The Tales of Hoffmann

The Red Shoes was a revolutionary work combining cinema and ballet, so why not make a film that would – in an even more radical way – synthesise cinema and opera? The Archers’ final masterpiece is a marvellous oddity: an adaptation of Jacques Offenbach’s 1881 opera imbued with E.T.A. Hoffmann’s fanciful imagination. Essentially produced as a silent film, with actors singing and dancing to pre-recorded music, it brought together much of the cast of The Red Shoes: Moira Shearer, Ludmilla Tchérina, Robert Helpmann, and Léonide Massine. The set design and costumes provide an ephemeral setting, in which Hoffmann falls in love with three women and loses the ability to differentiate between art and life. The film is a sensual homage to opera and a fairy tale for adults who want to immerse themselves in colourful, whimsical set pieces. Several expressive filmmakers worship Powell and Pressburger’s experiment: reportedly, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull would have looked totally different, and George A. Romero might not have reached for the camera without its influence.

Sebastian Smoliński

Restored in 4K by The Film Foundation and the BFI National Archive in association with Studiocanal. Restoration funding was provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Franco-American Cultural Fund, The Film Foundation, and the Louis B. Mayer Foundation.