Isadora
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Karel Reisz
Vanessa Redgrave
John Fraser
James Fox
Jason Robards Jr.
Ivan Tchenko
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
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 Desti 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 theater manager into paying her $300 so that she can take her family to England. Modeling 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 theater. 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. 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 behavior turns a press conference into a shambles, however, and U. S. anti-Bolshevist sentiment turns to open hostility when Isadora bares her breasts during a dance recital in Boston. Following the disintegration of her marriage, she returns to Nice to write her memoirs. Impulsively selling her possessions in order to open a new school in Paris, Isadora goes to a local cafe to celebrate and spots Bugatti, a handsome Italiam 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.
Director
Karel Reisz
Cast
Vanessa Redgrave
John Fraser
James Fox
Jason Robards Jr.
Ivan Tchenko
Vladimir Leskova
Cynthia Harris
Bessie Love
Tony Vogel
Libby Glenn
Ronnie Gilbert
Wallas Eaton
Nicholas Pennell
John Quentin
Christian Duvaleix
David Healy
Lucinda Chambers
Simon Lutton Davies
Noel Davis
Ina De La Haye
Constantine Yranski
Stefan Gryss
John Brandon
Margaret Courtenay
Arthur White
Iza Teller
John Warner
Alan Gifford
Zuleika Robson
Arnold Diamond
Anthony Gardner
Sally Travers
Mark Dignam
Robin Lloyd
Lucy Saroyan
Jan Conrad
Hal Galili
Roy Stephens
Cal Mccord
Richard Marner
Crew
Olga Angelinetta
Terry Apsey
Maurice Askew
Jim Atkinson
Johann Sebastian Bach
Philip Baker
Henri Baum
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Aleksandr Porfiryevich Borodin
Anthony Bowles
Anthony Bowles
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg
Jackie Breed
Miriam Brickman
John Briggs
Ralph Brinton
Frédéric François Chopin
Biddy Chrystal
Harry Cordwell
Margaret Drabble
Clive Exton
Bryan Graves
Raymond Hakim
Raymond Hakim
Robert Hakim
Robert Hakim
Jean Hall
Jocelyn Herbert
Adrian Hughes
Maurice Jarre
Roger King
Denis Lewiston
Ruth Myers
Grania O'shannon
Roy Parkinson
Litz Pisk
Larry Pizer
Branko Ple¿a
Tom Priestley
Eric Rattray
Terry Rawlings
Ken Ritchie
Wally Schneiderman
Franz Peter Schubert
Aleksandr Nikolaevich Scriabin
Miso Senecic
Michael Seymour
Ann Skinner
John Philip Sousa
Pëtr Ilich Tchaikovsky
Barney Wan
Claude Watson
Film Details
Technical Specs
Award Nominations
Best Actress
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Location scenes filmed in England, France, Italy, and Yugoslavia. Opened in London in March 1969; running time: 138 min. Withdrawn from distribution shortly after opening and cut by 20 and then 26 min. Opened in New York in 1969 as The Loves of Isadora at 131 min. Copyright length: 136 min.
Miscellaneous Notes
Voted Best Actress (Redgrave) for 1969 by the National Society of Film Critics.
Voted One of the Ten Best English-language Films by the 1969 National Board of Review.
Released in United States Winter December 1968
Released in United States on Video July 14, 1988
Re-released in United States on Video June 29, 1994
Formerly distributed by MCA Home Video.
Released in United States Winter December 1968
Released in United States on Video July 14, 1988
Re-released in United States on Video June 29, 1994
