armstrong3869's profile

an eleven year old Fred Astaire

Eleven year old Billy (Jamie Bell) is trying to survive in a Durham County town during the 1984 miners strike that is affecting his family. His widowed dad (Gary Lewis) wants Billy to take boxing lessons but the boy is more interested in the ballet class taught at the same gym by hard living Mrs. Wilkinson (Julie Walters) whose daughter Debbie (Nicole Blackwell) taunts Billy into trying to dance. Billys natural talent is so great that Mrs. Wilkinson encourages him to audition for the Royal Ballet School in London. Of course when his dad finds out whats going on, theres trouble. The film has all around appeal and some fine performances. Jamie Bell, who is a young Fred Astaire, makes his film debut.

The Ultimate Prokofiev Experience

Prokofievs Romeo & Juliet ballet was choreographed by Rudolf Nureyev in 1984 after he had been in France since his 1955 defection from the Soviet Union. Nureyev created not only spectacular stage sets, to correspond to the French interpretation of ballet as theatre, but he also composed a series of dance steps for each dancer, to correspond with each note of Prokofievs 2 and one half hour score. This created a perfect union of music and emotion. Of course this is a superhuman feat to say the least, but Nureyev personally supervised 3 of the dancers on this present DVD. They are Manuel Legris as Romeo and Lionel Delanoe as Mercutio. These 2 have perfected the dance routine with a smoothnes of execution, a seemingly inexhaustable reserve of stamina, and a perfect timing to the music, that is almost superhuman. This recording made in 1995 gives state of the art sound quality, gorgeous set designs and fantastic dance routines which must be seen to be believed. The original cast completely supervised by Nureyev in this recording also includes Monique Louderes as Juliet who also premeired the ballet in 1984. Nureyev also supervised beautiful 19 year old Elisabeth Maurin as Juliet who unfortunately is not featured on this DVD. Also as Tybalt, Nureyev supervised Kader Belarbi whos cat like grace and unbelievable stamina are equal to Legris and Delanoe. (Belarbi also looks like a young Sylvester Stallone) This is important since another e bay seller claims to have a DVD with Belarbi and Maurin (item number 120100047078) but if you will check the fine print below the album, you will see they are no where to be found. If this were true however, this then would be the definitive version. (Amazon .com also makes this same false claim) So this present 1995 recording is the greatest currently available version of Prokofievs masterpiece featuring Legris as Romeo, Loudieres as Juliet and Delanoe as Mercutio who were all personally supervised by Nureyev himself. Tybalt is played by Charles Jude who is very good but on a scale of 1 through 10 with Belarbi a perfect 10 Jude is about a 9. When the London critics first saw this production they hated it, finding fault with everything. Then a month later some experts on theatre and on Shakespeare saw it and declared it the greatest production they had ever seen. Soon after the London critics changed their mind and liked it too. This DVD is a historic document, and an indispensible acquisition to any serious collector of classical music, equal to Horowitz playing Rachmaninoffs 3rd Concerto. The reason why the French have even outdone the Russians on this is because of their interpretation of ballet as theatre. This is what inspired Nureyev, and now his dream as well as Prokofievs, is fully realized.

The greatest of ballet productions analyzed deeply

The buyer of this item must be aware that this is all in French with English subtitles. This does not show much of the immortal dancer Rudolph Nureyev but instead focuses on his dance routines as done by others namely French (and very gifted) ballet dancers. This documentary does not even show much of Nureyevs fantastic choreography but instead has most of the ballet dancing done in a studio with a piano playing the great prokofiev Romeo & Juliet score. The brief segments of the stage production shown however will spoil you, since you will immediately recognize that the French have taken this ballet to new heights. Nureyev invented a dance step for every note in the two and one half hour score by Prokofiev. To call this difficult is an understatement, yet Juliette played by Elisabeth Maurin, and Romeo played by Manuel Legris and especially Tybalt played by Kaden Belarbi are nothing less than awesome. Their ease, and total effortlessness (seemeanly of course) are almost supernatural. Unfortunately this one and a half hour documentary takes place mostly in a gymnasium, with the dancers wearing street clothes, BUT EVEN THEN it puts all other productions in the shade. However, when you see briefly, the fantastic stage sets, and hear the gorgeous orchestral accompaniment recorded in state of the art sound quality, and then see the dancers in their respective costumes, you will probably lose interest in any other production of this work, including the historically important one with Nureyev himself, and the Royal Ballet.The conductor is Vello Pahn and the Orchestra of the Opera National De Paris. This performance has got to be the ultimate Prokofiev experience.