Crazy Horse

Directed by Frederick Wiseman

NR

***

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You might expect that a documentary about a famous nude cabaret would be either prurient or scolding, said Stephanie Zacharek in Movieline.com. Frederick Wiseman’s examination of the Crazy Horse in Paris is neither. “Instead, the picture is celebratory, in its own quiet way, and clear-eyed.” While there’s plenty of flesh on display in Wiseman’s third documentary about dance, the veteran director’s “abiding interest,” as always, “is in the ways that human beings work together,” said Ty Burr in The Boston Globe. The film is not about titillation but about how the dancers, choreographer, and technicians at the upscale institution achieve a consensus vision of what Crazy Horse–style titillation should be. The team is striving to update the club’s routines when Wiseman’s fly-on-the-wall cameras start rolling, and we watch the choreographer’s vision “come together on the stage, still dancing along the edge of kitsch” yet “visually arresting.” We never do see a show in full, said Scott Tobias in NPR.org. Yet “there’s more than enough compensation” in the glimpses we get of backstage interactions and the tension between business and art.