Isadora

Biopic of the iconoclastic dancer Isadora Duncan. Set in the last year of her life in the South of France, with flashbacks to her earlier years, each focusing on a different lover (but by no means all of them, and a little disappointing that the mores of the time probably prevented portrayal of her homosexual relationships).

I have known about this film since I saw as a kid the famous still of the accident that caused her death, and have wanted to see it ever since. Even more so when I found out that she was married to Russian poet Sergei Esenin.

I adore Vanessa Redgrave, and with two reservations - that she doesn't really look much like Duncan (while being characteristically gorgeous and watchable) and her unconvincing American accent - she gives a wrenching and believable performance as the histrionic dancer whose grip on reality becomes increasingly tenuous as tragedies and disappointments accumulate. It would have been so easy to overplay this role, but Redgrave gives it just the right touch of passion and neurosis without ever descending into melodrama.

I know nothing about dance, but Redgrave's dancing performances totally convinced me, and for that alone she deserved her Oscar nomination. It must have taken an incredible amount of work and preparation from her, in addition to learning dialogue in convincingly accented French, German and Russian.

In many of her movies, Redgrave's hair is a character on its own, and this one is no exception. I think that that was one of the things that didn't gel for me in the movie: as beautiful as it is, it became intrusive. I think she was cast partly on the basis of her glorious mane aside from her acting talent, but it is superfluous to the action and it doesn't fit with my idea of Isadora Duncan.

Despite its weaknesses as a big-budget, big-name movie of its time, it still deserves to be more widely known and viewed.

The bigger than life Isadora Duncan, a dancing legend, is the focus of this film. "Isadora", which came out in 1968, came and went without much fanfare. The opportunity to watch it again came when it was shown on a cable network recently. The main attraction is Vanessa Redgrave's take in the subject matter.

The biopic, directed by Karel Reisz, follows aspects of Ms. Duncan's life. One thing comes across: she was a woman ahead of her time! Her disregard for classical dance made her famous, although as shown in the film, one wonders what liberties the filmmakers took in Ms. Redgrave's renditions of works created by the famous artist.

Another thing that is clearly evident in the movie is the unhappy life of Isadora. She had no luck with anyone of her lovers. The most famous one was Paris Singer, the son of an American millionaire which ended tragically as their son and her daughter with another man drowned, something that weighed heavily on this tormented woman.

Vanessa Redgrave at the height of her beauty was magnificent in her interpretation of the troubled Isadora. Jason Robards is seen as Paris Singer, the American heir that fell in love with the dancer, but didn't seem to have much in common with her.

The life of Isadora Duncan, a famed artist and dancer of the 1900s to the 1920s, is explored in this film. She is embodied by actress Vanessa Redgrave and it is a match made in heaven. Vanessa wears the cloth of Isadora like a wrap, gracefully but with firm determination. We see Isadora in present day - 1927 - and also in flashbacks that show how she came into prominence. Isadora's presence and personality draws the viewer in as she herself tends to withdraw. You feel her movements throughout the film as being small but meaningful and her breaths are but wisps. Lilts. Tips. Vanessa as Isadora is hardly trying to emphasize any one thing and therefore makes the film an experience in feeling everything. A lightness permeates the film, along with the symbolism of the man driving the car that almost hit her, of whom she searches for thereafter. She does have men in her life - James Fox and Jason Robards, who's a millionaire of the Singer sewing machines empire. But they are only secondary to Vanessa. A mysteriousness and sadness encircle the life we are witnessing through losses, fights, and political views. Take in the life of Isadora - the passion, the impractical, the flighty, the will. She might be her own undoing, but she was Isadora Duncan.

Over the past weekend, I viewed a VHS of Isadora. Throughout the movie (and I assume this was in the script), the motif of the scarf is repeated in various ways showing that she loved scarves and billowy fabric; even if she didn't in real life, the reinforcement of the scarf (as well as her pursuit of the man driving the Bugatti), gives her death a logic and finality that "real" life cannot. Surely, Isadora's death must have been so fictional as not to be believed, as well as the fate of her children. Film-makers must craft a film in such a way that the viewer believes that every moment is true. Compare this screenplay with what Robert McKee says about writing screenplays in his incomparable book, Story, and you'll agree that the Isadora screenplay is undervalued. Also, Redgrave's performance is surely one of the finest of any era--and should have gotten the Oscar, but thankfully won at Cannes (outside the Hollywood political machine). The length of the film, to me, was no problem; the life of Isadora Duncan, could not have been shown in less. The stage scenes of her dancing were perfectly directed and illustrated how she could fill a theatre while also being rejected.

There are several versions of this film. The original is rather long, but well worth the time spent viewing it. The subsequent edited versions -- even the so-called "director's cut" -- omit small but crucial events in Isadora's life, without which it becomes more difficult to understand how Isadora sublimated her angst into her art.