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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 9121
Released: June 1, 2004 |
| Our Price: $5.98 |
| Used Price: $2.34 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
With the complete cooperation of the joffrey ballet of chicago: robert altman follows the stories of the dancers whose professional & personal lives grow impossibly close. Neve campbell plays a gifted company member on the verge of becoming a principal dancer at a fictional chicago troupe. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 01/24/2006 Starring: Neve Campbell James Franco Run time: 112 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Robert Atlman
Description of The Company:
An elegant portrait of artists in the act of creation, The Company is also a ballet lover's dream come true. While this intimate study of the onstage and backstage world of dance may appeal to a limited audience with its casually plotless structure, it's still a unique, accomplished film by one of the greatest American directors. As critic Roger Ebert observed, Robert Altman's film is also an autobiographical reflection of Altman's working methods, in which an ensemble (in this case, Neve Campbell and the dancers of Chicago's celebrated Joffrey Ballet Company) is casually choreographed in an atmosphere of spontaneity that's both dramatically charged and effortlessly authentic. A classically trained dancer, Campbell also coproduced the film, and stars with James Franco (as her easygoing boyfriend) and Malcolm McDowell as the Joffrey's delightfully diva-like artistic director. Featuring stellar performances of the Joffrey's best-known dances, this soothing, hypnotic film is devoid of conventional dialogue, and yet Barbara Turner's screenplay provides a precise roadmap for Altman's masterful choreography of dance, music, and human interaction. --Jeff Shannon
The Company Reviews:
Interesting yet boring no plot 
2008-09-05 - It had no plot and never showed the reason why the company was put together. Not like the others I have seen like this, very disappointed!
I expected more from the previews I anticipated a whole lot more.
Please give me a pair of scissors... 
2008-06-03 - This films really, really needs to be re-released with all the boring story line and wooden acting cut out of it and just the beautiful, hypnotic dancing left intact. I watch this movie a lot and I am exhausted by having to fast forward through the dross to the gold. Maybe the problem is that the dance sequences are TOO good and in comparison the interruptions by the story line are just annoying.
Another Sublime Altman Film Nobody Has Seen... 
2008-04-23 - ...and those who did saw it for the wrong reasons.
I prefer to consider this Altman's truly final film and therefore his final statement (PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, while quaintly amusing, is pretty anemic, not surprising given Altman's health during production). It has all the markings of an artist coming to terms with his Muse and/or Moloch. The melodrama, while sufficiently engaging, plays more like a fading illusion, relegated to the backdrop of Altman's preferences for the blurred, interrelated, and dream-like fantasia of the stage and the cinema.
To only judge this on dance and not on Altman's penchant for avant-garde narrative is entirely too reductive.
For the ballet fan
2007-06-08 - This movie is an entertaining look behind the scenes of a renowned dance company. It's quite realistic but stops short of documentary. The characters are interesting, but the focus of the movie is the ballet. Several lengthy performance sequences are a true delight to any fan of ballet, however non-fans will find them boooooring.
Altman does ballet - "I hate pretty!"
2007-03-11 - This movie is not a documentary, neither does it have a story / narrative driving events. It is an undisputably Altman-esque view of life in a successful ballet company, in this case the Joffrey Ballet Company.
This means that events simply unfold in a matter of fact and realistic way, with characters stumbling over phrases and talking over each other in a way that gradually convinces you this is a peek into real life rather than a `movie'. If ballet, in particular modern ballet, fascinates you, and you like Altman's style of direction, then this is the movie for you.
Having said that, if ballet does NOT fascinate, you may well be left cold by a movie which has no story to tell, but rather purports to show real life instead.
The performances are fantastic, as you would expect from Robert Altman. Malcolm McDowell is a treat as the ballet director.. a role that Roger Ebert astutely observed is very like Altman himself, overseeing the creative process with one eye always on the budget, and those around him subject to his acerbic put downs, or throwaway praises. More than once he shouts out `You're a genius!' while simultaneously walking out of the room and already thinking about something or someone else. During the ballet training, you can feel the dancers groan as he interrupts shouting out `What are you doing! You made it pretty! I HATE pretty!'.
Neve Campbell was the driving force behind getting the movie made. She trained in Canada as a ballet dancer, and put in 4 months of training to get in shape for this role. It was she who persuaded Altman to make the movie, after his initial disinterest. This makes it all the more remarkable how un star-like a vehicle this is for her. Her character is just one character within the company and never overshadows the pace and style of the movie.
What we get then, is snippets of real lives and loves of all the players of a ballet company, interspersed with occasionally lengthy scenes of the ballets themselves. The performances certainly are convincing, but the end result is an oddly dispassionate but intimate view into the world of ballet.
This is not Altman at his best. I find he works best when there IS a plot and story, which distracts you from the fact that the movie is really about the people not the story. Such was the case in his previous movie, Gosford Park. Here, what you see is what you get and there are no layers to unwrap. Therefore, whether you enjoy the movie or not will depend greatly on your interest in the creative process on display, and in modern ballet itself.
