‘Paul Taylor: Dancemaker’ Misses a Step or Two

Nominated in 1998 for an Academy Award as best documentary feature, Matthew Diamond’s much praised “Paul Taylor: Dancemaker” comes to the PBS “American Masters” series tonight, juxtaposing contemporary interviews and dancing footage with archival clips that link Taylor’s present to his past.

In a sense, the film may well belong to film editor Pam Wise more than to Diamond, for it represents an intricate mosaic of images and sound bites, many of them only a few seconds long. Unfortunately, this approach takes its toll on Taylor’s choreographies; they are reduced to fragments and further marginalized by voice-over commentaries.

Indeed, you could argue that the film is saying that Taylor’s dances are important only because of what they tell us about the man, when the opposite is true: Taylor, the man, is worth a film documentary only because he’s created great dances, dances never allowed to make their effect here.

The relationship between art and life is more trenchantly explored in “Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse,” a 1997 Oscar-nominated feature documentary that not only gave dance its full value but also managed to be more probing about its subject’s personal history. Taylor himself proved remarkably open about his sexuality in his book “Private Domain,” so why is Diamond’s film so closeted on the subject?

“Dancemaker” becomes much, much better when following the Taylor company through rehearsals and performances in New York and New Delhi, revealing the tensions and fears that a dancer’s life generates. Reminiscences by former company members heighten the sense of physical and psychological vulnerability facing their current counterparts.

The notion of professional dance as fun and games for beautiful children may persist despite the evidence, but Diamond does his best to kill it off here once and for all.

Finally, there’s a memorable sequence in which shots of Taylor dancing “Aureole” in 1962 merge with new footage of him rehearsing Patrick Corbin in the work--a reminder of how fleeting and glorious a dancer’s prime can be.

* “Paul Taylor: Dancemaker” airs tonight at 8 on KCET-TV, as part of the PBS “American Masters” series. It will repeat Sunday at 1 p.m.