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Margot Fonteyn |
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Description:
A more fitting title might have been Margot Fonteyn Remembers because two years before her death in 1991, the legendary English ballerina narrated this film of her life, effectively turning it into a video autobiography. Sitting outside her Panama home, a still-elegant Fonteyn reconstructs a 45-year career that began soon after she dropped out of school at 14 and includes performing with the Royal Ballet. When Rudolf Nureyev recalls how he and Fonteyn "became one body, one soul," it is almost as riveting as the archival footage of the pair dancing Giselle or Romeo and Juliet. Several other voices round out the professional portrait, including her longtime dance partners Robert Helpmann and Frederick Ashton ("the greatest choreographer of our time"). When the camera is turned on her personal life, Fonteyn chokes up as she recalls how her husband, a Panamanian diplomat, was paralyzed in an assassination attempt in 1964. Her own home movies (including film of time spent on Aristotle Onassis's yacht with Winston Churchill) and newsreel footage add a nice you-are-there diary touch. Just as telling, though, are the lengthy dance passages, from Sleeping Beauty to Ondine (her "favorite role") that testify to her perfection of the art of ballet. --Valerie J. Nelson
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