Plot

A melancholy poet reflects on three women he loved and lost in the past: a mechanical performing doll, a Venetian courtesan, and the consumptive daughter of a celebrated composer.

This a film version of the opera "The Tales of Hoffmann", however it is NOT just a film of a staged performance. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (and the rest of "The Archers") work their usual magic here. The opera dramatises the three great romances in the life of the poet-hero presented in a series of flashbacks. Hoffmann's tales depict the struggle between human love and the artist's dedication to his work. Hoffmann loses each of the women he loves but gains instead poetic inspiration -- the ability to transform painful experiences into art.—Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>

Nürnberg. Poet ETA Hoffman has gone to the theater to watch his current love, Stella, a prima ballerina, dance the lead in The Enchanted Dragonfly. Stella has left a note backstage to be delivered to Hoffmann, it professing her love in return which is meant as encouragement for him to go see her during the intermission. However, Lindorf, Hoffmann's arch rival, bribes the stagehand and intercepts the note which Hoffmann thus does not receive. As such, Hoffmann, like the theatergoers are encouraged to do, instead goes to Luther's Beer Cellar during the intermission. There, Hoffmann, fearing the worst in having seen Lindorf and not having heard from Stella, proceeds to tell the others the story of three of his past loves, Olympia, Giulietta, and Antonia, all three stories which have aspects of fantasy in them, and all three loves which were doomed to fail in inherent problems. Hoffmann, in his melancholy state, and in the telling of these stories, may seal his fate with Stella.—Huggo

Hoffmann is a lovelorn young man in Nuremberg who is watching his latest love, Stella, dance in the ballet. In the interval he goes to the tavern where he tells his friends the tales of the three major loves of his life. Each story forms a separate act of this magnificently staged opera. It is NOT just a film of a staged production but a truly filmic version of the Offenbach opera.—Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>