Isadora

Isadora Duncan came onto the stage at the start of the twentieth century by refusing the rules of dance: no corset, no ballet shoes, no classical figures. She danced barefoot, in poses taken from ancient Greek statues. The film tells her life from America to Europe and then to the Soviet Union, the success on stage and the disasters in her private life together. Vanessa Redgrave takes the lead in Karel Reisz's film and won best actress at Cannes in 1969 for the part, with an Oscar nomination as well. Duncan was not a reformer of ballet; she was against ballet and is counted among the founders of modern dance. What she said about free love, her debts and her sympathy for the Soviets drew great hostility in her own time. Her death was as strange as her life: her scarf caught in the wheel of a car.