Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky

[EvilNinjaX]

http://www.chanelstravinsky.com/

There's no trailer yet, but some beautiful still images. I'm looking forward to this...

-goro-

[ViolinConcerto]

Thanks for the "heads up!" I just heard about this peculiar liaison at the conference about the Ballets Russes last month at Harvard. Jeez, always the last to know.

[Ray]

Boy with a scintillating title like that, they should get a couple of dozen viewers, at least!

[dirac]

Wow, snappy title. The original novel was called "Coco and Igor" in the manner of "Tom and Viv" and "Henry and June", but that makes them sound a little like a couple of Disney or Pixar characters, so perhaps the filmmakers thought it best to spell things out. The project sounds iffy, but there's sure to be nice costumes, great music, and interesting table lamps, so it will probably be worth checking out.

Some years ago we had dueling movie Capotes and now we have dueling movie Chanels - Audrey Tautou's version (I liked her) came out last year.

Thank you for the heads up, EvilNinjaX.

[naomikage]

The film was already released here in Japan, so I saw it, and it was eye-candy fore ballet fans. The film actually begins with quite a long sequence of the legendary Rite of Spring premiere at the Chatlet, choreography not the Nijinsky reconstruction by Hodson but a nice tribute to the Nijinsky one, and Diaghlev, Nijinskyand Massine, Misia Sert appearing in the sequence.

The decors and designs of the film are dazzlingly glamorous, and very interesting. Think the relationship between Chanel and Stranvinsky in this film is mostly fiction, but anyway I liked this.

[Helene]

The film will be playing in Vancouver at the Ridge Theatre as the second film in the 4th annual French Film Festival, opening 25 June, closing 8 July. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it.

http://www.festivalcinemas.ca/movies/frenc...lm-festival.htm

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Ah - I see Mads Mikkelsen has been cast as Stravinsky. He was very broody -- and sweaty -- in Flammen & Citronen. It appears from the trailer, clips, and "making of" featurette now posted on the film's website that Mr. Mikkelsen's Stravinsky will be plenty broody, but not so sweaty.

Was Stravinsky a broody guy? For whatever reason, I've always imagined him as in possession of a certain cosmopolitan joie de vivre ...

[dirac]

I thought I saw some pretty sweaty activity going on in that trailer.

[Ray]

I thought I saw some pretty sweaty activity going on in that trailer.

....to strains of Rite. Not the first film to do this, surely.

[dirac]

I have no idea, Ray, but undoubtedly it's the first to depict Stravinsky humpin' and pumpin' atop Coco Chanel. I looked at that and thought, Oh, dear. But perhaps I am a bit old fashioned.

[dirac]

The film was already released here in Japan, so I saw it, and it was eye-candy fore ballet fans. The film actually begins with quite a long sequence of the legendary Rite of Spring premiere at the Chatlet, choreography not the Nijinsky reconstruction by Hodson but a nice tribute to the Nijinsky one, and Diaghlev, Nijinskyand Massine, Misia Sert appearing in the sequence.

The decors and designs of the film are dazzlingly glamorous, and very interesting. Think the relationship between Chanel and Stranvinsky in this film is mostly fiction, but anyway I liked this.

Thanks for telling us your impressions, naomikage.

[papeetepatrick]

Just watched the trailer, I thought it unbelievably silly and absurd. If there's anything I don't go for, it's seeing a French-made film look like this, one sumptuous self-important cliche after another. It's bad enough when Hollywood does it.

[ballet_n00b]

I found it enjoyable, that is unless you're interested in accuracy (which is why I hate biopics in general).

[Helene]

Just watched the trailer, I thought it unbelievably silly and absurd. If there's anything I don't go for, it's seeing a French-made film look like this, one sumptuous self-important cliche after another. It's bad enough when Hollywood does it.

I saw four films last weekend at the Seattle International Film Festival, three of them excellent (City of Life and Death, Katalin Varga, Vortex) and one quite fine (The Milk of Sorrow). They've taken to running a trailer for an upcoming movie after their Festival intros, and had I not seen Vortex, I would have skipped it actively based on the trailer that seemed to describe another (bad) movie entirely; skipping it would have been a shame. I decided to ignore the trailers going forward.

[dirac]

Many of today's trailers go into such detail that they can make going to see the movie almost superfluous. The one for Woody Allen's Match Point gave enough away for me to decide to skip it, a wise decision as a later viewing of the movie on cable confirmed.

I found it enjoyable, that is unless you're interested in accuracy (which is why I hate biopics in general).

Thanks for posting, ballet_n00b. My impression is that biopics today are as a rule held to a much higher standard of accuracy than they were back in Hollywood's golden age or even a few decades ago, and will generally try to keep close to basic facts even if the overall impression is not always accurate. It's unlikely, for example, that a biopic of Billie Holiday made today would disregard the facts with the brio demonstrated by the Lady Sings the Blues (as much as I enjoyed that film).

