Ballets Russes - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution movie review

'Ballets Russes': You'll want to belly up to the barre

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The captivating documentary "Ballets Russes" is both an invaluable record of ballet performances from the first half of the 20th century and a collection of interviews with some of those great dancers, many of whom have since passed away. But it's not just for balletomanes. The film, which gathers footage that might have been lost forever, is also a fascinating chronicle of an end of a way of life as much as the final bow of a ballet company or two.

Zeitgeist Films

'Ballets Russes'

The verdict: Pirouettes through history with grace and style.

Directors: Dayna Goldfine, Daniel Geller, Dan Geller
Starring: Ann Barzel, Irina Baronova, Yvonne Chouteau, Yvonne Craig, Frederic Franklin
Run time: 118 minutes
Release date: Oct. 26, 2005
Rating: Not rated

On the web
Official movie site

The original Ballets Russes was created in Paris in 1909 by the celebrated Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. After his death in 1929, the company went kaput. In its wake, two rival companies arose.

The first was created by René Blum and Col. Wassily de Basil, and among their choreographers was a young George Balanchine. Another was Leonide Massine. Feeling creatively frustrated, he launched his own company with some of his former bosses' best dancers, engendering a good deal of ill feeling. However, the rival troupes discovered a common enemy in Hitler and fled to America, bringing a precious Old World art to a jazzed-up New World.

Part soap opera — artistic temperaments and all — part social document, the movie's most breathtaking aspect is the archival footage of some of ballet's most famous dancers, including Maria Tallchief, Alicia Markova and George Zoritch. Even in grainy, jerky black and white, it's clear why they became legends.

Almost as compelling are the interviews. Ninety-year-old Marc Platt laughingly recalls how, as a corn-fed American, he was asked to change his name to Platoff so he'd sound Russian. Elegant women in their 80s and 90s still swoon when they talk about Zoritch. And still gossip about a rival dancer who got good parts because she was sleeping with the company's director.

Filmmakers Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine spent years researching their project, rooting out and through all kinds of material and rounding up 20 former dancers. They weren't even ballet fans when they began, but they certainly became ones. Their passion for this fragile, ephemeral art shines throughout the film.

As does that of the artists. Recalling a beloved role, Platt says simply and with great fondness, "I just danced my fool head off."

They all did.