On Christmas Eve, a little girl named Marie falls asleep after a party at her house and dreams of a fantastic world where toys become larger than life.On Christmas Eve, a little girl named Marie falls asleep after a party at her house and dreams of a fantastic world where toys become larger than life.On Christmas Eve, a little girl named Marie falls asleep after a party at her house and dreams of a fantastic world where toys become larger than life.
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaNarration recorded by Kevin Kline was a last-minute addition that was heavily protested by Macaulay Culkin's father, Kit Culkin, who vowed that his son would do no publicity for the movie until the narration was dropped. Reluctantly, producer Arnon Milchan dropped the narration to appease the Culkins. Kit Culkin then returned with a list of other demands which so incensed Milchan that he reinstated Kline's narration, losing the use of the Culkins' publicity.
- Quotes
[first lines]
Narrator: This is the Stahlbaums' house. These are their children, Marie and Fritz. It was Christmas Eve, when there was always a big family party. The children had been waiting and waiting for their guests to arrive. The house was full of rich, wonderful smells of baking, chocolate, and peppermint sticks.
- Crazy creditsIn the opening credits, Macaulay Culkin is listed as playing Drosselmeier's nephew, but he is not listed as playing either The Nutcracker or The Prince.
- SoundtracksThe Nutcracker: Overture
(uncredited)
Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The New York City Ballet Orchestra (with chorus) conducted by David Zinman
This is deliberately a stagebound film; in a way, it resembles Laurence Olivier's "Othello". Exactly as in that film, the sets of the stage production have been enlarged to the size of a movie soundstage, but not made any less artificial, and the ballet is straightforwardly photographed with discreet closeups, and without the distracting "music video" quick cuts featured in the 1986 overrated Maurice Sendak-Carroll Ballard version. There are only two false steps in this 1993 film. One is the addition of distracting and completely unnecessary sound effects (mouse squeaks, the children whispering "Ma-gic!" to Drosselmeyer,etc.). Those sound effects are never heard in any stage production of any "Nutcracker", and they have been put in as a cheap concession simply to appease unsophisticated audiences who may not relish the idea of watching a ballet on film.
The other false step is Macaulay Culkin's nutcracker make-up, which looks absolutely ridiculous. When he is on screen as the Nutcracker, rather than wearing a huge mask (as is always done when the Balanchine production is performed onstage), Culkin is actually made up as the toy - he wears what looks like a bald cap, as well as a white wig, whiskers, and a beard. He also has his face rouged up somewhat, and the worst aspect of his make-up is that it is still recognizably his face, amateurishly transformed in a manner similar to Ray Bolger, Jack Haley and Bert Lahr's makeups in "The Wizard of Oz" (that film's makeup results though, worked spectacularly, as this one's does not). And a comparison with Baryshnikov's nutcracker in *his* production shows how wonderfully creative Baryshnikov's nutcracker mask was - the "jaws" actually seemed to move whenever Baryshnikov tilted his head back.
The dancing itself in the Macaulay Culkin version is excellent, of course, except for Culkin himself, whose dancing, as I said, isn't meant to even be spectacular. (The Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier are the prominent dancing roles in Balanchine's production of "The Nutcracker".) The film's colors, though, could be a bit brighter since this IS a fantasy. The choreography is also brilliant, and the adaptation of it is so faithful as to include the sequence that features additional music from Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Sleeping Beauty" - as Marie sneaks downstairs, falls asleep on the sofa, and dreams that Drosselmeyer is "repairing" the broken Nutcracker (this sequence was, of course, never included in Tchaikovsky's original ballet---it is the only sequence in this production which features music from a work other than "The Nutcracker").
Those who have missed out on this film, or those who despise (or loathe it) should give it a chance, despite its two big drawbacks. It is far better than it seems when one first hears that Culkin is in it.
- critic-2
- Dec 18, 2002
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- George Balanchine's The Nutcracker
- Filming locations
- New York City, New York, USA(Studio)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $19,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $2,119,994
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $783,721
- Nov 28, 1993
- Gross worldwide
- $2,119,994
- Runtime1 hour 32 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1