The Tales of Hoffmann is a cinematic rendition of an unfinished 1880 opera-ballet by Jacques Offenbach that was based on the works of 19th-century German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann. Offenbach used creative license to insert Hoffmann into the stories, making him the main character that binds the various tales together. He also used elements of the supernatural, which makes this work a rarity in serious opera.

The three “tales” of Hoffman each explores his “folly of love,” depicting him at a different stage of life in which he falls for and is ultimately heartbroken by a different woman. The first is a mechanical doll named Olympia (Moira Shearer, star of Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 film The Red Shoes) that is literally destroyed before Hoffmann’s eyes; the second is Giulietta (Ludmilla Tchérina), a bewitching courtesan dressed in black (never a good sign) who seduces and destroys Hoffmann; and finally there’s Antonia (Anne Ayars), the dying daughter of a famous composer.

Each story contains in it a kernel of truth about the sometimes destructive nature of love, whether it be passion for the unattainable or the weakness of a man seduced, yet they remain slightly at arm’s length, ever quite attaining intimate power and passion. Part of this is the nature of opera itself, especially as it is worked out on the screen -- relentlessly formal, highly choreographed, and self-consciously melodramatic, it presents itself so firmly as “art” that it takes a strong will to get past the gaudy surface and into the emotion. Opera is an acquired taste, thus the many pretensions of the form itself tend to get in the way of those viewers who have not cultivated it (including myself).

On a purely aesthetic level, though, The Tales of Hoffmann is a monumental achievement. Powell and Pressburger, masters of color and composition, turn each gliding frame into a visual feast, gorging on lusciously saturated Technicolor, exquisite production design, and outlandish costumes and make-up. Some of the film’s imagery is immediately unforgettable, especially the more macabre moments, such as Giulietta walking daintily across what appears to be a sea of charred bodies or the moment when Olympia’s mechanical body is torn limb from limb.

There is no sense of realism in the film, not even of a dream-state variety; no, The Tales of Hoffmann is a theatrical production through and through, making no attempts to hide its curtains and formal staginess and even the theatrical special effects, such as the black velvet used to mask the parts of Olympia’s body that have been torn away. Yet, despite the canned theatricality, Powell and Pressburger manage to make it exquisitely cinematic, using camera movement and angles and such filmic techniques as double exposure and fast and reverse motion to achieve imagery that would be impossible on-stage.

Yet, in the end, The Tales of Hoffmann never quite satisfies because it doesn’t transcend its stagebound origins. There is something noble and moving about Powell and Pressburger’s ambitions to create a hybrid art between stage and screen, one that is not fully one nor the other, yet it is the film’s interstitial nature that ultimately disappoints.

It doesn’t help either that Robert Rounseville’s Hoffmann makes for such a bland and uninvolving central character. Although Helpmann was a star of the New York City Opera, he has little in the way of screen presence, which combined with Hoffmann’s essentially passive nature makes him deadly dull. Part of this is related to the story’s emphasis on the nature of fate, but it saps the film of a central core of energy, which keeps its striking images from adding up to anything more grandiose than themselves.

Copyright ©2005 James Kendrick

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