Thanks for the correction about Neve Campbell's apartment, Guinevere. By chance, I got a free pass to see "The Company" again this afternoon--before the snow but when it was
FREEZING outside!--and like most Altman large ensemble films, I noticed a lot of things on second viewing I'd missed the first time around--including my mistake about "Ry's" apartment. One thing is that her apartment is right next to the El--Chicago's elevated version of a subway--which is very loud. Another is that the apartment, for all it's interesting design, is still either a studio or loft. Still, that's pretty great for Neve's character, who is a middle level dancer for the Joffrey, but gets a big opportunity to premiere a new duet when the choreographer notices the lead female is working injured. This got me to wondering, how does a mid level Joffrey dancer affor this fabulous living space? For one thing, Ry is shown working New Year's Eve as a cocktail waitress and at least I got the impression that this is a part-time job she regularly holds down. But there was also another scene couple of scenes about the dancer with a one bedroom apartment who can afford it by renting sleeping space and bathroom use to what looked like about six other dancers. It's the place where the dancer who had been staying with his aunt who has committed suicide comes to stay. The dancer who has the apartment talks about the price (either $8.75 or $18.75 a night, I couldn't quite hear) and "You're last in line for the bathroom" (lol). In another scene she tiptoes out from her closed bedoom, where she clearly has company, into the livingroom where the other dancers are sleeping and asks that same guy if he has a condom she can use. I don't know, but maybe that's what Joe was referring to when he said, "Would you want your daughter living that way?"
Those are the only two actual living situations we see in the film. After my second viewing I thought, "How does Neve Campbell's character afford a pretty groovy place even waiting cocktails part-time when other dancers of her level in the company are sleeping on floors?" It's never made clear in the movie, but the impression I got was that Ry's parents help her out financially. Remember the scene when Ry's mother is at her apartment and asks for some wine? (The mom makes a big deal out of Ry having red wine in her fridge instead of white "just like her mother"--hmm, wonder what that line meant.) Anyway, it wasn't anything specific that the mother, father, or either of Ry's stepparents said, there was just something about the obvious expense of at least the renovation of the apartment; the mother's behavior--sort of like she had a right to be there; Ry's behavior with her mother at the apartment (a little abrupt) and Ry waitressing (perhaps trying to get out from under Mom's financial-aid thumb?) that made me wonder about that particular situation in the film. At any rate, it made me think, "What's wrong with this picture?" meaning Ry's status in the company and her Cosmo-girl digs.
Don't mean to dwell on "Ry's Apartment"--it's just that on second viewing, I realized they only showed two living situations--Ry's and the camp-out style apartment--as well as only Ry's part-time job as a cocktail waitress. The first time I saw it I thought they showed more, but of course that's what Altman is so good at--showing just enough details to make you feel as if you've seen a whole world. But believe me, especially the lower level members, ie, the corps de ballet, of the Joffrey or any ballet company in the US only make about $10k to $15k a year, depending on where they're located and the level of the company. I don't know what a corps dancer in a company like American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is making these days--I've been away from the scene for a while--but I think Joe would know. I do know that in the mid-'80s, a couple of friends I had in ABT shared a three bedroom apartment in a pretty bad section of Queens where the rent was $600/month, plus utilities, not to mention the hour commute to their studios or Lincoln Center--and I doubt things have changed much in that area. The ABT people I knew, with one exception (who was married to a man who made real money and lived pretty well) were corps dancers and sometimes made extra money as a featured dancer with what are known as regional companies, such as Miami Ballet, Houston Ballet, Ballet West (Salt Lake City). So why not leave ABT and go be a principal or soloist with a regional company? Some dancers do, but for many, they would rather be in the corps of "the best" and live a threadbare existence in New York than be the big fish in a small pond somewhere else. Also, after your performing years, if you want to teach, your chances of getting a top teaching gig is a lot better with ABT or New York City Ballet on your résumé, even as a corps dancers, than as principal dancer with a regional company.
Anyway, it was the larger picture of a dancer's finances and living arrangements as portrayed in the film "The Company" that I was interested in, and so on second viewing I looked more closely at that.
On second look, the only thing I felt was left out of the versimalitude of the film was at least one raging tantrum from a director, choreographer, or dancer. This may have been because of the union involvement, whichi was definitely not around during my day--in fact ABT led the way in ballet dancers becoming unionized by actually going on strike in the late '70s, early '80s. But smaller companies are usually not unionized because the dancers can't afford it--though it gets complicated because of certain rules involving union scale and being eligible for grants, which I won't go into, ZZzzzzz
But in "The Company" the scene where the male dancer is fired on the spot by the choreographer of the giant snake dance (while he's in that red monkey suit--how humiliating!) and the union guy soon thereafter runs in, cries "I'm complaining about this to the union! This is abuse! Harrassment!"--that NEVER would have happened in any US dance company or Broadway show 20 years ago. I hope that at least in the larger companies unionization has had an effect at least like that because even in, or especially in, ABT or NYCB, really horrible things were done to dancers. Scales would be brought into class and the ballet mistress or master (sort of a cross between assistant to the artistic director, daily class instructor, and rehearsal director) grab a couple of female dancers, put them each on the scale, and then say something like, "Jane and Mary are pigs. We hate pigs. I don't want to see anybody talking to or even looking at Jane or Mary until they stop being pigs." Dancers could be fired on a whim and as I said, unless you were a star, dancers were too often victims of screaming tantrums and attacks at them as an individual or group, which they had to just stand there and take or lose their job.
