NIJINSKY

 

Publicity poster for Nijinsky (© Herbert Ross/Hera Productions/Paramount Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Last night, I watched on the Talking Pictures TV channel here in the UK the fascinating, lavishly-staged, but ultimately heart-rending movie biopic Nijinsky. Directed by Herbert Ross and released in 1980, it tells the meteoric rise to the stratospheric heights of global fame and the equally precipitous, tragic descent into ignominy and madness of the world's most celebrated male ballet dancer – the incomparable Vaslav Nijinsky (1889/90-1950).

For all too short but wholly spectacular a time during the pre-WW1 years, the genius  of this youthful Polish-heritaged protégé of Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes, burnt as brilliantly as the very stars in the heavens above, with an incandescent glory previously unimaginable in his field of the arts and never surpassed even today.

However, complex and conflicting relationships between Nijinsky, Diaghilev (who became his lover), and society girl Romola de Pulszky (who became his very unexpected wife), not to mention the extreme challenges posed when attempting to choreograph Igor Stravinsky's infamously daring, dissonant ballet 'The Rite of Spring', plus the unrelenting emotional pressures and constraints of eventually heading an entire company while still inexperienced managerially yet virtually unsupported, all lethally joined forces to wreak havoc upon Nijinsky's already fragile mental state. Inevitably, they sent this modern-day Icarus, a dancing demi-god who soared too close to the sun in his impossible quest for unattainable perfection, spiralling ever downward, plummeting to earth, his coruscating flames of splendour extinguishing like those of a cosmic falling star.

 

The real Vaslav Njinsky, photographed in summer 1907 (public domain)

All of the leads in Nijinsky are first-rate, including Alan Bates as Diaghilev, Leslie Browne as Romola, and Jeremy Irons as eminent choreographer Mikhail Fokine (yet whose jealousy of Nijinsky knew no bounds), but none more so than George de la Peña, making his movie debut in the title role. He is not only both a trained ballet dancer and choreographer himself but also a highly accomplished actor (and, for connoisseurs of totally trivial trivia, he just so happens to share my birthday!).

Throughout the movie, de la Peña gives a superlative, multi-talented and also multi-faceted performance as the dynamic but tortured Nijinsky. This is readily seen both in the sumptuous ballet segments in which he excels (including a very convincing replication of Nijinsky's legendary leap through the window at the end of the featured excerpt from Weber's 'Le Spectre de la Rose', achieving such a height and distance that he seems to be flying rather than merely dancing, exactly as audiences of the day described for Nijinsky's original version) and in the highly-charged, distressing, but authentic presentation of Nijinsky's deteriorating mental stability (culminating in schizophrenia that brought his professional dancing career to a premature, permanent end in 1917).

Thankfully, however, this latter, very traumatic aspect of Nijinsky's life, leading to him spending his last 33 years in and out of asylums and psychiatric hospitals, is kept to a minimum in this movie (no doubt due to it being based upon his wife Romola's own authored account of his life), although it is book-ended by a brief opening and closing scene in which the still-young former dancer is shown sitting disconsolately on the floor of a darkened cell incarcerated in a straitjacket – a terrible fate. Mercifully, Romola and their two daughters Kyra and Tamara stayed ever-loyal, lovingly caring for him whenever he recuperated sufficiently to be released back into the outside world for a while.

 

The real Romola and Vaslav Nijinsky, photographed in 1913, the year of their wedding (public domain)

Nijinsky died from kidney failure on 8 April 1950 in London, and is buried in Paris's famous Montmartre Cemetery, but today his name remains as revered in the history of dance as it was more than a century ago when the golden fire of his artistry was still burning at its brightest and best. Nijinsky has gained immortality, through all eternity, albeit at an ultimately horrific cost to him when alive. Happily, however, for much of its 130-minute length this extraordinary movie is a fitting celebration of his sublime achievements during his glory years.

I am very glad to have watched Nijinsky, it engaged my total attention and interest throughout, and I certainly recommend it to everyone who has a passion for the arts, especially ballet, as well as to anyone wishing to gain at least a fleeting insight into the true if often tragic, tormented nature of genius.

If you would like a preview of what to expect from this magnificent, captivating movie, please click here to view a succinct official trailer for Nijinsky. Also, please click here to watch the excerpt from 'Le Spectre de la Rose' featured in Nijinsky that I mentioned above – and be sure not to miss his world-famous, gravity-defying leap out of the window at the very end, as replicated stunningly by George de la Peña playing him.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE! 

 

Photographed in 1911, here is the real Nijinsky as the Faun in the very first ballet that he himself created and choreographed – 'L'Après-Midi d'Un Faune' ('The Afternoon of a Faun', fauns being equivalent in Roman mythology to the satyrs of Greek mythology); it was based upon Claude Debussy's orchestral symphonic poem 'Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune' (public domain)