Tony Palmer's Film About Margot [DVD] [2008] [NTSC]

This very entertaining and sometimes exciting documentary is more than 160 minutes in length. I've watched it 3 times -and it still succeeds in being completely gripping. The viewer feels he is getting close to what made Margot Fonteyn such a captivating ballerina and personality. Anyone interested in dance will probably be enthralled by this film.She had a thrilling career, but there was apparently a shadow to Fonteyn's marriage and private life, which makes the biography of this marvellous dancer if anything even more compelling. In her art and also in her personal life Fonteyn appears to have been, on the evidence presented here, a woman of astonishing determination. In telling her story, this perceptive film examines Fonteyn's significant relationships with, amongst others, her Mother (known as "B.Q.", Black Queen), Constant Lambert, Rudolf Nureyev, and her husband Tito Arias. Fonteyn's friends, relations, and colleagues are interviewed, but (with one spectacular exception) this documentary avoids suggestions based on speculation, or hearsay. There are numerous illustrations of Fonteyn's magical qualities as a dancer found in archive film (of varying quality), as well as footage of Fonteyn off-stage which conveys a sense of her life-enhancing personality. There is very effective use of Prokoviev's music for "Romeo & Juliet" during the documentary, colouring the more dramatic aspects of Fonteyn's life. Tony Palmer presents the facts relating to the end of Fonteyn's life in a way that is troubling, and difficult to put out of mind. The end of this story could be described as heartbreaking. The final resting place of Dame Margot Fonteyn, who gave the world such grace and joy, should surely be something more than it is at present. This biographical documentary is one of the best of its kind.

Superb production values ensure this biography of England's most famous ballerina doesn't disappoint.Archived and contemporary interviews with the big names of the Royal Ballet seamlessly progress the narrative whilst footage of Fonteyn and her dancing partners in rehearsal and performance throughout her professional career bear witness to the development of ballet from the 1930s to the 1980s. For the male ballet dancer it's also a useful reminder that Nureyev really did make a difference and the ballerina's prop would become an equal partner.Nureyev and Fonteyn became big box office bed blockers at the Royal Ballet and the bitterness of great dancers whose opportunities were denied reminds us that blinding light creates deep shadows.Fonteyn changed her nose and voice as well as her name. As a ballerina she controlled her body superbly but she hardly controlled her life and her love life, not at all. Two youthful abortions, left at the alter by a drunken unfaithful seducer, married to a philandering neglectful crook and an affair with a bisexual man half her age. She had rotten taste in men. Yet when her husband was paralysed from the neck down after being shot by a husband he cuckolded, Fonteyn took control of someone for the first time in her life and revelled in it.

Interesting but very sad. I had read her biography so knew the story but one felt all the time that she was being used and the ROH should definitely not have made her come to the Benefit when she was a dying woman. Some lovely dance extracts.

THIS FILM I SAW RECENTLY ON SKY ARTS. I LIKE TONY PALMER'S FILMS BUT DID NOT KNOW OF IT'S EXISTANCE. IT IS AN AMAZING PIECE OF WORK. THE TALKING HEADS INTERVIEWED ARE ALL INTERESTING PARTICULARLY THE DANCERS WHO KNEW AND WORKED WITH HER. FONTEYN ALSO NARRATES SOME OF IT(PRESUMABLY FROM AN EARLY DOCUMENTARY OF HER LIFE)THE DANCE EXCERPTS ARE MANY AND NOT CUT SHORT.IT IS A LONG FILM BUT HOLDS THE ATTENTION THROUGHOUT. THE END IS OF COURSE HEARTBREAKING.A TREAT FOR BALLET LOVERS OR EVEN IF BALLET IS NOT YOUR THING, A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE.

The facts about Margot are so well-known that it is difficult to get anything new. The image of the dancer has been made and un-made. There are some interesting comments here - in particular the ironic contrast with how her husband's relations perceive her life with Tito and how others view it.The great sadness of much of her achieving comes out. Highly recommended.