[papeetepatrick]

Good points on trailers, helene and dirac. I think that, in this case, I just don't care for the concept, for one thing--some liaison between Coco and Igor would be a tiny fragment in a bio of either of them, not cause for a whole movie: Somehow I fail to be able to conceive of this one as a grand romance, although I may be wrong--not quite the heat of Ingrid and Roberto. Also, the casting of Stravinsky already made him look too much of an urban man-about-town smoothie, which is more useful for casting 'Cheri' (and might have been better than Rupert Friend) or someone in one of the bad Proust adaptations. Although I didn't object to Jeremy Irons tending to prettiness in 'Swann in Love', but Mads Mikkelson in these few scenes reminded me more of Michael York than Stravinsky. And I thought too obvious an emphasis on luxurious clothes; she would always be wearing them, he would be correct, but not necessarily 'designer-looking', in short, my worst impression was that he came across as more of an aesthete, though not dandy, than a composer. Now, if they wanted to revive Smell-o-Vision Chanel in the theater to match Le Sacre, then we might get something that at least did a full transvaluation into the carnivalesque (plus some Pulcinella and Petrouchka, althought these two looked like they'd sit around and listen to them on the old Walnut Stereo Cabinet...) that might come across as a latter-day 'All that Jazz'.

[bart]

The movie is reviewed in today's NYT.

Chanel is the aggressor in the short-lived affair of which little is known, that began in 1920, seven years after she attended the world premiere of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." That notorious opening, May 29, 1913, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, erupted into a riot as audience members, outraged by Stravinsky's dissonant, harshly pulsing music and Vaslav Nijinsky's primitive choreography, angrily vented their disapproval. Fights broke out, the police were called, and Stravinsky sank into sulky despondence.

That historic night is re-enacted with electrifying force in the movie's opening set piece. Both the music and the recreated choreography convey the jarring impact of this invasion of disruptive sound and movement on a polite haute-bourgeois culture accustomed to Tchaikovsky's romantic ballets.

The affair -- described by the Times as "tempestuous" -- plays a small role in Stephen Walsh's biography of Stravinsky. Walsh describes it as "more or less covert" and appears to know little about it.

It is difficult, however, for someone who has strong visual memories of the elderly Stravinsky's appearances at concerts and at NY City Ballet in the 60s -- to imagine him ever looking like Mads Mikkelsen, the actor who plays him in the film.

Here's the Times review:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/movie...html?ref=movies

[Anthony_NYC]

Saw it this weekend. My goodness, what a boring, silly movie! Even the camp potential of some of the dialogue is ruined by the sleepy pace. Best to wait for the DVD, then have a party and divide everybody into two groups. One drinks a shot of vodka every time there is a closeup of Stravinsky gazing with an inscrutable expression. The other drinks a shot every time Chanel enters a room, looking chic. Everybody will be drunk within an hour, at which point you can turn the movie off and begin to have a good time.

[Helene]

So you liked it? ;)

[dirac]

Saw it this weekend. My goodness, what a boring, silly movie! Even the camp potential of some of the dialogue is ruined by the sleepy pace. Best to wait for the DVD, then have a party and divide everybody into two groups. One drinks a shot of vodka every time there is a closeup of Stravinsky gazing with an inscrutable expression. The other drinks a shot every time Chanel enters a room, looking chic. Everybody will be drunk within an hour, at which point you can turn the movie off and begin to have a good time.

I had a feeling.

[DanceActress]

I completely agree with AnthonyNYC's assessment, but the film is worth seeing for the first 15 minutes just to see the re-creation of "The Rite of Spring" premiere.

[Anthony_NYC]

I completely agree with AnthonyNYC's assessment, but the film is worth seeing for the first 15 minutes just to see the re-creation of "The Rite of Spring" premiere.

Oh yes, I forgot about that, and agree: the first fifteen minutes that recreate the famous debacle are well done, more or less true to the famous stories those who were there have told. But then we move on to later that evening, and the movie turns completely fictional in terms of plot and character--which I could forgive if it just weren't so boring and pointless!

[dirac]

Now playing in my area but I'm not sure if I'm ready to plunk down ten dollars - maybe if I can see a matinee....

[papeetepatrick]

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/aug/03/monstres-sacres-love/

Here's Robert Gottlieb's take. I haven't read it yet, if ever, but I think I recall he's the dance critic, so some may find various reasons to be interested in this article.

Yes, I see that's correct about Gottlieb/Balanchine. He's also got a podcast on the NYRB site on Dickens which may interest.

[dirac]

Has anyone else seen this?