The Dancer (2016)
La danseuse (original title)
Loïe Fuller was the toast of the Folies Bergères at
the turn of the 20th century and an inspiration for Toulouse-Lautrec and
the Lumière Brothers. The film revolves around her complicated
relationship with protégé and rival Isadora Duncan.
Director:
Stéphanie Di GiustoStars:
Storyline
There was nothing in her background to prepare Loïe to become the toast
of the Folies Bergères in Paris and stages across the world. Then she
created the 'Serpentine Dance'... 1887. After the death of her gold
prospector father, 25-year-old Marie-Louise leaves her life in the
American West to join her mother in New York and pursue her heart's
dream - becoming an actress. One night on stage, becoming tangled in her
long dress, she avoids falling by spinning the fabric in a graceful,
magical gesture: the "Serpentine Dance" is born. The audience - shocked,
then overwhelmed - calls out for more. Marie-Louise has become Loïe
Fuller. She embarks on a new, hectic life, leaving New York, where
imitators try to steal her radical innovations, for Paris. At the Folies
Bergères, she dazzles the capital, and illustrious admirers fall at her
feet. Toulouse Lautrec, the Lumière Brothers, Rodin... the Electric
Fairy becomes an icon, the blazing symbol of a generation. But fame
isn't all. An encounter...
Certificate:
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Release Date:
1 December 2017 (USA) See more »Also Known As:
The Dancer See more »Box Office
Opening Weekend:
€25,502 (Italy) (18 June 2017)Company Credits
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Sound Mix:
Dolby DigitalColor:
ColorAspect Ratio:
2.39 : 1
Edit
Did You Know?
Trivia
French visa # 142.843. See more »Goofs
Loie first performed at the Follies Bergere in the early 1890s, but the director of the Follies Bergere is driving an "olde tymey" car from perhaps 2 decades later when Loie ambushes him in his carpark in order to present an impromptu audition. See more »
When it comes to pioneers of modern choreography, most are familiar
with Isadora Duncan. The American-born dancer, who embodied Greek ideals
and a bohemian lifestyle, was memorably portrayed by an Oscar-nominated
Vanessa Redgrave
in the 1968 biopic, “Isadora.” She would die in 1927 after one of her
signature scarves caught in the wheel spokes of an open-air car and
caused her to be ejected. That tragic variation of being hung by one’s
own petard helped to solidify her status as a terpsichorean legend.
But the name Loie Fuller, the subject of “The Dancer” who was an
early supporter of Duncan, did not ring a bell—at least, for me. Born
Mary-Louise in 1862, she was a Chicago-area native and innovator of a
brand of free-form performance art known as Serpentine Dance. Her act
consisted of a costume designed from massive swatches of silk attached
to long bamboo rods being whirled and twirled while Fuller circled about
on an elevated stage. She also invented multi-hued dramatic lighting
techniques, many now commonplace, to enhance the undulations of her
voluminous fabric.
However, after checking out the famous Art
Nouveau posters by Jules Cheret that stylized Fuller’s allure and then
realizing that the silent-era filmmakers the Lumiere brothers had
featured Fuller copycats in their work, I discovered I did know of the
existence of the so-called “La Danseuse de la Belle Epoque.”
This
unique artist, who packs plenty of opportunities for visual pizzazz,
seems long overdue for big-screen treatment. And given that Fuller
outwardly was more of a muscular tomboy than ethereal waif, first-time
director Stephanie Di Giusto at least has gone outside the box when
casting her lead. Her choice? A French singer-songwriter turned actress
known as Soko, whose bobbed brunette hair and distinctly off-beat
features suggest a not-unappealing blend of Erin Moran of “Happy Days”
fame and Bjork.
But despite an on-screen claim that her movie is
based on a true story, Di Giusto’s script plays fast and loose with
many of the facts of Fuller’s history—none more so than the Old West
prologue with her gold-prospecting father that involves both cattle
rustling and recited excerpts of Oscar Wilde’s
play “Salome.” When Dad is shot dead in an outdoor bathtub, Fuller
high-tails it to Brooklyn and takes up residence with her
Temperance-warrior mother (a wasted Amanda Plummer).
That is when she decides to try stage acting. When her too-large
costume begins to droop mid-scene, Fuller simply lifts her skirt and
spins around. The audience approves, and suddenly a dance sensation is
created and Loie is born.
Soon she will seek her fortune in Paris and become a sensation at
the Folies-Bergere. But not before she meets her prime benefactor and
semi-consort, the vampire-like composite character of Count Louis Dorsay
(Gaspard Ulliel),
who likes his rooms dark as tombs, his sexual partners for hire and his
mood-altering ether readily available. Most of Ulliel and Soko’s scenes
together tend to devolve into silent staring contests, including those
at his mansion in the City of Lights. The property serves as both
Fuller’s new home and her rehearsal space where she trains a chorus line
of tunic-garbed young followers.
This is where the youthful
Duncan comes in as Fuller’s seductive new student, slinky and
sylph-like, whose style is more formal than intuitive. Before you can
say “All About Eve,” Duncan—embodied by a teenage Lily-Rose Depp (the minx-like spawn of Johnny Depp and his ex, Vanessa Paradis)—is
bewitching her mentor and soon-to-be rival out of her clothes in a
garden at dusk before leaving her high and dry in more ways than one.
“The
Dancer” clearly needed a better task master behind the camera. There
are too many scenes of Fuller physically and mentally suffering for her
art as she questions if what she does actually qualifies as dance. How
many times do we need to see her soak her body in a vat of ice? Depp’s
lone dancing interlude is achieved primarily by an obvious body double
although her seduction of Soko is effective if brief. And, overall, the
editing feels weighed down rather than spritely, as one would hope for a
film about freedom of movement. Too many episodes either go on too long
or are too short—as is the case with Fuller’s climatic and triumphant
debut at the Opera House.
If there is joy to be found in this
story, it comes from Soko’s sincere commitment, the staging of her
re-creations of Fuller's astonishing routines and the subtle facial
nuances of Melanie Thierry
as Gabrielle, her ever-alert loyal assistant and protector. But if a
biopic about a dancer causes you to search the Internet to better learn
more details about its subject while yearning for more musical numbers,
that can’t be a good sign.
What is most damning is that Fuller
was anything but a brooding loner, as she too often comes off as in the
movie. Before dying from pneumonia in 1928, she would influence such
artists and writers as Rodin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Yeats. She inspired
both Ruth St. Denis and Martha Graham. You can even sense her impact on
contemporary routines featured on the TV competition show, “So You Think
You Can Dance.” She was given patents for her staging and lighting
innovations, developed cinematic techniques and grew close to Marie
Curie and her family. If only Di Giusto more ambitiously broadened her
scope, she would have made a fleet-footed tribute for the ages instead
of stumbling over such rich possibilities.
FINAL RATING: 7/10 FOR THE GENRE AND 6/10 OVERALL. A really nice movie about a dancer with certain dreams but still some more aspects were left out, which would have made it a better one.
Thanks for reading and have fun watching movies.
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