Isadora

Based on MY LIFE by Isadora Duncan and on ISADORA DUNCAN--AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT by Sewell Stokes, Karel Reisz directs Vanessa Redgrave as Isadora Duncan in this portrait of the innovative Jazz Age dancer. Born in San Francisco in 1880, Duncan moved her mother and siblings to Europe with her in 1900. Her life in London, Paris, Berlin and Moscow, lavishly captured in this film, communicates her idea that the freedom she expressed in her uninhibited dancing should also be applied to life. But her public acclaim was matched by a life of deep personal tragedy. She was a free thinker who bore children out of wedlock, refusing to marry the sewing machine magnate, Paris Singer, who is wonderfully portrayed by Jason Robards. Reisz uses a variety of camera techniques, which never distract, but capture the full range of Duncan's dancing, which was celebrated for it's flowing free form and condemned for it's almost orgiastic suggestiveness. Above all, it is Redgrave's performance as Isadora that is at the heart of the film's success.