The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

264 George A. Romero
Pressburger and Powell are credited with expanding British eroticism.
Did Tales of Hoffmann have an effect on you this way?
Romero: The Russian (Ludmilla Tchérina)—I don’t know if she was a ballerina
or not. She’s trying to do it, and sort of kneeling in front of Hoffmann
trying to come on to him. He had her throw her head back and forth in
the throes of passion, but really, he was trying to get her downstage so you
couldn’t see her mouth.
Our eroticism was much more obvious and much more voluptuous, like
everything American. We had all those bombshells. I think, maybe, in the
earlier days with Ingrid Bergman, even in the silent days, we were closer to
classical, subtler forms of eroticism.
Hoffmann, when he comes back to Giulietta’s room and he sees the
hunchback wallowing in a clam-shaped bed, it really evokes passion, a longing
for something. That one shot is very provocative. That scene where she
walks down that statue barefoot is very seductive, sort of misogynistic. I
don’t know that he liked women very much. I think he enjoyed them.
How has your experience with it changed?
Romero: It still recalls the same sort of wonder. Of course, you see some of
the flaws and you can appreciate their production problems. You can see some
jump cuts, but the overall experience doesn’t hurt it at all. Some films that I
remember really loving, on repeated watching, lose some of their allure. I love
watching the film as much as I like going back to a favorite piece of music. It
never diminishes for me.