LES UNS ET LES AUTRES (DANCE OF LIFE; BOLERO)
France, 1981, 185 minutes, Colour.
James Caan, Robert Hossein, Nicole Garcia, Geraldine Chaplin, Feodor Atkine, Fanny Ardant.
Directed by Claude Lelouch.
Dance of Life was originally a television miniseries. There were five fifty-minute episodes. This film has been edited for cinema release.
Claude Lelouch is a prolific director, working in France from the 1950s to the beginning of the 21st century. He had a great success in 1966 with A Man and a Woman, winning the Oscar for best foreign language film.
Lelouch was also a writer and made quite a number of films in the late 60s and early 70s concentrating on relationships, romance, life – hopes and disappointments. He continued to make a number of films including a sequel to A Man and a Woman (twenty years later) in 1986.
This film focuses on four families and their relationships at the time of World War Two. There is a German story, a Russian story, a French story and an American story. The film features actors who have performed in other Lelouch films including James Caan, Geraldine Chaplin, Fanny Ardant, Nicole Garcia.
The film culminates with a performance of Ravel’s Bolero in its entirety. This is performed by the Spanish dancer Jorge Donn.
Because of the miniseries origin of the film, it does not have such dramatic momentum as a film might have. Nevertheless, it is a typical Lelouch piece, focusing on a significant time in European history.
1. Interesting and entertaining cinema? Cinema and television traditions? The panorama of the decades? An impression through characters, families, special events? Audiences supplying historical background? The emphasis on experiencing a period rather than emphasis on insight? How successful was the film in this regard?
2. The work of Claude Lelouch? English-speaking audiences responding to his A Man and a Woman? His lush romantic style? His developments throughout the '70s and '80s? Content, style? His personal invitation to enjoy the film? His voice-over? The invitation to the audience to participate in the film? The distance of the countries, the era, the events and their being brought close to the audience?
3. The choice of material: the obvious historical background, events and personalities audiences were familiar with, the audience supplying much knowledge and meaning? The four representative groups? The focus on the history of the western world in a half century of the 20th. century?
4. The importance of music? Its universal appeal and response? The variety of sensibilities? Local, universal? The qualities of appreciation for music? Its creativity? Enjoyment? The self-giving in music? Patterns and rhythms? Popular and classic? Music as means of unity in times of difficulty? The film's range of music: ballet, the Folies Bergere, the big bands of the 140s, classical instruments,? Orchestras, bands? Violins and accordions? Jazz ballet? Theatrical styles, cinema styles, television special styles? The background of Rudolf Nureyev? The Carnegie Hall training? The build-up to Bolero with its introduction at the opening and its long conclusion? The involvement of all the characters? The contribution of the variety of artists? The real-life story bases?
5. The use of the Red Cross and UNICEF for the image of world peace and unity? The facile style for the film? The production gathering together all the dram of the previous decades? The style of the '80s? The experience of betrayal and unity? The question of how the world might be united?
6. The quality of the screenplay in its interweaving of the stories? The communication of the passing of time, the range of experience? Nostalgia? Memories of suffering? The transition to a more brittle world? The generations repeating the lives of their parents? The quotation from Willa Cather and its meaning for the stories?
7. The Russian story: the more simple presentation, the auditions for the ballet, competitiveness, the heroine and her losing the audition, her marriage, the child, the outbreak of war? Her dancing for the soldiers? The portrayal of the Russians in World War Two? Suffering, the death of her husband? Her teaching? Performance? Her son and his defecting? The importance of the same actress portraying mother and daughter? The Russian achievement in ballet? The parents watching the television programme? The background to the Cold War, defections, the style of the Russian? Themes of East and West? Russia as an ally, as an enemy? The possibility of dialogue? The importance of Russian ballet style? The contribution to the Bolero?
8. The German story: the background of Hitler, the performance of the classics, the long haul and the tracking shot, the German pianist and the support of Hitler? The repercussions for his later life? The war, German aggression, the occupation of Paris? The Germans in Paris and the band, the girls, entertainment? World War Two? The attractiveness of the piano and orchestral performances?
9. The American story: the world of the big band, the Atlantic liners, the radio programmes, the personal touch - with the birth of the son? American involvement in World War Two? The background of New York, the bandleader and his home, the neighbours with the fighting boys? The folksiness of the domestic scenes and the contrast with Normandy and the deaths of the two boys? The background of Glenn miller and the bands of the war years? Their concerts? The device of the letters home? The exhilaration of liberation in Paris? The reuniting after the war? The car-crash and the tragedy? The bond between husband and wife? The next generation and James Caan and Geraldine Chaplin doubling in roles? Sarah and her success, quality as a singer, marriages, Bobby and her mothering him? Her lifestyle and the rebellion, selfishness and drug-addiction and drink of the '60s? The temperamental star? Jason and his managing Sarah? The homosexuality? The accident and the reactions of Jason and Sarah? Their father and his new girlfriend and their reaction? Themes of burnout and attempted suicide? Sarah going to Paris? The audition and the male singer? The irony of David as Robert's son? The interlinking of the stories? The achievement of American style? The changes and the brittleness of the '60s and '70s? Divorce, marriage breakdown etc.? Jason watching at the end with his friend? Sarah and her new success and her contribution to Bolero?
10. The French story: the Folies Bergere and its lavish style, pre-war France and entertainment? The personalities of the singers and dancers? The pianist and the violinist and their falling in love? Simon and Anne and their marriage, the violins, their child? The experience of the war and the heart-wrenching giving up of the child on the railway line? The trios? The story of the schoolteacher and her son? The arrests? The train-ride? The experience of the baby left on the railway line, being taken into the town, the parish priest - and the irony of his meeting the bandleader at the time of liberation? The experience of the concentration camps and the separations? Anne and her playing the violin? Simon and his death? The gas chambers? The quiet pathos of the concentration camp sequences? The return from the camps after the liberation? Anne's perpetual search? Her friends and her return? The trio and their singing and dancing? Her being in the asylum? The boys growing up and the new brittle French generation, success, prison, drunkenness? Questions of identity and the clarification of Robert's identity? The background of the girl collaborating and her head being shaved, her daughter coming to Paris, the audition, the liaison? Her cleaning the windows and yet becoming a star? The music: the Paris theme and its recurring during the film? The treatment of the French episodes in the romantic, serious style?
11. The build-up to the UNICEF concert, the participation of all the groups? Success? Those present. those watching? The future? The implication that the old world was a sadder but possibly nicer and better world?
12. The long Bolero theme, the style, the dancing, the singing, the orchestration? What was the audience left with?
