Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Nijinsky (1980)
Director: Herbert Ross
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
At the very least, Nijinsky is the best gay weepie since Death in Venice. It chronicles the last fraught year or so in the dancer's romance with Ballets Russes impresario Diaghilev, and is thus the first major studio film to centre on a male homosexual relationship (albeit a doomed one) without being moralistic. Director Ross and writer Hugh Wheeler betray their subject by presenting Nijinsky's choreographic experiments as deranged, and by associating his madness with Stravinsky's discords; they also give short shrift to the one woman involved, Romola de Pulsky, the go-getting heiress who seduced and married Nijinsky, thereby alienating Diaghilev from his protégé forever. But they do right by their male characters (Alan Bates, in particular, is a plausibly adult Diaghilev), their grasp of the historical reconstructions seems more than competent, and their dialogue and exposition are unusually adroit. Best of all, they never show ballet for its own sake, and have the courage to keep emotional dynamics in the forefront throughout.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Herbert Ross
Producer: Nora Kaye, Stanley O'Toole
Cast: Alan Bates, George de la Peña, Leslie Brown, Alan Badel, Carla Fracci, Colin Blakely, Ronald Pickup, Ronald Lacey, Jeremy Irons, Anton Dolin, Janet Suzman full cast
Duration: 125 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now