I'm watching Ballerina and falling in love. You know, I wonder if the reason there are always so many octogenarians in the audience for opera and ballet is not that they are artforms for people with money, but that as you get older, you like to see the accomplishment that follows years, sometimes decades of training, accomplishments you know you will no longer be able to achieve in your lifetime.
I'm watching these gorgeous ballerinas bending like reeds, and I know that their fate would never have been possible for me. I mourn the rigidity of my thirty-something body, but also the inflexibility of my future, the narrowing of my paths. It's saudade, a sweet sorrow.
just discovered your blog & enjoy it!
a bientot!
-The Paris Food Blague
You must have also seen Frederick Wiseman's "La Danse - Le ballet de l'Opera de Paris"? I love ballet movies and this one is my favorite. I saw it at the Film Forum, but maybe it's on NetFlix.
Hi Janet, No, I must see it. I will look for it. I've got to get to Film Forum more often.
And at the risk of stating the obvious ballet movies - The Turning Point (1977), The Company (2004) and, of course, The Red Shoes. I get to see live ballet this coming Sunday at the Joyce so I don't feel so embarrassed about my nostalgia looking backward to ballet films I've loved - still in the present enjoying live ballet, pfew!
I feel so much the same way -- the sweet sorrow you speak of -- so often these days. And it does go along with getting older, at least for me.
Thanks for the movie recommendation; I'm going to Netflix that one right away.
P.S. There are no words for how much I adore the banner photo!