Cast:
Vivian Pickles ... Isadora Duncan
Peter
Bowles ... Paris Singer
Alexei Jawdokimov ... Sergei
Yessenin
Murray Melvin ... Reporter
Jeanne Le Bars
... Wilma
Alita Naughton ... Journalist
Sandor
Eles ... Bugatti
Runtime: 67 min | USA:63 min (DVD)
Country: UK
Language: English
Color: Black and White
Aspect Ratio: 1.33 : 1 more
Sound Mix: Mono
Company: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Director Cameo: [Ken
Russell]a one-legged man who saves Isadora from drowning, and her chauffeur in
Russia.
Movie Connections: Edited from Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Volker
(1938)
User Comments:
All of life's experiences, triumphs and tragedies, expressed in
dance.
Not even dance per se, just movement. Great interpretation by Vivian
Pickles, who captures both the physical grace and tumultuous personality we
associate with the legend of Isadora Duncan. Ken Russell's expressionistic style
of film-making, here in stark black and white, is so well suited to the ups and
downs of such a highly dramatic biography. As usual, even with a limited budget,
Russell offers a visual feast – filling the screen with lavish interiors and
frenzied close-ups, juxtaposing unrelated scenes simultaneously - quite a
different approach than Karel Reisz's more literal-minded "Isadora" with Vanessa
Redgrave. This is art for art's sake, a perfect meeting of minds.
Author: P_Bear from San Francisco Bay Area
This is my pick for the greatest biographical film of all time. Shot in
grainy black and white, on an undoubtedly shoestring budget, for the BBC back in
1966, it still has the technical advantage of being on film rather than
videotape (as was the habit of British television at the time).
ISADORA (as it was known, simply, in its American TV showings -- and on its
title card) has got everything that led to Ken Russell's reputation as the most
innovative and outrageous filmmaker of the late 1960's: mad pacing, undisguised
slow cranking, scattershot out-of-sequence editing, an anachronous 1960's pop
approach to an early 20th century subject, over-the-top performances, etc, etc,
and the refusal to represent Isadora Duncan as any sort of divinely-inspired
artiste.
Rather, Russell's Isadora is a mad force of nature on a rampage, cutting a
swath through America, Europe, Russia and back through America to Europe again
-- browbeating everyone in her path to accept her form of expression as the only
valid choice in the world of dance. She devours men like a praying mantis and
leaves no one unscathed in her path, all the while consuming herself from the
inside out. Though not pretty, she is irresistable; not graceful, her dancing is
mesmerizing; not at all nice, she is vulnerable and even lovable. By sheer force
of will, she imposed a new esthetic on modern dance and made the world take it
seriously -- to become one of the most famous figures in the history of the
arts.
Coming from the same home town area (San Francisco), I formed an early
interest in Isadora Duncan, having first heard of her in my late teens, just
prior to the time this TV film and Karel Reisz' big-budget biopic emerged. This
one aired first and left me spoiled to appreciate the sanguine pinings and
hand-wringing that vitiated Reisz' bigger effort with Vanessa Redgrave. Redgrave
didn't have much of a chance of living up to my expectations, anyway, in
conveying Isadora's power and importance, let alone her emotional makeup, since
I had already seen it done in what I still consider to be the single best screen
performance by an actress -- EVER! -- in Vivian Pickles' interpretation of her.
Most people likely only remember Pickles as Bud Cort's hillariously horrifying
mother in HAROLD AND MAUDE, but anyone lucky enough to have seen her here knows
what a tragedy it is that the movies never found a far greater place for her as
a leading actress.
When Pickles shouts the immortal words, "Au revoir mes amis, je vais a la
gloire!," her gusto truly adds to the delight of hearing one of the most famous
exit lines of all time (apocryphal or not).
"Вы убили Царя, чтобы занять его место? Даже мертвые, чьи вещи вы украли, были более стоическими революционерами.
Вы проклятые буржуазные узурпаторы. Вы просто кишки тухлой рыбы, и вы воняете. Коммунисты? Моя сладкая попка!"