THE COMPANY
US, 2003, 112 minutes, Colour.
Neve Campbell, Malcolm Mc Dowell, James Franco.
Directly by Robert Altman.
Robert Altman has an over 30 year reputation of making films that weave together many characters and stories so that by the end of his films, the audience has felt that it has entered into a particular world and got to know it very well, the environment, the situations, the crises. With that in mind, one can say that The Company is 'pure Altman.
Popular star Neve Campbell trained as a ballet dancer and took the outline of a ballet company story to producers who asked Barbara Turner (Georgia, Pollack) to collaborate and write a screenplay. Eventually Altman was intrigued - about the unfamiliar world of a ballet ensemble and its behind the scenes story and of how to put performance on screen using high digital photography. The Company is the result. It was made with the collaboration of the world-renowned Joffrey Ballet Company of Chicago, with the dancers, choreographers and the collaboration of co-founder in 1956, Gerald Arpino (on whom the character of the director in the film is based). Malcolm McDowell? snarls and 'baby's' everyone as the director.
Altman takes us into this world. We participate in training and rehearsal. We watch performances. We are taken into manager's offices and listen in to discussions, disputes, emotional tantrums, dictatorial and non-consulting decisions. We listen to the dancers speak, comment on their lives. We see the conditions in which some of them have to live (on a not so top salary).
The Joffrey does classical ballet but is interested in contemporary work and innovation. Neve Campbell herself dances a modern pas-de-deux, there are some glimpses of classical but the finale is a highly colourful, flamboyant take on Eastern religion and customs, The Blue Snake.
Even if ballet or contemporary dance are not your art forms, this is an interesting tour of the world of a dance company.
1. A ballet film, for aficianados, for the general public? The story of a ballet company? The ensemble, the personalities and dances, rehearsals, training, performance?
2. The work of Robert Altman, ensemble stories, reactive stories?
3. The Chicago setting, the city, the company, the theatre, interiors, stage, auditorium, dressing rooms? The location for the ballet world? The personal interactions?
4. The Chicago Joffrey company and its members participating in the film? The director based on the founder director of the company?
5. Style of photography, digital, the photography of the dancing?
6. The music, the range of the score, classics, contemporary?
7. The film with its documentary aspects, aspects of narrative, observing the company on behalf of the audience?
8. Antonelli, Malcolm Mc Dowell, his role, talent, the founding of the company, his age, love of art, acerbic comments, his style with each of the characters?
9. Neve Campbell as Ry, her role as producer, writer, her background as a dancer, her investment in the film, asking Altman to direct?
10. Ry as the focus of the story, her character and personality, the talent, the prospects and ambitions? In itself, relationships, the character of Josh, from a different world? Their interactions?
11. The choreographer, creating something new, his personality, interactions with the dancers? His prospects for the new work?
12. The background workers in the theatre, different functions, seeing them at work?
13. The audience, parents and mentors in the background, the exhilaration of performance?
