Isadora

Vanessa Redgrave tries to shake her groove thing as Isadora Duncan in Isadora

Stiff and wacky, Karel Reisz's Isadora is demented Oscar bait, circa 1968. The film manages to be both overstuffed and under nourishing. A biopic of modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan (1878-1927), Isadora provides a scant facsimile of her life and loves. Many loves and one child are excised from this version of her life.

The three credited screenwriters (Margaret Drabble is credited with "additional dialogue") use a flashback structure for the film. We meet the adult Isadora just before her demise, reflecting on past glories while idling on the French Riviera. Aging rapidly, overweight and indolent, Isadora is dictating her memoirs to her secretary, Roger. All the while, portentous omens of doom auger our heroine's tragic end. 

The film is a vehicle for Vanessa Redgrave, then at her commercial peak. She gives it her all, but is more game than adept in the dance numbers. Reisz seems to be aware of this and photographs her from the waist up a large part of the time. I appreciate a director looking out for his star, but I can never buy into dance sequences that exclude legs. Redgrave dons some padding and unflattering make-up for the scenes of her decline and makes a go of it. She nails the narcissism of her character, but has little to play off of. A good example of this is the character of Roger, her main foil for half the film. Played furtively by John Fraser as gay and chatty, the character is a nonentity, provided with nether wit nor substance by Reisz or the screenwriters. 

Similarly, most of her loves are reduced to cartoons. Ivan Tchenko is disastrous as the Russian poet that Isadora wed during a sojourn in the Soviet Union. Jason Robards does his best as another amour, the sewing machine heir, Paris Singer. Yet, he has little to work with. His character is portrayed as undergoing electroconvulsive therapy, presumably because it was some newfangled health tune up, while Isadora breaks it to him that she is dumping him. The antic comic tone is unfunny and misjudged. 

Reisz was best exploring the dynamics of couples, particularly in The French Lieutenant's Woman and Who'll Stop the Rain, He finds some measure of success in the romantic scenes between Ms. Redgrave and James Fox, who plays scenic designer, Gordon Craig. Fox adds a dash of flair and excitement to a film that badly needs some. There is more elan and energy in Fox leading Redgrave up to his loft for a tryst than in any of the dance sequences. 

In his loft, Craig shows Isadora his set designs, inspiring her in her search for "truth and beauty". However, all we see of the drawings are some indistinct charcoal smudges. Reisz does not visually reinforce his scenario. He has very little feel for spectacle. The crowd scenes, be they in Chicago, Moscow or Paris, are clumsy and inexpressive.

Furthermore, even with extras doing the Charleston to "Bye, Bye, Blackbird", Isadora has very little of the feeling of the roaring twenties or the fin de siècle. What it does feel like, especially when Ms. Redgrave disrobes for two dance numbers, is the summer of love. The filmmakers attempt to link Ms. Duncan with her Classical Greek influences, but it is half-hearted. I saw the two hour twenty minute version of this film. There was a nearly three hour version that played initially and that might have fleshed things out, but I found the film a chore to sit through at 2:20. I did enjoy Bessie Love, who made her film debut in 1916, in the role of Isadora's mother.