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One Sublime Half Hour: Baryshnikov Makes Dancers Worthwhile
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12016 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1987 |
849 Words |
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J. Perceval
J. Perceval writes on the arts from New York. |
Mikhail Baryshnikov has presence to burn: he dominated the screen even when he is not dancing. But in the first half of Herbert Ross' film Dancers, the Baryshnikov presence is no proof against a silly story line.
Dancers takes as its premise an American ballet troupe's filming of the classic ballet Giselle under the direction of a celebrated Russian-born dancer in the handsome old Italian city of Bari.
Fair enough, if not especially original, but director Ross (The Turning Point, Nijinsky) and screenwriter Sarah Kernochan apparently decided the ballet would be more acceptable to movie audiences if its story line were duplicated by the modern day characters. Thus, in the ballet the noble Duke Albrecht carelessly trifles with the affections of the simple village maiden Giselle, who goes mad, dying literally of a broken heart when she discovers her handsome lover has deceived her and is betrothed to a princess. In the film's frame story, Baryshnikov plays Tony, director of the ballet company, involved in multiple relationships with women in his troupe as well as with an Italian contessa. Alas, Tony cannot "feel." Brilliant dancer though he is, Tony believes his own career has suffered from this inability. Tony is also somewhat of a temperamental, egotistic devil, modeled more on Rudolf Nureyev than the real-life Baryshnikov.
A fresh young member of the corps de ballet (Julie Kent) attracts Tony's attention. He courts her; she is dazzled and overwhelmed ("I've never even been this close before to a famous person") until she discovers he tells all the ballerinas they remind him of the tall white birch trees of his native Russian village. Despairing, in tears, she runs offstage in the first act of Giselle, recognizing her own situation mirrored in the ballet.
During intermission, Tony takes off after her, finding only her wet jacket by the water's edge. Distraught, he returns to the theater, tells the stage manager to call the police, and goes on with the second act of Giselle, in which Albrecht mourns the lost Giselle, who rises from her tomb to dance a last pas de deux with him. Thinking in anguish of possibly having caused the suicide of an innocent young girl, Tony, not unexpectedly, gives the performance of his life.
The only redeeming feature of this dismal film is the dancing of Baryshnikov in the second act of Giselle. This danseur noble par excellence manages to transcend not only the triviality of the film, but even the
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