Nijinsky

 

 

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I'm not going to write too much about this exceptional film- The reviewer before me has already done a superb job. I will say this: I saw Nijinsky upon its first release in 1980, and I was impressed enough to return to the theatre again, to see if my original impressions were accurate. I was both enchanted and more than pleased by the entire production. I've read the definitive 1970 biography Nijinsky by Richard Buckle (in fact I still own it), and this film is as close as you will ever get to seeing a portrait of his time. Not only the man, but his peers, and events that shaped and inspired his turbulent vision are portrayed with great care and thought. The colors of the film are vibrant and rich, and true to the art of Leon Bakst, principal designer to the ballet troupe. I felt like I was transported to this marvellous age, when electricity was still a wonder, great luxury liners rode the waves, and the airplane was discovering the sky while the automobile and railroads crossed the land. It was the age of Empires, yet the world still held unexplored places waiting to be mapped. The Arts really could present The Shock Of The New, while the working classes discovered their strength in strikes and unions and the wealthy lived in opulence. For me, this film worked on every level. A mirror in time, and the breakdown of an artist's mind. A distant era, a beautiful film, a sad ending... Yet we are left knowing that Nijinsky, with all his visions of light and shadow, was never left alone, never forgotten. This broken man was cared for, and still loved. We should all be so fortunate. If I have any regret about this film, it is that it has yet to be released on dvd. I sincerely hope that oversight will one day be corrected.

Hard to believe that "Nijinsky" is now a twenty-two-year-old film; its look and performances are so fresh that it could be the latest from Ivory-Merchant.

The film focuses on the period 1912-1913, when Vaslav Nijinsky was both at his height as a choreographer, and at his lowest point personally. He was under the guidance and domination of impresario Sergei Diaghilev in his work and his love life, and he was also being pursued by ballet groupie Romola de Pulzsky, who eventually met and indeed married him.

The film is based on actual events, but viewers should be aware that the script takes minor liberties with historical time frames, character motivations, and events to advance its story. The production is mounted most handsomely, with the London Festival Ballet helping to recreate Nijinsky's most famous works. The ballet sequences are beautifully filmed, but many suffer from being cut very short. However, "L'Apres-midi d'un Faune" is presented at decent length, and there is an amazing, if too-brief, re-creation of the lost Nijinsky ballet "Jeux", done entirely from old photos and Valentine Gross's drawings of the original production.

The major performances are beautifully detailled; George de la Pena's Nijinsky is as winning and as troubled as we believe the actual man to have been. Alan Bates' Sergei Diaghilev is charming, ruthless, and ultimately defeated. Italian ballerina Carla Fracci plays Nijinsky's dancing partner Tamara Karsavina as tender, elegant, and nobody's fool- which is, according to Fracci enthusiasts, type-casting at its best. The one performance that is somewhat vague and unformed is Leslie Browne's as Romola; it may be that she or director Herbert Ross was trying to suggest that Romola was too immature to manage the torrents of emotion she unleashed between herself, Nijinsky, and Diaghilev. Alan Badel gives his final screen performance as Diaghilev's financial backer Baron de Guinzbourg; his plummy portrayal is one of the film's chief delights.

I've heard this movie described as disappointing by others, but I think the trouble stems from the history it portrays. The love triangle ends badly, with Nijinsky leaving lover Diaghilev to marry Romola, and subsequently descending into madness. This obviously is not satisfactory dramatic structure, but that's the way it happened, folks, and the movie begs, as it must, the unanswerable question of whether Nijinsky's marriage had anything to do with his illness.

For those who want to know what happened after this film's story ends, Romola stood by Nijinsky for the three decades of his schizophrenia, making certain that he had the funds and the care he needed. Shepherding someone through such an illness in Central Europe over the course of two world wars was certainly an act of the most extreme devotion. As Alan Bates' Diaghilev says to Romola at the end of the movie, "I suspect you are the best thing that could have happened to him."

Whether you agree or not, you won't regret the time spent watching this one.

Considering the star power in this movie (Bates, DeLaPena, Irons, Badel, and directed by Herbert Ross) it misfires at just about every point. The life story of the great dancer Nijinsky has been put into a box of soapflakes and churned with a lot of soft water to produce an awful lot of suds, but nothing much actually comes out clean and bright and we are left with annoying residue. Ross seems to have fixated on the sexual relationship between Diaghilev and Nijinsky so much so that a much more balanced and fair story was abandoned to tittilating sensationalism. The film also gives us the impression that Nijinsky went crazy because of his inability to come to terms with his sexuality as well as his break with Diaghilev which are, psychologically, simply not true at all. Perhaps in today's world Nijinsky could be treated with Lithium or other potent drugs for bipolar abnormalities or schizophrenia, but to suggest that he went crazy because of a broken love affair is just plain silly. Unfortunately, all this whipped cream and soap flakes melodrama leaves the dancing very much in the lurch. What there is of it (the dancing) is wonderful and the film would have been MUCH better had Ross and company focused on that aspect rather than the bedroom nonsense we are for the most part already aware of (and so what?). George DeLaPena is a wonderful dancer and actor, or should I say a "dancing actor" and he is much underused in this movie in which he has the title role. Even Nijinsky's extraordinarily controversial ending of "The Afternoon of a Faun" is, by all historical reports, grossly overdone in this movie. The other ballets are given slight notice, even the brillant "Scherazade" with the beautiful original costumes and sets by Leon Bakst is given short shrift. On the plus side, Alan Bates gives a fine performance as Diaghilev (although he is working with a very poor script), and as I've said, George DeLaPena is wonderful as Nijinsky (again, crippled by a bad script). Perhaps one day someone will make a really good movie of these fascinating people. They deserve it, as all truly great theatrical geniuses do. As an aside, I've long thought that the impressario in the movie "The Red Shoes" (Lermontov, played by the brillant Anton Walbrook) was meant to be Diaghilev. Now, if you want to see a really GOOD movie about ballet and ballet dancers, check that one out ("The Red Shoes"), and Ross's "The Turning Point" is also a winner. Too bad "Nijinsky" is a turkey.

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