New York City Ballet 2021 Spring Gala

[osprey_archer]

Watch on YouTube

littlerhymes sent me a link to the New York City Ballet’s 2021 Spring Gala, directed by Sofia Coppola, which is online till May 27. It’s a half hour long, mostly focusing on the dancing (as one days in a gala) but with some delightful Coppola touches, like the opening shot (in dramatic black and white) of a storeroom full of ballet shoes, or a few brief shots of the dancers chatting backstage.

I for one would love to see Coppola do a ballet movie, like Black Swan except more Coppola. Less body horror, more gauzy tutus, the ballet studio a dreamily suffocating enclosed world, like the Lisbon sisters’ home in The Virgin Suicides or the girls’ school in The Beguiled.

Comments

[oracne]

Ooh, thank you for that link. Watching it this morning.

[osprey_archer]

I was so pleased to be able to see it! One of the few good things about the pandemic has been that there have been so many performances online, which I never would have been able to see in person.

[kore]

Oh, she'd be PERF for a ballet performance backstage movie. Damn.

[osprey_archer]

RIGHT? From our lips to Sofia Coppola's ear!

Kirsten Dunst is the former prima ballerina who has come back as a choreographer. The new prima ballerina, Elle Fanning, has a love-hate crush on her... Lots of long loving shots of ballet paraphernalia, girls at the barre doing plies, infinitely reflecting figures in the mirrors.

[kore]

YES

Also there should be a cruel older male choreographer who Gets What's Coming To Him (a la McBurney in The Beguiled)

[osprey_archer]

Kirsten Dunst defeats him in a dance off and when I say "defeats him in a dance off" I mean literally dances him off the roof of the ballet. His broken body looks very artistic on the pavement.

[kore]

YES and he must be wearing red Gucci loafers

There should also be an older Actual Ballerina coach to provide verisimilitude. Gelsey Kirkland? How old is Darci Kistler? (In The Turning Point ((yes)) it was Alexandra Danilova)

[osprey_archer]

RED GUCCI LOAFERS I love it. It would be amazing to sprinkle the whole movie with nods like that - plus probably the movie as a whole would be a somewhat fractured retelling of a ballet. (I'm kind of feeling Coppelia - the living girl pretending to be a mechanical girl seems very Coppola, doesn't it?)

IDK how feasible this would be, but I think it would be great to cast a lot of the characters with actual ballet dancers. They could do their own dancing! It would strengthen the air of verisimilitude!

[kore]

Oh yes I like Coppelia! That really does seem to fit for some reason. (And that way ""Les oiseaux dans la charmille - Doll Song" could be on the soundtrack....) Coppola could do really wonderful things with those old-fashioned ballet sets with the painted backdrops and miles of tulle. Very Degas. But with neon. Throw in some of the trippiness of Powell and Pressberger's Tales of Hoffman while we're at it.

Ballet dancers are often very good at acting! They have to act while they're dancing anyway, really.

[osprey_archer]

The whole idea of a doll girl just seems VERY suited to Coppola. And I suspect that the ballet within the movie would have an EXTREMELY extra set and costumes. No one does extravagance like Coppola!

Delivering dialogue is a slightly different skill set than emoting while dancing, but I imagine there would be some dancers in the company with a natural flair for it.

[anna_wing]

I would love an opera movie(s) of the entire Ring Cycle, with ALL the dramatic and special effects it merits. These days it is possible to have a Wagnerian voice without weighing 150kg, so it should be possible to have real singers who look the parts too. Directed by the late Ninagawa Yukio, ideally.

[osprey_archer]

You know, there really aren't that many movies based on operas/ballets. (Musicals yes, but operas no.) You'd really think that the movie world would be all over this potential source of material!

[anna_wing]

Wikipedia came through! One 'Rheingold' but as a cartoon, apparently. The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy is splendidly operatic, especially the second film.

Films Based on Operas:

Carmen: A Hip Hopera (based on Carmen by Georges Bizet)
Carmen Jones (based on Carmen by Georges Bizet)
M. Butterfly (based on Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini)
Prénom Carmen (based on Carmen by Georges Bizet)
Rent (based on La bohème by Giacomo Puccini)
The Toll of the Sea (based on Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini)
U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha (based on Carmen by Georges Bizet)
Camille (1936 film) and "Moulin Rouge" (based on La Traviata by Verdi)
Rick (2003 film) (based on Rigoletto by Verdi)[1]
A Time of Destiny (1988 film) (based on La Forza del Destino by Verdi)[2]


Films OF operas.

Don Giovanni, 1979 (Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), directed by Joseph Losey
The Magic Flute, 1975 (The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), directed by Ingmar Bergman
La traviata, 1983 (La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi), directed by Franco Zeffirelli
Rigoletto, 1993, (Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi), directed by Barry Purves [from the Operavox animated series]
Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto Story (Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi)
The Magic Flute, 2006 (The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), directed by Kenneth Branagh
Parsifal
Prince Igor, 1970, directed by Roman Tikhomirov
Boris Godunov, 1954, directed by Vera Stroyeva
Moses und Aron
The Tales of Hoffmann, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Carmen, 1984, directed by Francesco Rosi
Aria
Il barbiere di Siviglia, 1946, directed by Mario Costa, with Tito Gobbi
The Dumb Girl of Portici, 1916, directed by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley
Das Rheingold, 1995 [from the Operavox animated series]
Porgy and Bess, 1959, directed by Otto Preminger
La Bohème, 1988, directed by Luigi Comencini, with Barbara Hendricks
Otello, 1986, directed by Franco Zeffirelli
Cavalleria rusticana, 1953
The Death of Klinghoffer, 2003, directed by Penny Woolcock
The Bohemian Girl, 1927
Katerina Izmailova, 1966, directed by Mikhail Shapiro, with Galina Vishnevskaya
Louise, 1939, directed by Abel Gance, with Grace Moore
Topsy-Turvy, 1999, directed by Mike Leigh
Bánk bán, 2001