Margot

[MakarovaFan]

I recently watched the 2005 documentary "Margot" and was shocked to hear the sad details of her life offstage. The interviews with so many key people in her life were excellent. I enjoyed the Robert Gottlieb interview, especially the part were he discusses how driven ballerinas must be to excel in their career. It was disturbing to hear him mention in general terms how some ballerinas put ground glass in the toe shoes of their rivals. Of course who knows which ballerinas do that currently, but can anyone name ballerinas who have stooped this low in the past?

If nobody wants to name names, I understand.

[bart]

Stories of backstage rivalries can be fascinating, but please be very careful to post ONLY those stories that can be attributed to reliable published sources. And cite your source. Thanks.

[Pamela Moberg]

I do have that documentary - in my opinion it is a bit over long, 3 solid hours, and I was disturbed that it seemed to concentrate a bit too much, again IMO, on her love life and troubles and not enough on her dancing. Towards the end I just felt desperately sorry for her - what a way to go. Also, as somebody quite correctly remarked, she had a terrible taste in men, seemed to find all the real awful ones.

Though, I am very happy that I have seen her live.

[FauxPas]

I do have that documentary - in my opinion it is a bit over long, 3 solid hours, and I was disturbed that it seemed to concentrate a bit too much, again IMO, on her love life and troubles and not enough on her dancing. Towards the end I just felt desperately sorry for her - what a way to go. Also, as somebody quite correctly remarked, she had a terrible taste in men, seemed to find all the real awful ones.

Though, I am very happy that I have seen her live.

Well, I never saw her live though she did dance when I was very young and she was very old for a ballerina. I just wasn't going then.

The very interesting thing is that Keith Money seems to have been the guiding force behind that documentary and he seemed to have scores to settle with the Arias family and the Covent Garden management. There is a tone of vituperation and bitterness that seem to stem from him. Now there was a lovely Patricia Foy video biography that did a nice job and presented the image Margot wanted to present to the world. This latest documentary was the story Money wanted told and his mixture of protectiveness and desire for justice for poor, abused Margot is a fascinating study in psychology. He seems totally devoted to her memory and devoted to her as a person and yet furious at her for allowing her talent and person to be used and abused due to her generosity and need to be needed. But his desire to tell the truth does make Margot seem either monumentally gullible or a masochist which isn't how she would have wanted to be perceived. Also much personal information she wouldn't have wanted publicly aired gets a lot of play.

So the documentary makes her seem great (and the recently discovered and/or re-released footage of her dancing backs that up) but the personal revelations make her seem weak and foolish at times. The personal material makes you both admire and pity her. But it definitely sends a very mixed message.

If it was the only available video portrait, I would be disturbed and disgusted. As it is, it is a rather fascinating document. I believe the narrator (or is it Money himself?) states right at the beginning that this is the story of how one of the last century's greatest dancers was used, betrayed and abandoned by those who were the closest to her. So the tone is set right at the beginning. But I think though that may have been an important story to tell re: Fonteyn it is not THE story of her life and career. It does explain however why her career was extended as long as it was.