Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Recommended Posts

Hathaway looks similar in still photos, but I'm less convinced in movement. I haven't seen the Jane Austen film, so don't know if she moderated her physicality for a period work, but I think she doesn't innately have the upper/lower body coordination that marked Fonteyn, even in pedestrian moments -- I don't remember ever seeing a graceless action. But even if it's not ingrained, she may be a skilled enough actress to learn the style.

Link to comment
Perhaps 'Generation Me' would prefer that Alina Somova be Fonteyn? (tee-hee)

Awww, c'mon guys, Fonteyn was (is) THE epitome of the perfect face, the perfect features, the perfect body for ballet -- though I am not saying that her technical skills then would match-up to today's ballerinas, 50 yrs later. [she most likely would have matched or exceeded today's requirements, had they been requirements.] Every time that I've seen Anne Hathaway on the red carpet, her hair up, in a glamorous super-slim beaded gown, I instantly remember Fonteyn.

I certainly would not like to see Somova as Fonteyn. If I had my choice of casting, it would be a dancer. Fonteyn had the perfect proportions for ballet, but I don't consider her a natural beauty. She matured very well, and was beautiful in a glamorous way. Her features looked different when she was younger before her nose job(s) (according to the Daneman bio). Vipa mentions a South American look about her; wasn't her mother half Brazilian? I might cast Roberta Marquez as Fonteyn; I've really enjoyed the clips on youtube of Marquez in Symphonic Variations. I don't know if she's been at the Royal enough to embody the British style, and she would have to work on an accent.

Link to comment

If we were to cast a dancer in the role, I'd nominate Jenifer Ringer, whose coloring and proportions match Fonteyn's and who is also a natural beauty (I agree with Natalia on Fonteyn's qualifications as a beauty).

I am not familiar with Hathaway's work, but I sense in her an extroverted nature, which runs counter to Fonteyn's air of regal restraint.

Link to comment
Fonteyn had the perfect proportions for ballet, but I don't consider her a natural beauty. She matured very well, and was beautiful in a glamorous way. Her features looked different when she was younger before her nose job(s) (according to the Daneman bio).

In early photographs you see an attractive girl with baby fat, a lot of hair around the forehead, and yes, the nose is a tad chunky. She wasn’t a raving beauty like Shearer or glamorous like May, but she made herself beautiful and her features were perfect for the theatre.

If I had my choice of casting, it would be a dancer.

For sure.

Link to comment
I don't see Ansanelli bearing much of a resemblance to Fonteyn looks wise, other than they both have dark hair.

True, but Ansanelli is a dancer. (If the makers of "Isadora" back in the Sixties had cast Lynn Seymour as in the title role, she wouldn't have been an exact physical match, but in spirit and style she would have been as close to Isadora as anyone could have gotten.)

Duff also strikes me as a little young for the movie's time frame described in the article - she will be playing the middle aged Fonteyn, not the young dancer. So in the best of all possible worlds a suitable mature ballerina would be cast in the role, although no one springs to mind offhand.

It may be, of course, that the filmmakers don't intend on showing much if any dancing, in which case the project would indeed be worth very little....

Thanks for commenting, everyone! Keep posting.

(Edited to note that my comment was in response to Old Fashioned's post and not Helene's, which I didn't see before posting, and so I've altered this post slightly to reflect that.)

Has anyone out there seen the DVD "MARGOT"? It is a complete coverage of her life and dancing thus no need for a movie, i.e a phony portrait.

Link to comment

Thanks, smitty1931. A dramatization or biopic doesn't have to be phony (although all too often they are). A good, or even mediocre, movie about Fonteyn would bring her name and story to people who might not know much about her and might even be fun to watch.

Link to comment

Anne-Marie Duff talks about the dance requirements of the role:

"I haven't done ballet since I was at school," she told Mandrake at a party after the premiere of the film Is Anybody There?, in which she stars opposite Sir Michael Caine. "I wasn't too bad then, but it was such a long time ago. Of course, they will have a prima ballerina to film all the intricate parts, but I think I'll need to practise standing on pointe."

