Nijinsky (film)

Nijinsky
Theater poster
Directed by	Herbert Ross
Produced by	Nora Kaye Stanley O'Toole Harry Saltzman
Written by	Hugh Wheeler Romola Nijinsky Vaslav Nijinsky
Starring	Alan Bates George De La Peña Leslie Browne Alan Badel Jeremy Irons
Cinematography	Douglas Slocombe
Editing by	William Reynolds
Studio	Hera Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	20 March 1980
Running time	129 min.
Country	USA
Language	English

Nijinsky is a 1980 American biographical film directed by Herbert Ross. Hugh Wheeler, whose screenplay centers on the later life and career of Vaslav Nijinsky, used the legendary dancer's personal diaries and his wife's 1933 book Life of Nijinsky as his primary source materials.

Synopsis

The film suggests Nijinsky was driven into madness by both his consuming ambition and self-enforced heterosexuality, the latter prompted by his romantic involvement with Romola de Pulszky, a society girl who joins impresario Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes specifically to seduce Nijinsky. After a series of misunderstandings with Diaghilev, who is both his domineering mentor and possessive lover, Nijinsky succumbs to Romola's charms and marries her, after which his gradual decline from artistic moodiness to complete lunacy begins.

Principal cast

• Alan Bates ..... Sergei Diaghilev
• George de la Peña ..... Vaslav Nijinsky
• Leslie Browne ..... Romola de Pulsky
• Carla Fracci ..... Tamara Karsavina
• Ronald Pickup ..... Igor Stravinsky
• Vernon Dobtcheff ..... Sergei Grigoriev
• Frederick Jaeger ..... Gabriel Astruc
• Janet Suzman ..... Emilia Marcus
• Siân Phillips ..... Lady Ripon
• Alan Badel ..... Baron de Gunzburg
• Colin Blakely ..... Vassili
• Ronald Lacey ..... Leon Bakst
• Jeremy Irons ..... Mikhail Fokine
• Anton Dolin ..... Maestro Cecchetti
• Hetty Baynes ..... Magda

Principal production credits

Producers ..... Harry Saltzman, Nora Kaye Musical Conductor ..... John Lanchbery Cinematography ..... Douglas Slocombe Production Design ..... John Blezard

Art Direction ..... George Richardson Costume Design ..... Alan Barrett Ballet mistress ..... Irina Baronova

Soundtrack

"Invitation to the Dance" from Le Spectre de la Rose by Carl Maria von Weber Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Prelude à l'Après-midi d'un faune by Claude Debussy Jeux by Claude Debussy

Carnaval by Robert Schumann The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin

Production notes

• This was Herbert Ross' second film to focus on the world of ballet, following The Turning Point in 1977 where he had worked with Mikhail Baryshnikov and other members of the American Ballet Theatre. Baryshnikov turned down the role of Vaslav Nijinsky and returned to the American Ballet Theatre and was promoted to the role of Artistic Director.
• Nijinsky was Jeremy Irons' film debut and the second to last film produced by the famed Harry Saltzman (after he gave up his share of the James Bond rights).
• The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Festival Ballet were featured in the dance sequences. David Hersey of the National Film Theatre in London designed the theatrical lighting in these scenes.
• The film grossed $1,047,454 in the United States ^[1]

Critical reception

In his review in Time, Richard Schickel opined, "Some people will be titillated by the openness with which homosexual love is portrayed in the film. But this is mostly a slow, cautious biography, elegantly attentive to Edwardian decor and dress. It slights Nijinsky's melodramatic story and, finally, offends with its relentless reductionism. There are times when excesses of good taste become a kind of bad taste, a falsification of a subject's spirit and milieu. This is never more true than when the troubles of a genius are presented in boring and conventional terms."^[2]

Time Out London calls it "the best gay weepie since Death in Venice … the first major studio film to centre on a male homosexual relationship (albeit a doomed one) without being moralistic … director Ross and writer Hugh Wheeler … do right by their male characters (Alan Bates, in particular, is a plausibly adult Diaghilev), their grasp of the historical reconstructions seems more than competent, and their dialogue and exposition are unusually adroit. Best of all, they never show ballet for its own sake, and have the courage to keep emotional dynamics in the forefront throughout."^[3]

Channel 4 says, "What could have been a powerful period drama quickly descends into soap opera territory … but it's always watchable, and director Ross … laces the action with some well-choregraphed dance."^[4]

References

1. ^ Nijinsky at TheNumbers.com
2. ^ Time review
3. ^ Time Out London review
4. ^ Channel 4 review

External links

• Nijinsky at the Internet Movie Database

Ballet portal