Skating....January 1992

By Libby Slate

Back in 1988, while watching the Olympic pair skating event on television, motion picture producer Robert W. Cort was particularly impressed by one team's talent.  He thought, "Wow, they were great...what if they really hated each other?"

One possible answer to that question will be coming to a theater near you this month, with the opening of the The Cutting Edge, the first competitive figure skating-themed film since Ice Castles in 1978.  The romantic comedy stars Moira Kelly as Kate Moseley, a talented by demanding prima donna pair skater, and D.B. Sweeney as Doug Dorsey, a hockey player who has the misfortune to be teamed with Moseley in a last-ditch effort by Moseley's coach to find a suitable partner for his prize pupil.  Together, they make it all the way to the Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France.

Written by Tony Gilroy from producer Cort's idea, the film was directed on location in Toronto by Paul M. Glaser, 1980 Olympic Champion Robin Cousins served as choreographer and technical adviser.

"I laughed and I cried when I read the script," recalls Starsky and Hutch-star-turned=director Glaser, of his decision to become involved with the project.  "So it was that, coupled with the number of times I'd sat on the sofa with my wife and enjoyed watching skating."

The director, whose knowledge of skating was pretty much limited to his boyhood years of playing pond hockey in the Boston area, attended last year's United Sates Figure Skating Championships to soak up the competitive atmosphere.  He  also visited USFSA Headquarters and spent time at the Costa Mesa, Calif. Ice Capades Chalet with John Nicks, coach of U.S. Pair Champions Natasha Kuchaki and Todd Sand.

"John  invited me on the ice.  I was standing there, and a couple went flying by."  Glaser recounts.  "I heard steel [blades[ on the ice, and there was something exciting, evocative and intense about that sound.  It's amazing that that's what's responsible for what comes closest to flight -- the glide and the speed with which skaters propel themselves.  That image of steel on ice was constant in my mind during production."

Glaser met with several skaters before hiring Cousins to fill what would be a crucial

Obviously, one of the greatest challenges in making the film was turning non-skating actors into credible on-screen Olympians.  Kelly and Sweeney spent five weeks at New York's Sky Rink, taking basic skating and ballet lessons from Evelyn Kramer and Bill Woerhle.

"Moira had never been a figure skater, but she had the guts to do whatever I asked of her," Cousins reports.  "In fact, it got to be, 'Moira, get off the ice!' because she loved it and was on it so much."

For those close-up shot which precluded the use of skating doubles, the actors found themselves being hung from a trapeze and spun on a turntable, equipment devised especially for the film. But the attention to detail went beyond the act of skating per se, Cousins notes.

"Besides choreographing the competitive works, I choreographed where people would stand when they had conversations on the ice--the posture that exudes a certain presence.  When you're not a skater, it's difficult to stand on the ice and not think about your feet."

Cousins also worked with actor Roy Dotrice, who plays pairs coach Anton Pamchenko.  "He and I had great fun, because we made up the dialogue as we went along.  Paul would set up the shot and Roy would say 'What would Anton say here?' He'd say it in broke backwards English."

At one point, Cousins says with a laugh, he suddenly realized that he had unconsciously been using a role model for the character. "I went, "Wait a minute--I've created Carlo [Fassi] here!' "

To get as close as possible to the skaters, blades, and ice itself, Glaser and cinematographer Elliot Davis used special cameras and other equipment.  One camera, the Pogo Cam, was actually hand-held and operated by pro figure skater Tony Kundrna, so as to best capture skating's velocity and power on film.

"[The cinematography crew] wouldn't have been able to achieve the speed and camera angles you need," Cousins points out.  "Tony could anticipate where the skaters were going."

As with any movie, there were some surprises during production--such as Kelly's broken ankle three-and-a-half weeks into filming.  Fortunately, though, she had completed most of her skating sequences.  For his part, Cousins says he did not anticipate the difficulty in shooting those sequences.

"The programs had to be run as if they were compulsory figures they couldn't be three inches off from one time to the next, because the camera was set for that [portion] of the ice and you had to land in that [portion] of ice," he explains.  "Some of the scenes took days."

Cousins himself had a small role on screen, playing a television commentator alongside Judy Blumberg.  Their footage was cust to just a few seconds, he says, adding that another colleague fared better.  "JoJo Starbuck has a rather important scene at the Olympics, doing interviews in the kiss-and-cry area.  She's the perfect person to play that, because she always has a smile and a twinkle in her eyes, even if someone fell down 10 times."

For all of this sort of care on the part of the filmmakers, both Cousins and Glaser admit that the movie depicts some aspects of the skating world with less than total precision.

"If you wanted to hold up scores on this film in terms of accuracy, there would be a lot of holes."  Glaser acknowledges.  "I think it's much more exciting to capture some of the images, the proximity the sound.

"I think an important point should be made tot he skating community," he adds.  "Skating is extraordinarily difficult to photograph.  We designed new equipment and tried new techniques.  I wanted to present skating more as how it felt, try to create a rush of feeling rather than a terribly accurate presentation.  So skating becomes part of the recipe to illuminate and accentuate aspects of this drama.

Agrees Cousins, "If skating were treated true to form all down the line, it would be very boring.  For the finale at the Olympics, for instance, we came up with something that's never been done before.  We know it's an illegal move, and the coach does allude to that, but the whole premise is, you either do what you want to do and make your mark or settle for being mediocre."

At least one inaccuracy exists in part because of economics.  Competition sequences were shot with spotlights in a darkened arena to reduce the costs of hiring spectator-extras, as well as for aesthetic reasons.

"Of course, the skating person's going to notice," Cousins says.  "But it doesn't interfere with the way the story works.  As for everyone else, there's so much skating now on television that from what I've heard, the majority of people don't know the difference between the World Professional Championships and the Olympics."

Sums up Glaser, "I'm not trying to excuse anything.  I know how hard figure skaters work, and that their dedication is extraordinary.  It would be very cavalier of me not to tip my hat in some manner or other to that.  I've chosen to do it in a stylistic way, one that's never been done before."

Libby Slate is a Los Angeles-based free-lance writer specializing in entertainment and figure skating.  She writes for the Los Angeles Times and various entertainment magazines.