BALLETS RUSSES
US, 2005, 118 minutes, Colour.
Narrated by Marian Seldes.
Directed by Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller.
This documentary is a model for its blend of a complex and intricate story and its clarity of telling the story. It is always interesting and entertaining. Those who have little knowledge of the ballet – or even interest in the ballet – will probably be absorbed.
The directors had a strong reputation, with awards, for their documentaries. For this history of the Ballets Russes, they went to archives as well as individuals (through internet search) and discovered a great deal of 16mm footage from the 1920s and 1930s, including much material from the ballet tours in Australia in the 1930s. This material has now been catalogued for museums and provides a visual history of this chapter of ballet history.
The directors also tracked down many of the dancers from the 1930s. The fact that so many of them were still alive and so lively and articulate, in their 80s and 90s, is a strong indication that ballet is good for physical and mental health. Many of them were still teaching and acting as consultants. The makers then decided to follow them to New Orleans in 2000 where a reunion of members of the ballets provided the occasion for interviews and candid shots of elderly artists reminiscing.
And the Ballets Russes? You would need to see the film to clarify just who these ballet companies were. They derive from Diaghilev’s company in Paris in the second decade of the twentieth century and into the 1920s, Diaghilev dying in 1929. Entrepreneurs resuscitated the Ballet Russe in 1931 in Monte Carlo and this company and the splinter and rival companies danced for the next thirty years.
The voiceover and commentary, spoken by Marian Seldes, is both benign and discreet, alluding to egos and clashes, hinting at the divisions and fights, issues of money and contracts rather than offering a scandal expose. We see the clashes between dancer-choreographer, Leonid Massine, and Colonel de Basil and the formation of two companies. We see US entrepreneur, Sol Hurok, playing one against the other as well as employing both and George Balanchine’s years of success.
What complicated matters, besides the egos and power-control involved, is the social history of the times. Initially, the talent came from Russian émigrés after the 1917 revolution and finding Paris their haven. World War II hindered development (especially after their great success in London and on tour) and the companies found themselves stranded in the US and touring extensively during those years, taking part in Hollywood movies or travelling in Latin America. We see the first Native American ballerinas, the repercussions of racism in the American south of the 1960s on a black ballerina. This continued background makes the ballet story an engrossing document of 20th century cultural history.
The old dancers are vivid personalities, loved their dance and their lives – and make great raconteurs, especially Frederic Franklin, the male lead for twenty years who, at 90, still has all his wits and witticisms.
