White Nights (1985 film)


White Nights is a 1985 American drama film directed by Taylor Hackford and starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, Jerzy Skolimowski, Helen Mirren and Isabella Rossellini. It was choreographed by Twyla Tharp. The title refers to the sunlit summer nights of Leningrad, the setting for the majority of the film, situated just a few degrees below the Arctic Circle.
The film is notable both for the dancing of Hines and Baryshnikov and for the Academy Award–winning song "Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie in 1986, as well as "Separate Lives" performed by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin and written by Stephen Bishop. The film was the American film debut of Isabella Rossellini and Taylor Hackford met his future wife, Helen Mirren, during filming.

Plot

Nikolai 'Kolya' Rodchenko is a Soviet ballet dancer who had defected from the Soviet Union. The plane carrying him to a next performance in Tokyo has electrical problems and crash lands in Siberia. He is hurt and is soon recognized by KGB officer Colonel Chaiko. Chaiko then contacts African-American tap dancer, Raymond Greenwood, who has defected to the Soviet Union, and gets them both to Leningrad. Chaiko wants Rodchenko to dance at the season's opening night at the Kirov, and Greenwood to babysit Rodchenko. To convince Rodchenko, Chaiko uses Galina Ivanova, a former ballerina who never left the Soviet Union and is an old flame of Rodchenko.
After an initial period of racial and artistic friction, the two dancers become strong friends. When Raymond finds that his wife Darya Greenwood is pregnant, he decides he does not want their child to grow up in the Soviet Union, and together, with Rodchenko, they plan an escape with the help of Galina, who still has feelings for Rodchenko. While the escape plan is going on, Raymond chooses to stay behind to delay Chaiko, gaining time for Nikolai and Darya to get to the Consulate at Leningrad. Even though Raymond is incarcerated when the whole plan is revealed, he is finally traded by the Soviets for a political prisoner from Latin America, and reunites with Darya and Nikolai.

Cast

The opening ballet sequence, Le Jeune Homme et La Mort, originally choreographed by Roland Petit in 1946 and performed anew by Baryshnikov and Florence Faure, was filmed at the Bristol Hippodrome. The gentleman paging the curtain for Baryshnikov is John Randall, the theatre's technical director at the time.
In 1985, many western Cold War movies supposedly set in Russia would use locations in the Finnish capital Helsinki with an architectural style resembling Leningrad. For White Nights, a team of travelogue filmmakers from Finland, who previously had done work in the Soviet Union, were hired to film a number of locations in Leningrad, such as the Kirov Theatre and the Lenin monument, as well as a Chaika state-limousine. These scenes were then inserted into the movie, some being in-car scenes. Hackford was disappointed with critics who wrote negative reviews based on their belief that Helsinki had been used.
The film was also shot in Finland and Lisbon, Portugal, as well as other parts of the United Kingdom including Elstree Studios and RAF Machrihanish in Scotland.
Filmmakers normally utilized models to film the crash-landing of an aircraft as expensive as a Boeing 747. For the filming of the crash sequence of a British Orient 747 at the beginning of White Nights, two different full-sized aircraft were used.
The film contains an early-career performance by Maryam d'Abo, later to star as a Bond girl in the James Bond film The Living Daylights.
White Nights was dedicated "in loving memory" to Mary E. Hackford and Jerry Benjamin, both of whom died prior to its release.

Reception

The film opened the Chicago International Film Festival on November 8, 1985 at McClurg Court. It then opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on November 22 as well as in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Toronto before expanding nationally on December 6.
White Nights received mixed reviews from critics, as it currently holds a 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 13 reviews. The New York Times film critic Vincent Canby criticized the script as "ludicrous" but praised the acting and dance choreography, including Baryshnikov's "all of the dynamic force and intelligence that distinguish his dance performances" and Hines as "a great tap dancer but not in the same league with Mr. Baryshnikov as a film personality". Los Angeles Times film critic Sheila Benson criticized the story as "wretched high-concept, low-intelligence", the film's "oversimplification" of Russians as "hateful and corrupt" with an exception of "old Russian " without the film explaining the character's transition "to kindness", and dance performances as "jazzed-up and simplistic". However, the film was a commercial success at the box office, grossing over $42 million in the United States.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album for the film contains the most successful single on the album, "Separate Lives" by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin, which reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1986. The prize instead went to Lionel Richie's "Say You, Say Me", another chart topper which appeared in the film but was not included on the original soundtrack due to licensing issues. It was included in the album reissue as a bonus track along with "I Don't Wanna Know" by Phil Collins.
Allmusic gave the soundtrack three stars out of five.
  1. "Separate Lives" - Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin
  2. "Prove Me Wrong" - David Pack
  3. "Far Post" - Robert Plant
  4. "People on a String" - Roberta Flack
  5. "This Is Your Day" - Nile Rodgers & Sandy Stewart
  6. "Snake Charmer" - John Hiatt
  7. "The Other Side of the World" - Chaka Khan
  8. "My Love Is Chemical" - Lou Reed
  9. "TapDance" - David Foster
  10. "People Have Got to Move" - Jenny Burton
  11. "Say You, Say Me" - Lionel Richie
  12. "I Don't Wanna Know" - Phil Collins
Singles
YearSingleArtistChartPosition
1985"Separate Lives"Phil Collins & Marilyn MartinBillboard Hot 1001