A wonderful story and film about a wonderful lady and dancer. Many thanks Tony Palmer for all your research. This will be viewed over and over again...

I really liked this but was disappointed that there was not a lot more dance. I great learning curve for me

An excellent documentary on Margot's life...so good you cannot tale your eyes off the screen! Great behind the scenes footage! Well done Tony Palmer!

Wir haben viele Aufzeichnungen Margot Fonteyns gesehen, und vieles über sie gelesen. Diese DVD übertrifft alles. Sie ist erschütternd und faszinierend zugleich: man lernt Privates als auch Berufliches dieser unglaublichen Begabung auf sachliche als auch äusserst emotionale Weise kennen. Man wird Zeuge der zahlreichen Situationen, in denen Margot Fonteyn zum Spielball ihrer Company (Covent Garden) als auch ihrer Berufs-und Lebenspartner wurde, und wie sehr sie unter diesen Ungerechtigkeiten gelitten haben musste, ohne es sich auch nur annähernd anmerken zu lassen.Am meisten faszinierten mich die Schilderungen ihrer Beziehung zu Rudolf Nureyev, und dem persönlichen wie auch beruflichen Triumph, den sie als immerhin 43-Jährige erlebte. Die positive Charakterisierung Rudolf Nureyevs erfeut einen zutiefst, da er in dieser Dokumentation jene menschliche Anerkennung erhält, die ihm oft aberkannt wurde.Weiterhin werden erläutert die Tanztechnik Margot Fonteyns, die körperlichen Strapazen (vor allem ihrer Füsse), und die Schwächen einer Frau, die so vielen so vieles gegeben hat.Am Ende bleibt nur erschütternde Traurigkeit: dass so vieles schiefgehen konnte, dass niemand dagewesen war, der sie vor den Ungerechtigkeiten und gravierenden Versorgungslücken bewahrte, und dass sie als Opfer ihrer grenzenlosen Loyalität am Ende ihres Lebens von ihrem erarbeiteten Reichtum absolut garnichts für sich zurückbehalten hatte.Ihre Leistung erhält durch diese vielen Einblicke in die Hintergründe ihres Lebens nur noch mehr an Bedeutung !Hier ist eine feinfühlige und dennoch kritische Bilanz eines bedeutenden Lebens aufs Bemerkenswerteste gelungen.

I purchased it for a friend and she had already seen it so I returned it. Aside from that , she told me that it was kind of gossipy, rather than a study of her ballet story.

Yeats asked "How can we tell the dancer from the dance?" This film unfortunately separates the two almost throughout. The footage of dancing with Fonteyn is always a pleasure to see. She embodies the British ideal of lyrical drama. As an actress she has never been surpassed in ballet, and her lyrical style is the antithesis of the athletic-gymnastic style of almost every other classical school. But I am not interested in, nor do I want to know, about all the problems of her private life. If a performer is a singer or a dancer, let them sing or dance. What they do in their private life is not of interest. This film spends, for me, too much time on the problems in her private life. Perhaps the title "Margot" should have warned me. I would like to see a sister-film entitled "Fonteyn" with as close attention to her development as a dancer as this film devotes to her life.

This is an excellent film on the life of Margot Fonteyn. I liked the fact that they were able to use so much footage of her dancing. This enables the many people who were never able to see her dance understand her grace, beauty, technique, and spirit. How wonderful to be able to see Margot and Rudolph together. This was a once in a life time partnership. This is a great film for ballet enthusiaist, but also very entertaining on a celebrity level.

Palmer's long but well-balanced and consistently absorbing documentary is one of the more striking examples of the dichotomy of celebrity, with great public acclaim set against a private life of mostly contained misery. Clearly Dame Margot was a woman of remarkable beauty, drive and talent. Yet not bad luck but a blind spot deep in her character would leave her broke and isolated at the end of her illustrious career, tethered to a man who did not merit her devotion. Palmer's film is a piercingly insightful portrait of an enigmatic woman who was at once the most famed of ballerinas, yet still a lonely and failed human being.