Isadora movie storyline. This biography of modern-dance pioneer Isadora Duncan (Vanessa Redgrave) details the performer’s tumultuous life. The film reveals how the beautiful, outspoken and graceful American-born dancer rejected ballet and moved to Europe to pursue a freer form of movement. Duncan’s many love affairs are also heavily featured, most notably her relationship with Paris Singer (Jason Robards), an heir to the Singer sewing-machine fortune, and the volatile Russian writer Sergei Yesenin (Ivan Tchenko).
Isadora (also known as The Loves of Isadora) is a 1968 biographical drama film directed by Karel Reisz from a screenplay written by Melvyn Bragg, Margaret Drabble, and Clive Exton adapted from the books My Life by Isadora Duncan and Isadora, an Intimate Portrait by Sewell Stokes. The film follows the life of American pioneering modern contemporary dance artist and choreographer Isadora 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 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 and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.
About the Story
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, 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 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, 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, 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.
Isadora (1968)
Directed by: Karel Reisz
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, John Fraser, James Fox, Jason Robards, Zvonimir Crnko, Vladimir Leskovar, Cynthia Harris, Bessie Love, Tony Vogel, Libby Glenn, Ronnie Gilbert, Wallas Eaton
Screenplay by: Melvyn Bragg, Clive Exton, Margaret Drabble
Production Design by: Jocelyn Herbert
Cinematography by: Larry Pizer
Film Editing by: Tom Priestley
Art Direction by: Zeljko Senecic, Michael Seymour
Music by: Anthony Bowles, Maurice Jarre
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Rank Film Distributors, Universal Pictures (United States)
Release Date: December 18, 1968
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