The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

260 George A. Romero
The Dark Half (1993)
Bruiser (2000)
Land of the Dead (2005)
Diary of the Dead (2007)
Survival of the Dead (2009)
The Tales of Hoffmann
1951
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Starring Robert Rounseville, Moira Shearer, Ludmilla
Tchérina, Ann Ayars, Pamela Brown, Léonide Massine, Robert
Helpmann, Frederick Ashton, Mogens Wieth, Lionel Harris,
Philip Leaver, Meinhart Maur, and more
How would you describe The Tales of Hoffmann to someone who has
never seen it?
Romero: It’s a version of the Offenbach opera with some added music and
some ballet. It’s about a guy and his unrequited love. He’s in love with a ballerina,
and there’s a villain who’s almost vampiric who appears in all the tales.
Hoffmann gets drunk in a tavern telling the three tales, and the same guy
walks away with the ballerina. It’s a fantasy. He falls in love with a mechanical
doll. I like to call it the first music video.
You were twelve when you first saw it?
Romero: I was at the Sutton Place Theater in Manhattan. An aunt and
uncle took me to see it, and I was just blown away. I was in a great theater
with terrific projection, a really big screen, and it was just beautiful. I was
knocked out. I noticed even then the colors and how they were used, and I
just thought it was gorgeous. It was beautiful, and you just don’t see it anymore
today.
I was expecting to be bored to tears by this movie. It wasn’t a Tarzan
movie; it wasn’t a war movie; it wasn’t John Wayne, John Ford. I expected,
“Oh God, I’m going to get some culture here!”
First of all, I love the music. I thought the music was better than any score I
had heard. It turned me on to classical music, and it turned me on to the piece