There's a book, "Off-Balance: The Real World of Ballet," which I think is now out of print, but the author did an excellent job of researching and exposing the dark side of all the beauty. I thought it was a very important book especially for young women who had the talent and desire to be a professional ballet dancer. It wasn't meant to change anything, but at least parents and dancers would know what they might be in for. Unfortunately, most books of this kind--"Little Girls in Pretty Boxes" is another one--don't sell very well because most people don't really want to hear it. Also, at least in unionized companies, they can't do things like surprise weigh-ins in front of the rest of the company or verbally abuse dancers like that. One of the more interesting factoids in the ABT dancer's conditions with management was that the very first thing they wanted and a point on which the dancers would not budge is that they wanted it written into their contract that the management had to call them "ladies and gentlemen" and could no longer call them "boys and girls." Actually, the union organizer the dancers hired suggested it as a way of getting the dancers to start thinking of themselves as adult employees getting a salary from management rather than children getting an allowance from their parents. But once the dancers got the idea, they really dug in their heels on that point.
I keep digressing from my second viewing of the film "The Company" to things I recall from real life, but perhaps that's a testament to the accuracy of the movie. The only thing that struck me as an off-note upon second viewing was that the way things worked out for Neve's character, Ry, seemed a bit too Hollywood for my taste. I know the film is not intended to be story driven, but what story there is starts out with Ry being the last to find out that the male dancer she had been seeing was now seeing another dancer in the company. Then she gets the understudy's break when the lead is injured, plus the duet and her performance is a hit, PLUS she performs "courouageously!" during a sudden thunderstorm at an outdoor performance. She has a great apartment, even with the L roaring by outside her window. Then she hooks up with the hot chef and even though they have trouble with finding time to spend a quiet New Year's Eve together, he runs across the stage to bring Neve flowers at the end. I just thought it was a bit much, especially from the originator of the story and cowriter. OTOH, hey, why not write you own happy ending? But to me it comes off as just that, rather than truthfulness. I think I would have felt something for her character if she'd gone through more than just having to waitress in addition to dancing with the Joffrey or if she'd shown some difficulties with her character's personality or left the outcome of the relationship with the chef up in the air. There seemed to be some underlying tension with her mother, but that was it.
But that's mostly a quibble. While I don't think "The Company" is a particularly good movie, I do think that within the Altmanesque genre, it does an excellent job of showing the ballet world as close to the way it really is of any movie any made. "M*A*S*H" had the same nonstory narrative yet still I was drawn in by the characters. Same thing with "Nashville" and Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" (similar structure). Don't want to try to analyze why I didn't feel it with "The Company," but let's just say that if somebody could combine the realism of "The Company" with either an equally realistic and compelling story or characters that really drew you in, then I think it could be a really great film. As it is, I wouldn't recommend paying $10 to see "The Company" unless you're very interested in dance. But if you want to see some of the best choreography from a variety of styles in dance today and get an idea of the range of music and movement that could be integrated into skating, I would recommend renting it.
FINALE!
For skating fans
, the choreographer who made the duet that Neve ended up doing, Lar Lubovitch, choreographed a skating program for Paul Wylie. He did during his last year with SOI. It's to some Bach piano pieces (can't recall which ones) and I thought it was absolutely gorgeous. It certainly showed that great skating programs can be done to Bach. Of course it helps if you've got Paul Wylie, but I can see Michelle, Sasha, Jenny, Tim Goebel, Johnny Weir, Shizuka Arakawa, and of course a number of pro skaters doing wonderful things to Bach with the right choreographer. For example, in the Lubovitch piece for Paul, there's a section of spread eagles where just by varying the arms and alternating straight leg with bent knee spread eagles in just the right way with the music makes it look not just more interesting, but it actually gives it an abstract sense of emotion.
CURTAIN CALL
Can you guess which GSer worked with Lubovitch and another choreographer featured in "The Company," Lauar Dean back in the late '70s? I'll give you a hint
Rgirl happens to know the piece very well. The funny thing about the piece Lubovitch did on the company I was with--the piece is called "Sessions"--was that we loved working with Lar, he seemed to like working with us and seemed pleased with the piece, audiences loved it, we loved performing it, and yet about 10 years after I'd stopped dancing I read an article about Lubovitch in which he was asked if there was any piece he'd choreographed that he really didn't like. Well you know which piece he said
And no, it wasn't a solo
:--it was for eight dancers.
Rgirl
What a coup for her!
