Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger| UK 1951 |Digital |138 minutes
Rated U –Â Contains mild violence
Cast: Moira Shearer, Ludmilla Tchérina, Ann Ayars, Pamela Brown, Léonide Massine, Robert Helpmann, Robert Rounseville.
Revealed afresh in this remarkable Technicolor restoration, Powell and Pressburger’s 1951 musical phantasmagoria is the stuff of beautiful nightmares.
A balletic adaptation of Offenbach’s opera about the German Romantic author ETA Hoffmann, and adapted from three of his gothic tales ‘on the folly of love,’ this intensely composed film rivals even The Red Shoes for its cinematic daring and its avowed belief in the transcendence of art over death. That film’s star, Moira Shearer, returns here to play three very different women: a dancer who discovers that she is a marionette, a courtesan in Venice, and an opera singer dying of consumption.
This stunning new restoration (containing previously unseen footage) from the original 3-strip Technicolor negative unleashes feverish colors straight from the candy box: a cacophony of clashing yellows and purples as disturbing as they are enchanting.
