slaytonf

The first whom seems correct. The last incorrect. The middle whom I am not sure of. Anyway, the death of whom is almost universally acknowledged among linguists. Go ahead an just use who. No one'll bop you on the head.

You're right there. But it isn't meant to be. As Brad and Ben discuss, movie techniques are used to convey the experience of the dancers as well as show the ballet, especially Vickie Page. In the later parts, the figures of her partner Boleslawsky, Lermontov, and Craster are interchanged, expressing her conflicting emotions about the male figures in her life, professional colleagues, authority figures, and lovers.

You can slow the speed of the clip in the settings. When you do that, you see she is actually running down the stairs. As for whether the speed was artificially increased, I would think any ballerina worth her salt, let alone a prima ballerina could manage the footwork without a problem. As for the multiple shots of her descending, the logistics of craning down a Technicolor camera--an unwieldy beast in the best of circumstances-- in a spiral would argue for a segment of a stair, with takes stitched together to match the length of the overture music it is paired with. It's only about fifteen or so steps per shot. Inspection reveals it's two takes spliced together. The slight discontinuity could also be argued for on artistic grounds, expressing her disjointed state of mind.

This and many other stage performances of ballets have been filmed for movies and TV. But ballets made as movies include only as far as I know Dr. Coppelius (1966) as I mentioned above, and The Nutcracker (1986, 1993).

Dawgs.

Humboldt County is on the California coast, north of San Francisco. Known for redwoods and some of the best pot grown anywhere.

What a catastrophe!

No, I just like to watch. It started when I happened across the Baryshnikov/Kirkland Nutcracker on YT. Combined with the Red Shoes (1948) and Moira Shearer's work in Tales of Hoffman (1951), I looked for ballets that were mentioned, and got hooked. What the dancers do can be astonishing and heart-stopping.

Not a favorite of mine. If it's the one with Gelsey Kirkland, that's my favorite. You have exposed my ignorance of ballet moves. Yet I doubt if you see many pliés in public.

What's there to talk about? There's nothing to talk about. I don't need to talk about it. It's just cat videos infecting the message boards. Ohhh, the horror. . . .

I think, a long way back in the thread. But it bears repeating.

TCM's airing of The Red Shoes (1948) got me thinking about ballet in movies. There are lots of them about the dancers and their lives, or with dance numbers that are, well, at least balletic. But unlike stage musicals I don't know of any that are made of actual ballets, except for Dr. Coppelius (1966), a movie adaptation of the beloved Coppelia. You'd think something like Swan Lake at least would have been made into a movie, and to be sure, there do seem to be some theatrical releases of ballets. But they all appear to be just filmed stage performances. One explanation might be that while musicals have a wide appeal, ballets are more limited, if not elite. On the other hand operas have been made into movies, maybe not at a great rate, but certainly not unknown. But operas have singing, and even if it's artsy, that still has more appeal than performing astonishing physical feats mutely. If we can't sing like Callas or Pavarotti, we can at least hum a tune. Not so an arabesque or plié.

Oh no---cats.

I'll have to check it out.

It isn't pretty when they do.