This wonderful documentary is a joy and a treasure, particularly for ballet fans, but also full of enjoyment for anyone with any interest in humans or art. It is a blessing that Geller and Goldfine happened upon this subject when they did, and decided to take it up. They have done a beautiful job of putting together with style, what was just a fraction of all the material they amassed, including interviews, current and archival footage, photos and excerpts from movies. Hunting down, choosing, eliminating and organizing into coherence all of this must have been an overwhelming task, and they have done it magnificently. The editing and the accompanying music also help to raise this documentary far above the level of most movies of that genre.
It is evident that the filmmakers fell in love with their many subjects and their stories. For anyone who has spent much time around some of these artists, that is not at all surprising, and they make us fall for them too. These dancers represent precious links with some of the richest of our artistic history; while their awareness of that and of the responsibility and gifts given them is eloquently expressed, they also show themselves to be very real, down-to-earth, fun-loving people--witty, too. We can't help but feel deeply for, and enjoy the hell out of them.
Certainly, even staying strictly within the very particular bounds of their subject, there was so much more one might have wished to have included here--this is such rich, juicy terrain. But time constraints would never allow the movie to cover anywhere near all the fascinating material that could have been included. Some important dancers mentioned either only briefly or not at all include Igor Youskevitch, George Skibine, Vera Zorina, Alicia Alonso, Sono Osato, André Eglevsky, Nana Gollner (aka Nina Golovina), Mary Ellen Moylan and Leon Danielian, among others. I would also have enjoyed a mention, and perhaps a photo or film clip, of Cyd Charisse during her time with the Ballets Russes; she used the stage name Felia Siderova (or Sidorova--research hasn't cleared up for me which spelling is correct).
There are also small mentions that should have been made, and could have without much trouble or time. Some of these include: upon mention of the Markova-Dolin Ballet company, a quick mention of Anton Dolin, and his importance; identifying Serge Lifar in a clip in which he playfully partners Tamara Toumanova outdoors on a lawn; even a brief account of the ultimate fate of founding director René Blum, who left the company to return to Europe, as stated in the movie, but who was tortured and killed by the Nazis. There also were still other companies that used the "Ballets Russes" moniker, and were part of the milieu this movie examines. In spite of things and people not in it, though, BALLETS RUSSES is glorious, and essential viewing.
In the end, no movie can be all things to all viewers, especially when focusing on a specialized slice of life and art. The comment here by gelman@attglobal.net (note: that somewhat negative review has now been taken down by its author, and replaced by a more recent and much more positive one) complains that this film does not follow Balanchine very much outside of his Ballets Russes work, and claims that "there is precious little about the major figures in American ballet and no attempt to explain how American ballet developed from the base provided by the Ballets Russes." I would argue that some of the people in this movie are indeed major figures in American ballet, but that isn't even the point. This movie deals lovingly with a particular, limited (though glorious) slice of cultural history; it is not meant to be a comprehensive history of ballet's development in America, even within the limited time frame it covers. There were certainly other important things happening in American dance concurrently to this movie's events, and I would love to see a movie or movies about them. Those are not the focus of this movie, and not the stories this movie sets out to tell. BALLETS RUSSES keeps its focus and tells its stories lovingly, glitteringly and touchingly. It is not to be missed! Deep thanks to Geller and Goldfine for a great, essential piece of history.
