Classic Movie Review: 'The Tales of Hoffmann' is Spectacular

The Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger film, The Tales of Hoffmann, is receiving a brand new Criterion Collection release on Tuesday, June 7th, 2022. Though it is not as well known as Powell and Pressburger’s unparalleled classic, The Red Shoes (1948), The Tales of Hoffmann is quite similar to that 1948 film in terms of style and ambition. Powell and Pressburger’s unprecedented challenge was to bring Opera and Ballet to the big screen in a cinematic package. Their accomplishment of that ambition makes The Tales of Hoffmann historic.

The Tales of Hoffmann tells three tales, not counting the story being told within the framing device employed by Powell and Pressburger. The framing device has our protagonist, Hoffmann (Robert Rounseville), attending a ballet performance by his beloved Stella (Moira Shearer). During intermission, Hoffman joins his friends and fellow poets in a pub where he is called upon to tell tales. Hoffmann agrees and sets about telling three tales of his failed romances.

The First Tale of Hoffmann

The first tale of Hoffmann is one of romantic humiliation. In this story Hoffmann falls for the beautiful daughter of a rich man, Spelanzani (Leonid Massine). Olympia (Moira Shearer) is a vision and Hoffmann is blinded by her beauty. He’s also blinded by the optical inventions of Coppelius (Robert Helpmann) whose glasses bring Olympia and a large group of puppets in Spelanzani’s home to life. Olympia is not what she seems and blinded by his desire for her, Hoffmann is unable to see who she really is until it is too late.

The second tale of Hoffmann’s lost loves tells the story of the time Hoffman lost his very soul to love. Giulietta (Ludmilla Tcherina) is a courtesan in the employ of a devious Magician (Robert Helpmann, again). Giulietta and the Magician steal men’s reflections by having Giulietta seduce them. Her spell has already worked on Franz (Leonid Massine, again) and now she’s turned to Hoffmann. In a beautifully choreographed dance we watch the besotted Hoffman willingly give his reflection, standing in for his soul, to Giulietta. Achieving her aim, Giulietta escapes with the Magician while Hoffmann and Franz duel to the death out of jealousy.

A Romantic Tragedy

The third and final tale of Hoffmannis a romantic tragedy. Hoffman has fallen in love with the lovely daughter of a legendary composer named Crespel (Mogens Wieth). Antonia (Ann Ayars) is young and beautiful and has the voice of an Angel. Unfortunately, much like her late mother, Antonia has a weak heart. If she sings with her full power, she risks death. Both Hoffmann and Krespel urge Antonia to remain silent but when they aren’t around, Antonia is beseeched by her mother’s former doctor, Dr. Miracle (Robert Helpmann, again, again), to sing once more for him. Like the other tales of Hoffmann, this tale does not have a happy ending.

The historic and iconic element of The Tales of Hoffmann is that all of these stories are told in the form of Opera. Star Robert Rounseville sings all of his performances in his remarkable, operatic Tenor. Other actors are also delivering their performances via operatic singing though other than Rounseville and Ann Ayars as Antonia, most are doubled by real opera performers such as Dorothy Bond doubling Moira Shearer, and Margherita Grandi doubling for Ludmilla Tcherina. Regardless, the performances, direction, and especially the dubbing, are seamless.

The Incredible Staging

Then there is the incredible staging of The Tales of Hoffmann. Powell and Pressburger have long been remembered for their innovative set design and costume and The Tales of Hoffmann is a perfect example of Powell and Pressburger’s approach to design. The elaborate sets and costumes are dazzling with the puppet sequence in the tale of Olympia a true standout. The story calls for puppets to come to life as human dancers who are on hand to witness Hoffmann’s humiliation and enhance the heady and intoxicating atmosphere that leads Hoffman to his fate.

The surreal images, the clown-like costumes, and the remarkable ways the dancers mimic being attached to strings all combine to delight us even as we watch poor Hoffmann be desperately fooled. Equally brilliant in this sequence is the lively and athletic performance of Leonid Massine whose Spelanzani leaps about like a devilish sprite, delighting in fooling Hoffmann in hopes of taking his fortune. Massine is incredibly lithe and his performance has a comic grandeur that enhances the sequence.

The Incomparable Moira Shearer

The stand out of the Olympia story however, is Olympia herself. The incomparable Moira Shearer plays Olympia with all of the grace of her classical ballet training but also with an eye toward the absurd. In Hoffmann’s tale, Olympia is an automaton controlled by her father and only Hoffmann is unaware of her robotic nature. This calls on Shearer to dance gracefully at one moment only to stop on a dime before Spelanzani or someone else in on the secret winds her gears and gets her moving again. In one unique portion of this story Shearer’s unblinking face is a perfect mask of robotic beauty.

While we are dazzled by Powell and Pressburger’s unparalleled staging, we are also getting a lesson in storytelling via an unreliable narrator. Hoffmann’s true downfall is not his look without leaping romanticism but his ego. In each of his stories, he’s the victim of some kind of trick. The women in his tales all betray his trust. That’s how he sees it but as objective viewers, we can see that Hoffman is manipulating the story. By portraying the women as being controlled by outside forces or being motivated by treachery, he can explain away his romantic failures as not being his own fault.

Spectacular and Revealing Storytelling

It’s a subtle way of revealing Hoffmann’s ego. Olympia is a robot under control of her father, Giulietta was treacherous because of the evil magician, and Antonia betrayed him at the behest of Dr. Miracle. When all three of these women are then visually married to Stella at the end of the film, we can see that this is how Hoffmann views his latest romantic failure. He’s not losing Stella because he chose to go and get drunk with friends during her ballet, he lost her because he’s always the victim of some outside force.

The Tales of Hoffmann is big and grand in presentation and yet subtle in storytelling. Powell and Pressburger dazzled audiences with innovative techniques while never losing track of the story, that of an arrogant man undone by ego. It’s not that Hoffmann isn’t sympathetic but rather that love made him blind. Blind to his faults, blind to the desires of the woman that he loves, and blind to the world around him that offered him plenty of warning about his hubris.

The Tales of Hoffmann arrives on a brand new Blu Ray Criterion Collection release on Tuesday, June 7th, 2022.