White Nights

(Robert) Masseo Davis
Feb/ 12/ 2008
“White Nights”

White Nights, Directed By Taylor Hackford.

Rating 3/5

This film is the story of a famous ballet dancer who defects from his home country of Russia to dance in America. “White Nights” staring Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Gregory Hines tells the tale of two great performers who against their will are forced to endure the hardships imposed on them, and along their journey they form a powerful friendship. The film also stands as a cultural indicator in regards to an entire generation.
The films narrative follows, Nikolai “Kolya” Rodchenkov played by Mikhail Baryshnikov a Russian ballet dancer that comes to America seeking asylum. The sad thing about this film is that it is one of the few films that demonstrate the talents of Mikhail Baryshnikov. It has been said that Baryshnikov is good at two things, first being a phenomenal dancer, and second playing himself, which is a phenomenal dancer; however today’s generation in many cases is very unaware of his talents, we recognize him as “the dude” from “Sex in the City”. The fact of the matter is that Mr. Baryshnikov changed the face of ballet on an international scale, many of the circus like feats performed on stage during a performance didn’t exist until he did them. As a performer he was the type of man that inspired an entire era of choreographers because he illustrated that what was thought of, as impossible movements in fact were possible.
The same could be said about the films other leading man Gregory Hines who played an African- American tap dancer Raymond Greenwood, who while at war also defected in Russia and stayed for he too was seeking asylum. The disappointing thing is that very few people know either of these two names “Gregory Hines” or “Mikhail Baryshnikov”, and if they do know the names even fewer people can put name to face, regardless of the fact that both of these men are in a sense revolutionaries.
“White Nights”, on it’s own however is a decent film at best, for it is highly predictable. The ending is too illogically happy and the film could be argued as entirely an example of anti- communist Russia propaganda. It paints a picture of how badly the Russians treat their people, and how America in the end comes to save the day.