Tout près des étoiles: Les danseurs de l'Opéra de Paris

Beautifully shot, beautifully edited, a gem of a documentary. This should be required viewing for parents who want their little darlings to be dancers.

The Paris Opera Ballet operates under the auspices of the French government, who help fund the company and the school that trains dancers from the age of 8 until they are ready to enter the company (IF they are ready to enter the company). The level of technical command is impressive, even in the school segments. Most frightening amongst the injuries, exhaustion and prospect of a short career, is the dancers bodies, especially the women. Even for Parisians, most of the dancers are scarily thin. (and yes, I know dancers and work with dancers. We're talking below 10 percent body fat.)

There were quite a number of documentaries I saw in 2003, "Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet" (aka "Tout près des étoiles") is one of the unforgettable ones. A documentary dedicated to the dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet is a labor of love from filmmaker Nils Tavernier, who followed the company for 3 months in 1999, including their Tokyo performances. We were given an insider's look of what goes on behind the curtains, at rehearsals, studio practices, students at the Nanterre school, and many insightful interviews. It was fascinating listening to the responses and comments just from the casual, on the spot interviews, be it one on one or in groups. The subtitles by Lenny Borger and Cynthia Schoch facilitated remarkable understanding of the world of these ballet dancers.

A woman dancer: "The word love is not strong enough for dancing. Dance is more than love. It is something that devours you." A young male dancer: "The stage is a drug. Every time (even though I'm not happy with how I danced, and have fear before going on stage)…I wanted to go back on." A dance teacher: "The weeks and months…all the effort of many rehearsals for a few minutes on stage. It's insane. You can't put a prize on it."

"What rank are you?" Nils asked. "Quadrille. The lowest rank. But I dance a lot," a young ballerina happily replied while doing her makeup. To another dancer: "Which ballet are you in?" "I'm an understudy. I'm not dancing. I'm used to that," the lanky dancer walked away with a smile. "Yes, there's pain," a dancer nursing her foot said, "you forget a lot of things on stage. It [the pain] goes away."

These are just a handful of sample exchanges/scenes as we get to watch close to the stars (étoiles), be it premier danseur or danseuse, young quadrilles or 12 and 14 year old dance students, dance teachers who gave up their ballet shoes, or mother (father) dancers who wanted a child and family instead of a star career, and a prima ballerina's last performance as she retires at 40 ("men retire at 45"). It's 1 hr. 36 mins. well spent, especially for those who appreciate the ballet. What a compact yet comprehensive look into the everyday (stage) life of dancers at the Paris Opera Ballet company. There are excerpts from about seven ballet performances. The ballet music and selective film score match the thoughtfully edited together documentary, which is engrossing drama as good as any mainstream movie. "Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet" is available on DVD.

Other memorable documentaries: Mark Moskowitz's "Stone Reader" (intriguing journal in locating an author of a book), Jeffrey Blitz's "Spellbound" (following eight 1999 National Spelling Bee teenage contestants), and Dana Brown's "Step Into Liquid" (surfing is another dedicated lifelong sport/adventure).

The general message of this video is that it's extremely difficult and physically demanding to be a dancer. This is an idea that was probably absorbed by the dance public quite a while ago and I, for one, am not anxious to hear it again. And yet, this video drums it into our heads repeatedly while showing the brutality of the "Etoile" (star) survival-of-the-fittest system.

I also fail to see why so much is made of Bejart's work. And especially since the "Ninth Symphony", admittedly not a ballet but more of a "circus" in my opinion, is set to Beethoven's music. For some reason, Beethoven, for all his greatness, seems to be one of the least danceable composers to ever be choreographed. Maybe his actual ballet music like "The Creatures of Prometheus" might be done more successfully.

To me, the Kylian section is more interesting.

I found this video to be quite tedious despite some passing pleasures along the way. No doubt it would be of greater interest to dancers and ballet fans.

Only in France will you have ballerinas who smoke. I came to this after — and because — of a similar dance documentary made similarly for French TeeVee but of classical Russian ballet corps.

This group mixes modern and classical. They are French in the old sense of balancing passion with institutionalized grace. These dancers could have been the stuff of a truly remarkable film. We simply needed more of them, more of them in motion and fewer words.

Making a film is a collaboration, a recipe from many larders. Here you have the performers are real performers seen mostly when not in their performance but the filmmaker's. This is rare. They are inherently full of focused life made physical made visible made accessible. We have a camera operator who is really quite in tune with what is going on. The eye moves, the camera is mobile. It has more than curiosity; it has composition out of minor discoveries; patterns not intended. I liked the camera. The editor understood this and — while not as inspired — accommodated the feel. It is offputting at first, then helps you find the groove.

The thing that destroys this is the director himself. He apparently did not understand what all the creative people around him were doing, so made some obviously bad decisions on what he decided to shoot and include. The overall shape of the thing is a mess. It moves from a backstage exploration to group biographies, to actually photographing some fantastic dance.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

"Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet" is a 2001 documentary that shows some of what goes on behind the scenes in a ballet company and its adjoining school: rehearsals, classes, performances, fittings, along with interviews with students, understudies, performers, teachers, and directors. All of this makes for a compelling piece about art, commitment, and choices.

Young, thin, and energetic, students in the school hope to get a placement in the ballet after completing their classes. Dancers are ranked from the lowest, the corps de ballet, to the highest, premiere danseur.

What is fascinating is what these young dancers go through at such a young age. They learn tremendous discipline and sacrifice. One dancer pointed out that she's not giving up a party; rather, she's choosing something more important to her, which is a good performance.

The students also learn, early on, that they need to make decisions: what if they don't make it into the company, what if something happens and they are unable to continue dancing, should they marry, have children, just dedicate themselves to a career...a dancer's career is like an athlete's - it's short, and one has to mature early.

A truly excellent look at the life of an artist from the beginning to final performance.