 This a film version of the opera "The Tales of Hoffmann", however it is NOT just a film of a staged performance.  Michael Powell  (qv) &  Emeric Pressburger  (qv) (and the rest of "The Archers") work their usual magic here. The opera dramatises the three great romances in the life of the poet-hero presented in a series of flashbacks. Hoffmann s tales depict the struggle between human love and the artist s dedication to his work. Hoffmann loses each of the women he loves but gains instead poetic inspiration -- the ability to transform painful experiences into art.