For someone like me who just found out about Rudolf Nureyev in 2019 after watching my 1st documentary about him, and then reading every possible book written about his life (I found over 10 great books),the documentary "I am a dancer" is finally a closer look at him and especially one great performance of Marguerite and Armand which cannot be seen on any other DVD that I could find. The previous review by Mr. Knipp is actually the complete contrary to my appreciation of this film which I watch over and over. We get a closer look at his life before entering the scenes, the narration is extremely well done and the quality of the film is actually very good compared to some other old footage available. So my recommendation is to just see if for yourself if you are a great fan. La Sylphide clip with Carla Fracci is nowhere else to be seen and neither is Field Figures, a very interesting showing of his modern dancing capabilities. Just see it. Although I did read that Nureyev himself did not like it and refused to promote it. I love it, it's one of my very favorites.

While it is not perfect, I am a Dancer is interesting and informative with a good deal to like for ballet fans. Those however who want more biographical detail on Rudolf Nureyev will find themselves short-changed.

This is because with the documentary aspects there was a lot of information on ballet itself and the techniques and demands, and they are very informative to dancers and non-dancers alike, but we could have learnt more about Nureyev himself, a few rehearsal sequences, a lecture delivered distinguishably by Bryan Forbes over preparation for Field Pieces, a few not-so-revealing dressing room interviews and a wonderful end sequence that saw his personality didn't seem quite enough. Coming off best was when the iconic partnership of Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn was discussed.

As somebody who really likes Pierre Jourdan's operatic staging's for obscure French opera performed by Théâtre Impérial De Compiègne , his camera work disappointed here, there should have been more intimacy , less close ups and reaction shots that took away from the action and more full shots of Nureyev. While the narration is interesting and well-delivered, it did feel over-narrated at times, in scenes that could have done with more show and less tell/talk.

Despite my problems with I am a Dancer, there was much to enjoy. There are some beautiful costumes and sets and atmospheric lighting. The music is magnificent throughout, even if the Tetley is an acquired taste, and performed stylishly, powerfully and poetically by the orchestra and is authoritatively and sympathetically conducted. The choreography is exquisite, especially in La Sylphide (the highlight of I am a Dancer to me). Marguerite and Armand on the other hand had a little too much melodramatic posturing for my tastes, though it is performed well. The Pas De Deux from Sleeping Beauty is beautifully done too.

While there is not enough of his personal life, Nureyev's talents as one of the greatest dancers who ever lived are on full display here, his dancing is graceful and powerfully masculine but also he is always expressive and never looks wooden (there is even a bit of eroticism in the modern piece). He is wonderfully partnered by Margot Fonteyn (the supreme ballet partnership),Lynn Seymour and Carla Fracchi. Deanne Bergsma comes off least, but is still great, just that the other three made more of an impression on me and the music in their segments appeal more.

In conclusion, interesting and with lots to admire but while I don't share the avid dislike that Roger Ebert has for I am a Dancer I do understand where he's coming from. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Viewers here or on YouTube who compliment this film as some sort of wonderful picture of a dancer are seriously misleading. Roger Ebert is absolutely right in his contemporary review when he laments that Nureyev allowed himself to be "talked into" doing such a "lousy movie." There is nothing to it but a narrator who as Ebert says tells us "in the worst Milton Cross Great Moments of Ballet style" only the most obvious and silly things about Nureyev, nothing of interest, nothing we don't know -- plus lengthy clips (at least they're sustained sequences, if badly filmed) of three or four ballets presented more or less randomly without commentary.

Interesting to see Nureyev do modern dance choreography (Glen Tetley's radically modern "Field Figures"). But the music by Stockhausen in the short segment shown is so grating you wonder how he and his female partner could dance to it. Also "notable" is the ballet "Marguerite and Armand" choreographed by Frederick Ashtonbased on Camille (with Fonteyn) created for her and Nureyev by an English choreographer. But it's also laughable, as Ebert remarked, the foolishness highlighted by a "ludicrous Nureyev entrance with cape swirling Lugosi-style." Of historical interest, but hardly worth watching all this ballet. It's remarkable how bad the image quality is of several of these ballet passages in this Seventies film.

The brief "framing" sequences of Nureyev in a dressing room preparing and then taking off makeup and changing back into street clothes after a performance with the tiresome narration are stagy. They are unrevealing and suggest, again as Ebert pointed out at the time, that the filmmakers didn't really know Nureyev -- and did not get to know him.

If you're obsessed with Nureyev, as ballet lovers can hardly help being, you'll have to watch this film for its classic sequences of him dancing, but as a film it ranks low on the scale of the many films about him or containing his dancing. If you haven't much time, watch instead the informative 2007 made-for-TV "Great Performances" series documentary, "Nureyev: The Russian Years," an excellent picture of his brilliant and exciting beginnings and defection to the West, which has essential contemporary film footage of his early dancing, atmospheric recreations, plenty of specific information, and a wealth of on-camera testimony by those who knew him then. "Nureyev: The Russian Years" is an admirable documentary. This is a negligible one.