The Tales of Hoffmann

Three years after The Red Shoes, Powell and Pressburger delivered another visually splendid tour de force of music and movement. Lush color, outrageous effects, Offenbach’s magnificent score, and impressive dancing highlight the three connected tales of a poet’s amorous adventures. The first concerns Olympia, a puppet passed off as a real woman to Hoffmann, who sees her torn to pieces before his eyes; the second, a Venetian courtesan, Giulietta, who captures Hoffmann’s mirror image and his soul; and the third, the tragedy of a singer kept from singing, lest she suffer the fate of her mother, who died of consumption.