Salt Lake Tribune Review
Frederick Wiseman turns 80 years old today, New Year’s Day, and his latest documentary “La Danse: Le Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris” shows the master’s eye for the nuts-and-bolts of human activity is as strong as ever.
Wiseman — who serves not only as director but sound recordist and co-editor — always has used his camera to record the process of things, whether it’s the interior of a mental hospital (“Titicut Follies,” his first film in 1967), government and societal institutions (with such prosaic titles as “High School,” “State Legislature,” “Public Housing” and “Domestic Violence”) or cultural icons (like Madison Square Garden in his long-suppressed 2005 doc “The Garden”).
In his 1995 film “Ballet,” Wiseman profiled the American Ballet Theatre. Now, he does the same for another prestigious troupe, Le Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris, and does so with rigorous coverage and sometimes luminous images.
Wiseman gets into the
Paris Opera Ballet literally from top to bottom — from the beekeeper tending a hive on the roof to the subterranean tunnels leading to the sewers (where he finds no traces of Lon Chaney or Michael Crawford). In quick-cut montages, we see the costume department sewing elaborate sequined creations, the cafeteria workers serving lunch, and the janitors vacuuming the red-velvet seats below the massive Marc Chagall ceiling.
His camera watches unobtrusively as artistic director Brigitte Lefevre deals with fund-raising headaches, indecisive guest choreographers and anxious dancers. Two segments are the most telling: In one, Lefevre listens to an older ballerina who seeks to prolong her career with a less strenuous schedule; in the other, she welcomes a rookie dancer who will someday fill the older dancer’s pointe shoes.
Wiseman’s main focus, though, is on the dance. In a series of long, fluid takes, he first captures the laborious rehearsals of seven dance pieces, then shows the final results in performance. The works range from the traditional (a “Nutcracker” production with choreography by Rudolf Nureyev) to the disturbingly modern (Angelin Preljocaj’s adaptation of the Greek tragedy “Medea,” danced by Agnès Letestu).
True to Wiseman’s credo, there is no narration or even title cards to explain who’s who or what work they are performing. Wiseman believes in throwing the audience into the deep end, bombarding us with information and trusting that we will sort it all out.
If you’re a great fan of ballet, seeing these dancers rehearse and perform is a singular treat. If you’re not a great dance fan, it’s still intriguing to see how Wiseman patiently (though, at 2 hours and 39 minutes, this is one of his shorter films) immerses himself, and us, in this world of art and labor.
-- Sean P. Means
