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Michael Powell  
 


The Tales of Hoffmann


BFI NFTVA-TIK DATORREN KOPIA/COPY FROM BFI NFTVA/COPIA PROCEDENTE DE BFI NFTVA

Offenbach's last opera, based on eerie stories by the master of the supernatural tale, E.T.A. Hoffmann, who is featured as the hapless poet, eternally deceived in love - first by the inventor of a mechanical doll with whom he falls in love; then by a Venetian courtesan and her protector; and finally by a dying singer under the influence of the sinister Dr. Miracle.

There was a programme on American television in the fifties called Million Dollar Movie which would show the same film twice on weekday evenings and three times on Saturday and Sunday. This was where I first saw The Tales of Hoffmann: cut, with commercials and in black and white. I was transfixed by the music and camera movements, and by the theatrical gestures of the actors. When we were doing Taxi Driver and the close-ups of De Niro's face, I shot these faster than usual, at 36 and 49 frames per second, still under the influence of Robert Helpmann's reaction shots during the duel on the gondola. I had watched the film so often on television that it became an assault on everyone living in our small appartment.
Martin Scorsese (Foreword of Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger: Arrows of Desire)

 

 


YEAR
  1951
PRODUCTION
  Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
British Lion Film Corporation/Vega Productions/The Archers
DIRECTOR
  Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
SCREENPLAY
  Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
PHOTOGRAPHY
  Christopher Challis
MUSIC
  Jacques Offenbach
EDITION
  Reginald Mills
CAST
  Robert Rounseville, Pamela Brown, Robert Helpmann, Moira Shearer, Ludmilla Tcherina, Leonide Massine, Frederick Ashton
RUNNING TIME
  127 m.

 
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