Budapest Classic Film Marathon: The Tales of Hoffmann

Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Screenplay by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Director of photography: Christopher Challis
Music by Jacques Offenbach
Cast: Moira Shearer, Ludmilla Tchérina, Ann Ayars

In the footsteps of a filmmaking dynasty: from Pressburger to Macdonald / Emeric Pressburger, the experimenter genius 

Introduction: Rita Boronyák, researcher, archivist, National Film Institute - Film Archive

This opera adaptation by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger showcases all the many virtues of the great director duo. Offenbach’s fever-dream, grandiose composition, which could never be accused of having a uniform and straightforward plotline, has been staged by many other filmmakers including William Friedkin, better known as director of the classic horror movie The Exorcist. It is not the plot, or not only the plot that the British directors saw in it, but the whole imagery of Hoffmann’s weird cosmology: it is as if The Red Shoes had become mixed up with Nosferatu the Vampyre.

More information about the Budapest Classic Film Marathon's program in Uránia >>