Uh, yes, that would certainly help. It looks as if they are going to bring in a double for the ballet sequences, a la Claire Bloom/Melissa Hayden in Limelight, which worked reasonably well although not having the same person in both roles hampered the cinematography in the dance sequences. (Bloom has written that Chaplin was a martinet about her ballet classes, too – even if she wasn’t doing the dancing.) However, a ballerina that matches up with Duff isn’t going to look much like Fonteyn.....

Link to comment

Google News reports that this film will be a 90 minute drama "which will explore her relationship with Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev," and will air in the autumn. This seems to be just another juicy, gossipy thing, and dancing will be minimal.

Link to comment
Google News reports that this film will be a 90 minute drama "which will explore her relationship with Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev," and will air in the autumn. This seems to be just another juicy, gossipy thing, and dancing will be minimal.

A film about the relationship between Fonteyn and Nureyev with minimal dancing isn't about the relationship between Fonteyn and Nureyev, is it?:)

Link to comment
A film about the relationship between Fonteyn and Nureyev with minimal dancing isn't about the relationship between Fonteyn and Nureyev, is it?:D

There is no witness evidence or statement by either Dame Margot or Rudolf Nureyev to suggest that having become the greatest and closest of friends and often social companions, that there was anything more to their relationship, apart of course from their legendary partnership. There have been a number of trashy books wriiten about these two great artists that have all contained factual errors that could have been easily checked, so how could you trust them in dealing with their matters of relationdship when no substanial evidence of relationship above what I have described exists and none I would suggest to be found, but only invented. I understand that the projected film has arisen from the existence of such published material and not an original work.

Link to comment

More news reports today and yesterday state that this film is based on Daneman's book. Oh, Lord! There must be a need for BBC4 to air trash; I guess trash does sell. There was also something about a Nancy Bishop (some sort of production agent) looking for a "Rudolf Nureyev" look-alike, in his mid-twenties, for the role. She stated that a dancer would be preferable; if not, a double would be used for the dancing! And production begins the end of June. It does get sillier and sillier.

Link to comment

Dutch pop star to portray Rudi! According to London's Daily Mail, a Dutch pop star turned actor, Michiel Huisman, will play Rudi in the tv show, "Margot." He also has never danced before. A production exec. stated that, after scores of actors and dancers auditioned, Huisman was the only one who had the combination of animal magnitism and exoticism.

Derek Jacobi will portray Sir Fred Ashton; Penelope Wilton as Margot's Mom; and Lindsay Duncan will play Ninette de Valois. The only name I recognize is Jacobi.

Link to comment
...But don't fret about missing it.

Too bad; look at this cast:

Margot also stars Sir Derek Jacobi as choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton; Penelope Wilton as Margot's mother BQ; Lindsay Duncan as Ninette de Valois, founder of The Royal Ballet...

Those three are worth watching in anything, no matter how bad it is.

Link to comment

I can't view it either (it says Unavailable in Your Area), but just from the one shot of "Fonteyn" taking a modest curtain call, it's awful. And reading the accompanying promo is worse. Do they distort political and diplomatic history as badly as they distort balletl history?

Link to comment

:mad:

:off topic:
Boo, it won't let me watch, says 'not available in your area'.
I can't view it either (it says Unavailable in Your Area), ...

So this is how it feels to live in China. So much for the "worldwide web". :mad:

I've run into this before with links to BBC. As it was explained to me the links only "work" from areas (UK, etc)

that contribute to the liscensing fees the BBC receives. So like so many other things in the world today, it boils down to dollars and cents...er.. in this case pounds and pence.

Actually, I have to admit that it makes "cents" :wink: to me.

Link to comment

richard, the BBC does receive license fees from the US by way of BBC America and from other countries by way of BBC Prime, so the explanation you received isn't that sound.

'Margot' sounds awful, but I Helena Bonham-Carter as Enid Blyton :off topic: sounds terrific!!

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...