Clive Exton
Clive Exton (11 April 1930 – 16 August 2007) was a British television and film screenwriter who wrote scripts for the series ''Poirot,'' ''Jeeves and Wooster,'' and ''Rosemary & Thyme.''Isadora Duncan and ''Isadora, an Intimate Portrait'' by Sewell Stokes. The film follows the life of American pioneering modern contemporary dance artist and choreographer Isodora Duncan, who performed to great acclaim throughout the US and Europe during the 19th century. A co-production between the United Kingdom and France, it stars Vanessa Redgrave as Duncan and also features James Fox, Jason Robards, and John Fraser in supporting roles.
''Isadora'' premiered at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival where it competed for the Palme d'Or with Redgrave winning the Best Actress Prize. The film was theatrically released on 18 December 1968 by
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...
to generally positive reviews with major acclaim drawn towards Redgrave's performance, however the film underperformed at the box office grossing mere $1.25 million on a $1.7 million budget. For her performance, Redgrave won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress and received nominations for the
Academy Award for Best Actress
The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year ...
In 1927, Isadora Duncan has become a legend as the innovator of modern dance, a temperamental bohemian, and an outspoken advocate of free love. Now past 40, she lives in poverty in a small hotel on the French Riviera with her companion Mary Estelle Dempsey/Mary Desti (named only as Mary in the film) and her secretary Roger, to whom she is dictating her memoirs. As a young girl in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, Isadora first demonstrates her disdain for accepted social standards by burning her parents' marriage certificate and pledging her dedication to the pursuit of art and beauty. In 1896, she performs under the name of Peppy Dora in a rowdy music hall in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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and publicly embarrasses the theatre manager into paying her $300 so that she can take her family to England. Modelling her free-form style of dance and costume after Greek classicism, she rapidly acquires international acclaim.
In
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
, she meets her first love, Gordon Craig, a young stage designer who promises her that together they will create a new world of theatre. After bearing the already-married Craig a daughter, Isadora moves to Paris and meets
Paris Singer
Paris Eugene Singer (20 February 1867 – 24 June 1932) was an early resident of Palm Beach, Florida. He was 22nd of the 24 children of inventor and industrialist Isaac Singer of Singer Sewing Machine Company fame, from whom he inherited money; h ...
, a millionaire who lavishes gifts upon her and later buys her an enormous estate for her to open a School for Life, where only beauty and simplicity are taught.
Following the birth of a son, Isadora returns to England with Singer but becomes bored with her quiet life and enters into an affair with her pianist, Armand. A short time later, both of her children are drowned when their chauffeur-driven car plunges off a bridge into the Seine. Broken by the tragedy, Isadora leaves Singer and wanders about Europe until in 1921 she receives an offer to open a dancing school in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
.
Unaffected by the country's poverty, she develops a strong rapport with the peasantry and has a passionate affair with Sergei Essenin, a volatile poet whom she marries so that he can obtain a visa to accompany her to the United States. Essenin's outrageous behaviour turns a press conference into a shambles, however, and US anti-Bolshevist sentiment turns to open hostility when Isadora bares her breasts during a dance recital in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. Following the disintegration of her marriage, she returns to Nice to write her memoirs. Impulsively selling her possessions to open a new school in Paris, Isadora goes to a local café to celebrate and spots Bugatti, a handsome Italian whom she has been admiring for several days. She goes for a drive with him in his sports car, and as they roar along a road by the sea, Isadora's long chiffon scarf catches in the spokes of a wheel and strangles her.
Cast
Releases
The original 177-minute version premiered at Loew's Hollywood in Los Angeles on 18 December 1968. While praising Redgrave's performance, critics took issue with the film's length and pacing and 20 minutes were soon cut. Despite the reduced running time, the film still performed disappointingly and the film closed at Loew's Hollywood on 6 February 1969.
The 138-minute cut opened in Europe in spring 1969, while the US edit, retitled ''The Loves of Isadora'', premiered in April of that year.
NBC-TV broadcast a partially-restored version of the original cut on 30 June – 1 July 1972, running 168 minutes. It was repeated in April 1973, then made available for syndication.
Reisz' director's cut debuted on California cable station Z Channel in 1986, then was released on VHS in July 1988 by MCA Home Video.
Reception
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
, the film has an aggregate score of 78% based on 7 positive and 2 negative critic reviews.
Soundtrack
Kapp Records issued a soundtrack LP, ''The Loves of Isadora'', in October 1969 (catalogue number KRS-5511). It includes Jarre's theme music, Anthony Bowles' incidental music and classical performances, and other material.