Thoughts on White Nights

 

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*Raymond (Gregory Hines) has bet Nikolai (Mikhail Baryshnikov) in order to get him to do some ballet*
"Eleven rubles. Eleven pirouettes."
"Eleven rubles. ... Okay. ... Can you count?"
"Yeah. Don't worry. Just spin."

If White Nights is considered a musical, then it's one with a special distinction. Not since Camelot have the book scenes to song and dance numbers amount and quality ratios been so out of sync. Directed by Taylor Hackford, with a screenplay by James Goldman, Eric Hughes and an uncredited Nancy Dowd, Nights is at its best when most of their contributions are ignored and it's just Hines and/or Baryshnikov on the floor. The staging is credited to Twyla Tharp, Roland Petit, Baryshnikov and Hines. I agree with Paul Attanasio to an extent. Nights lacks cohesive choreography, but it's all still better than the script.

Thanks to a plane crash, defector and ballet dancer Nikolai is back in the USSR. Chaiko (Jerzy Skolimowski) wants Nikolai to perform again, going to lengths including keeping Nikolai from his agent (Geraldine Page), arranging an artistic reunion between Nikolai and ex-lover Galina (Helen Mirren) and coercing the aid of tap dancer Raymond, who defected from the United States. Raymond defected in protest and shame over it's/his involvement in Vietnam, but he's got buyer's remorse. The only good thing in Raymond's life is wife Darya (Isabella Rossellini, getting "and introducing" billing). 

Clocking in at just over two and a quarter hours, Nights takes a while to get going. Some scenes, like Raymond recalling racism and wartime atrocities -- while tapping in his Siberian digs, no less -- go on way too long. Skolimowski and Page, fine actors, are hindered by their one-note roles. Chaiko's menacing ("It's much better to work in the theater than in a mine," he reminds Raymond), a straw Commie for us to boo and hiss at. Ann works hard to get Nikolai freed for reasons that are never fully spelled out. Common decency? Patriotism? Maternal feelings? A need to protect her 10 percent?

"Has any other theater in the world been like this for you, Kolya? Or any other audience? The Kirov."

"It's beautiful."

"Yes. You were to be a legend here. But now the young ones don't even know your name. How does that feel?"

"How does it feel? I was born as a dancer in this theater. It will always be part of me, like Russia. But for eight years I've been free. Do you know what it means? Be really free? Do you? No, it's like Vysotsky. You whisper his songs. I want to whisper what I feel."

*Launches into a dance solo that deeply moves Galina*

Mirren has her moments, Rossellini has chemistry opposite Hines (it's pitiful that their outright love scene was cut) and Hines is clearly giving his all. In the end, however, Nights is unmistakably carried by Baryshnikov. Whether or not Nikolai is autobiographical is irrelevant. He's played with conviction, wit, charisma and heart. Baryshnikov earned all of the critical valentines he received for Nights, even if the film itself wasn't so fortunate. "Magnificent Mikhail Baryshnikov, who might have been created for the movie camera, shames the movie he's in," Pauline Kael wrote. Seriously, who needs a publicist?

If you're keeping score, Memorable Music is at 51-44. Yet again, I'm favoring stuff written for movies. Points go to Michel Colombier's score, "My Love Is Chemical" by Lou Reed, "Prove Me Wrong" by David Pack, "Separate Lives" by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin and (reluctantly) "Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie. Hitting No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary (Dec. 6, 1985), Hot 100 (Dec. 20, 1985) and R&B (Jan. 10, 1986) charts, as Richie did, is impressive. That said, "Separate Lives" planted its flags first. "Lives" topped the AC charts on Nov. 15, 1985, followed by the Hot 100 on Nov. 29, 1985. 

We're using up all of the post-review material ... Grossing nearly $42.2 million on a budget between $10-$20 million, Nights opened wide at No. 3. The wide release came on Dec. 6, 1985, so it can be argued that the hit songs greatly helped Nights at the box office. Anyway, the movie ranks at No. 17 for 1985. I'll remember it another way. The preposterous plot (including a "thrilling" sequence where Nikolai, Raymond and Darya are escaping a Leningrad apartment building from several stories high), wed to stylized filmmaking, earns Nights the alternative title of "Flashdance for dudes."

*Nikolai has won the bet*
"Eleven pirouettes, eleven rubles. Rubles. Sweet, sweet rubles. You're right. This music feels good. Whoo! Rubles! You know, I forgot how small they are."

*Gets down for a bit before being interrupted by Galina*

Recommended with reservations.

Thoughts:
-- "I know about America. I know what makes it tick. And you don't fool me for a second. You're no hero. You just made a run to where it pays better."

-- Critic's Corner, the leads: "Baryshnikov brings to the screen all of the dynamic force and intelligence that distinguish his dance performances," Vincent Canby wrote. "Gregory Hines (is) a great tap dancer but not in the same league with Mr. Baryshnikov as a film personality." Attanasio wasn't impressed with Hines. "There's something about his sleepy eyes, his mewling delivery, that can suck the energy out of every scene he's in." "Fine as the two men can be, they're never let loose to do what each does best," Sheila Benson wrote for the Los Angeles Times. "The storyline seems to point to one great, joint number by the two of them as a joyous release, somewhere out of the Soviet Union, but it never comes." Roger Ebert: "If the movie had allowed (the men) to truly communicate about (and through) their dancing, that might have been enough."

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "(It's) been made in a cynical world where it is actually believed that a dance movie will interest more people if it is also a thriller: a pas de deux between the CIA and the KGB, if you will," Ebert wrote. "Cold, trapped, claustrophobic ... manages to do wrong to two cultures and to the talents of both Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines," Benson wrote. Attanasio: "What had promised to be a psychological thriller, and a variation on the 'fish out of water' story, becomes instead a particularly muddy buddy movie." Kael: "(A) cheap melodramatic plot is like a straitjacket that (Hackford) got into voluntarily and can't wriggle out of ... (the movie is) often ludicrously bad."

-- Critic's Corner, the politics: "A clarion call for artistic freedom that leaves you wondering, 'If this is what artistic freedom gets us, who'd fight to defend it?'" Attanasio wrote. "No one of sound mind would suggest that today's Soviet Union is the place for artists to express themselves openly, but the oversimplification (is) infuriating," Benson wrote. "Lays on the patriotic bluster all too heavily -- as if we wouldn't get it, as if we might be lost if the movie were done with a little subtlety," David Denby wrote.

-- Awards Watch: "Say You, Say Me" won both the Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Original Song, while "Separate Lives" was an Oscar nominee and Colombier's score received a Globes nomination. Despite their popularity, both "Say You, Say Me" and "Separate Lives" were not remembered by the 1987 Grammys. It's hard to rationalize that both songs came out too early when you consider the honoree for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance was ... James Brown, "Living In America."

-- Hey, It's ...!: John Glover, William Hootkins and Maryam d'Abo.

-- "They almost destroyed me. I'm not gonna give 'em a chance to do that to my kid."

-- Next: Rocky IV. On deck: One Magic Christmas, Santa Claus: The Movie. Coming soon: Spies Like Us, Young Sherlock Holmes.