Ballet 422

Jody Lee Lipes – 2014 – USA

I don’t know anything about the making of this film, but I had the feeling while watching it that its director, Jody Lee Lipes, must have some knowledge of Frederick Wiseman and/or D.A. Pennebaker since it is closely fashioned in the model of direct cinema.  Whether that’s true or not, I applaud anyone working in this almost forgotten genre.  Unfortunately, though, the film is weak, partly because the subject is weak, and – while the film would be of interest to ballet fans – it can work as a good object lesson for filmmakers in preparing documentary films.  Lipes spends a couple months with the prestigious New York City Ballet as one of its star students, Justin Peck, is entrusted with choreographing a ballet.  Peck is self-conscious, indecisive and visionless, and he never overcomes those traits as the film progresses.  Feeble in voice and presence, he never comes off as one capable of inspiring passion in his dancers and collaborators.  This could be endearing in some circumstances, but here it’s only frustrating.  He never expresses why he is a dancer, what his dreams are, who his inspirations are, and is never shown in a moment of illumination either alone or with others.  Whatever seemed to warrant him being the focus of a feature-length documentary is nowhere to be seen.  I don’t fault Peck himself; it was the filmmakers who should have taken care to choose the right area of focus in order to make the film as compelling as it could be.  (It feels like a school-sponsored promotion for the ballet, which could very well be the case for all I know.)  I was reminded of Pennebaker’s response when asked how he chooses his subjects.  He said that while many things and people are fascinating, only a special few have what he called a “spiritual energy” that makes them interesting to watch for the duration of a film.  Peck and the film he stars in are insubstantial.  Lipes should have discerned this early on and done something cinematically to compensate if it was really impossible to shift the focus elsewhere.