The tragic fate of one of Russia's great ballerinas is recounted in one of this year's most compelling films.
Premiered to enthusiastic response last week at Moscow's House of Cinema, "Maniya Zhizeli" (Giselle's Madness) tells the story of Olga Spessivtseva, from her early years of stardom at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater, through flirtations with revolutionaries, to escape to the West, and finally to her descent into madness.
Though the film is about a dancer and contains ballet excerpts, it is not just for balletomanes. With this stylish work, director Alexei Uchitel has created a transcendant portrait of a tormented soul, of tragedy and loss, of fading beauty and fleeting love.
Much of the film's success comes from a riveting performance by Galina Tyunina, a versatile actress affiliated with Pyotr Fomenko's studio.
Many Bolshoi and Mariinsky dancers coveted the role of the ballerina, whose life story until now has largely been unknown in Russia outside ballet circles. But Uchitel wanted a dramatic actress.
"We didn't intend a film about ballet, but about the drama of the soul," the director said at a press conference for the film. Tyunina vividly creates an image of a beautiful woman whose passions keep her on the brink. In 1943, Spessivtseva slipped from the precipice, having a nervous breakdown and spending the next 20 years in a mental institution.
For the doomed ballerina, life imitated art. She was acclaimed as one of the foremost interpreters of the classical role of Giselle, a peasant girl who goes mad after she is betrayed in love. Perfecting her portrayal for the famous Mad Scene of Act I, Spessivtseva visited a mental hospital. The film shows the ballerina peering through peepholes at the patients to observe their behavior. These scenes, casting the shadow of Spessivtseva's future confinement in an asylum, are among the most powerful in the film.
On these visits, Spessivtseva was accompanied by her lover, a commissar of the secret police named Boris Kaplun -- played brilliantly by Yevgeny Sidikhin, who has appeared recently in period pieces such as "Prorva" (Moscow Parade). The film takes us through the twists and turns of their romance. The dancer in fact became known as "Red Giselle" -- referring to her signature role in dance and her passionate liaisons offstage with supporters of the revolution.
In a dramatic film sequence Spessivtseva learns about the mass executions committed by the Cheka and accuses Kaplun of being a murderer. Yet she cannot resist the commissar's frenzied passion.
But eventually the dancer fled Russia, under the pretext of going to Europe for treatment for tuberculosis. She danced with the Grand Opera in Paris with fellow emigr? Serge Lifar. Ever unfortunate in love, the ballerina found herself rejected by her partner, played with comic effect by Ivan Okhlobyistin. Meanwhile Kaplun, who has ruined his political career by going to Paris to see his beloved, commits suicide.
"Giselle's Madness" ends by bringing to life nightmares that Spessivtseva described in letters to her sister. Her last romance, with an American, George Brown, was overshadowed by the dancer's hallucinations about a sinister Chinese man. In these surreal scenes Brown is killed by the Chinese man.
Filmed in St. Petersburg, the film evokes well the mood of Spessivtseva's epoch. An air of authenticity is also lent by rare archival footage of the dancer made in Paris.
Originally, the film was to be called "Red Giselle." But after St. Petersburg choreographer Boris Eifman announced plans to create a ballet about Spessivtseva with that title, the film was renamed. "Giselle's Madness" will be shown at the Kinotavr '95 Film Festival in Sochi in June and the Montreal Film Festival in September.
Spessivtseva, who died in 1991 at age 96 in a senior citizens home in New York, was considered one of the great classical ballerinas of all time and was renowned for the spirituality of her dancing. Her life and art have captured the attention of several filmmakers of late. A French production about the dancer is planned, as well as a documentary by well-known Russian documentarist Maya Merkel.
"Maniya Zhizeli" is expected to be shown at the Kinocenter on Krasnopresnenskaya or the Moskva Movie Theater by early June, dates to be announced.
Premiered to enthusiastic response last week at Moscow's House of Cinema, "Maniya Zhizeli" (Giselle's Madness) tells the story of Olga Spessivtseva, from her early years of stardom at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater, through flirtations with revolutionaries, to escape to the West, and finally to her descent into madness.
Though the film is about a dancer and contains ballet excerpts, it is not just for balletomanes. With this stylish work, director Alexei Uchitel has created a transcendant portrait of a tormented soul, of tragedy and loss, of fading beauty and fleeting love.
Much of the film's success comes from a riveting performance by Galina Tyunina, a versatile actress affiliated with Pyotr Fomenko's studio.
Many Bolshoi and Mariinsky dancers coveted the role of the ballerina, whose life story until now has largely been unknown in Russia outside ballet circles. But Uchitel wanted a dramatic actress.
"We didn't intend a film about ballet, but about the drama of the soul," the director said at a press conference for the film. Tyunina vividly creates an image of a beautiful woman whose passions keep her on the brink. In 1943, Spessivtseva slipped from the precipice, having a nervous breakdown and spending the next 20 years in a mental institution.
For the doomed ballerina, life imitated art. She was acclaimed as one of the foremost interpreters of the classical role of Giselle, a peasant girl who goes mad after she is betrayed in love. Perfecting her portrayal for the famous Mad Scene of Act I, Spessivtseva visited a mental hospital. The film shows the ballerina peering through peepholes at the patients to observe their behavior. These scenes, casting the shadow of Spessivtseva's future confinement in an asylum, are among the most powerful in the film.
On these visits, Spessivtseva was accompanied by her lover, a commissar of the secret police named Boris Kaplun -- played brilliantly by Yevgeny Sidikhin, who has appeared recently in period pieces such as "Prorva" (Moscow Parade). The film takes us through the twists and turns of their romance. The dancer in fact became known as "Red Giselle" -- referring to her signature role in dance and her passionate liaisons offstage with supporters of the revolution.
In a dramatic film sequence Spessivtseva learns about the mass executions committed by the Cheka and accuses Kaplun of being a murderer. Yet she cannot resist the commissar's frenzied passion.
But eventually the dancer fled Russia, under the pretext of going to Europe for treatment for tuberculosis. She danced with the Grand Opera in Paris with fellow emigr? Serge Lifar. Ever unfortunate in love, the ballerina found herself rejected by her partner, played with comic effect by Ivan Okhlobyistin. Meanwhile Kaplun, who has ruined his political career by going to Paris to see his beloved, commits suicide.
"Giselle's Madness" ends by bringing to life nightmares that Spessivtseva described in letters to her sister. Her last romance, with an American, George Brown, was overshadowed by the dancer's hallucinations about a sinister Chinese man. In these surreal scenes Brown is killed by the Chinese man.
Filmed in St. Petersburg, the film evokes well the mood of Spessivtseva's epoch. An air of authenticity is also lent by rare archival footage of the dancer made in Paris.
Originally, the film was to be called "Red Giselle." But after St. Petersburg choreographer Boris Eifman announced plans to create a ballet about Spessivtseva with that title, the film was renamed. "Giselle's Madness" will be shown at the Kinotavr '95 Film Festival in Sochi in June and the Montreal Film Festival in September.
Spessivtseva, who died in 1991 at age 96 in a senior citizens home in New York, was considered one of the great classical ballerinas of all time and was renowned for the spirituality of her dancing. Her life and art have captured the attention of several filmmakers of late. A French production about the dancer is planned, as well as a documentary by well-known Russian documentarist Maya Merkel.
"Maniya Zhizeli" is expected to be shown at the Kinocenter on Krasnopresnenskaya or the Moskva Movie Theater by early June, dates to be announced.
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