twins! The Lavrovsky "Romeo and Juliet," the "Swan Lake," and a "Gayaneh," I believe. The 1969 Moscow competition film was also released commercially -- and was extremely enticing then, as it was at the height of the Cold War, and the comity among artists was stunning. I still hope the Russians will release these eventually!

[carbro]

Carnegie Hall used to have a cinema where Zenkel Hall now is, on the 56th St. corner of 7th Ave., downstairs, and every summer, right about this time, they had a ballet festival. Oh, it was heaven! I believe I saw both the Lavrovsky & MacMillan R&Js, An Evening with the Royal Ballet, the Alonso Giselle, Plisetskaya's happy ending Swan Lake, many others.

Sometimes I could curse the advent of home video.

[Alexandra]

Not to be nostalgic or anything, but I remember that one. I actually took the train up from DC, saw a film (the Moscow competition once, then "I am a Dancer," then the F&N R&J) and went back the same day. A great way to get a lot of reading done!

[canbelto]

The thing that bugs me the most about the Giselle film was that it was taken from a live performance, I think. So presumably Ulanova's complete Giselle is on film, somewhere. And, if Czinner had cut the peasant pdd I would have been fine with it. But he cuts the Spessivtseva solo, Giselle's first confrontation with Myrtha, the pdd between Giselle and Albrecht ... He cuts more than just dancing, he really cuts the story.

Czinner's Romeo and Juliet is maybe the most perfect dance film ever made though.

[Mel Johnson]

I have to admit that he learned a lot about screen direction for dance between his first all-ballet film The Bolshoi Ballet (1957) and R&J, and he was no young pup at the time, either.