Anna Pavlova (film)

Anna Pavlova, also known as A Woman for All Time, is a 1983 biographical drama film depicting the life of the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova, written and directed by Emil Loteanu and starring Galina Belyayeva, James Fox and Sergey Shakurov. It depicts Pavlova's passion for art and her collaboration with the reformers of ballet including Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky and Sergei Diaghilev.

A co-production between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, famed British director Michael Powell served as a producer and featured American director Martin Scorsese in a cameo role.

Plot
The film opens in the cold Saint Petersburg with a scene where Anna as a young girl observes through a window young dancers practicing. Although she catches a cold, Anna decides that she does not merely want to be a dancer but that she wants to be one of the best.

It is shown how classical master dancer/ballet teacher Marius Petipa helps Anna on to the path to glory and her rise in the imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Here she meets the young choreographer Mikhail Fokine with whom she rehearses The Dying Swan – the world-famous solo.

In 1909, Sergei Diaghilev founds the Ballets Russes in Paris for which he recruits the best Russian dancers and choreographers including Anna Pavlova. But after a short time she decides to move to London. Here, she also celebrates major success and her triumph is worldwide; for example she performs in the United States, Mexico and Venezuela. Always present is Victor Dandré – her manager, companion and husband.

Her biggest wish to once again to perform at her native Mariinsky Theatre remained unfulfilled. Anna died from pneumonia at the age of 49 in the year 1931 during her farewell tour in The Hague.

Cast

 * Galina Belyayeva as Anna Pavlova
 * Lina Buldakova as young Anna
 * as Anna's dancing double
 * Sergey Shakurov as Michel Fokine
 * Vsevolod Larionov as Sergei Diaghilev
 * James Fox as Victor Dandré
 * Mikhaill Krapivin as Vaslav Nijinsky
 * Svetlana Toma as Anna's mother
 * Georgio Dimitriou as Enrico Cecchetti
 * Natalya Fateyeva as Mathilde Kschessinska
 * Pyotr Gusev as Marius Petipa
 * Anatoli Romashin as Alexandre Benois
 * Igor Dmitriev as Léon Bakst
 * Jacques Debary as Camille Saint-Saëns
 * Igor Sklyar as Serge Lifar
 * Grigore Grigoriu as Mikhail Mordkin
 * Tiit Härm as Alexandre Volinine
 * Leonid Markov as
 * as
 * Vsevolod Safonov as Vladimir Frederiks
 * Nikolai Kryukov as Oscar II of Sweden
 * Martin Scorsese as Giulio Gatti-Casazza
 * John Murray as Sol Hurok
 * Bruce Forsyth as Alfred Batt
 * Roy Kinnear as Gardener
 * Svetlana Svetlichnaya as Masha
 * Afanasi Trishkin as Sergeyev
 * Emil Loteanu as Cabaret director
 * Galina Kravchenko

Production
Martin Scorsese, a great admirer of Michael Powell's films, originally convinced Robert De Niro to play the American impresario Sol Hurok and Jack Nicholson to portray Pavlova's husband and manager, Victor Dandré. The casting was rejected by the Russian Ministry of Culture, as The Deer Hunter in which De Niro acted was conceived as anti-Communist, and Nicholson had made disparaging remarks about the Soviet Union in interviews. Nicholson's role was eventually played by James Fox and De Niro's by John Murray, the brother of Bill Murray.

The ensemble of the Leningrad Kirov Ballet danced the original choreography, and in original decor and most of Pavlova's repertoire is performed.

Post-production
There were tensions at Mosfilm during editing due to its almost three-hour length. The contract stated that Loteanu had control over the English version, yet the film was shortened dramatically. Loteanu stated "Had I known at the outset that the contract would be broken, I would not have made the film at all."

Release
Anna Pavlova was theatrically released in the Soviet Union in August 1983, via its original 155-minute version. It was released in the United Kingdom on 10 March 1985, in a 133-minute edit.

The television version, which premiered in 1986, consists of five parts, each 55 minutes apiece: "Rossi Street", "Undying Swan", "Tulips and Loneliness", "Dreams of Russia" and "Touching the Sunset".