Carroll Ballard

Nutcracker (1986). Color, sound (chiefly music of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet & brief narration), 1 hr. 29 min. Director, Carroll Ballard. Screenplay (conception): Kent Stowell & Maurice Sendak. Cinematography: Stephen H. Burum. Film editing, John Nutt & Michael Silvers. Costume & production design, Maurice Sendak. Musical performance, London Symphony Orchestra, conductor Charles Mackerras. Featuring members of the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Ballard’s other notable film is The Black Stallion. Sendak is the well-known children’s book author/illustrator. The core of the film, the dream journey of Clara and the Nutcracker prince, takes place within the artifice of a stage setting that has Sendak’s signature all over it. Wonderful combination of great photography & music, fantastic sets, excellent dancing. Although the spotlight is on the dancing of dream Clara (Patricia Barker) and the Nutcracker Prince (Wade Walthall), both experienced professional ballet dancers, & there are dances performed by other professionals (Dance of the Snowflakes & the Russian Dance), the Pacific Northwest Ballet has many children & adolescents in its school, and many of the ensemble dances & dream sequences are performed by the younger people. The frame story, derived from the short story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, might be a little scary for the youngest, with the three-headed Rat King & One-Eyed Drosselmeier (Hugh Duncan Bigney Mitchell), and adults might find the relationship between Drosselmeier and young Clara (Vanessa Sharp) uncomfortable, but overall one of my favorite holiday movies.… (more)