Mahler

Rating:
Summary: With Mahler's Music, Russell Hits All the Right Notes...
Review: All right, I'll admit I'm a big Ken Russell fan from way back, although many of his films are flawed. Yes, he can be excessive (q.v. "Tommy") or overly obscure (q.v. "Women in Love"). But, when he gets it right, he gets it, and "Mahler" is one of his films where reality and his flights of fantasy balance each other perfectly. Centering around what is probably Mahler's last journey home, the composer and his much younger wife have been having a bumpy time of it. While she ponders dumping him for a young Austrian soldier, Mahler's medical condition sends him on a series of flashbacks and fantasies through his own life.

A highlight of the film (often edited out in American editions for some reason) is Mahler's "conversion" sequence, when he trades Judaism for Catholicism as a career move -- and the whole thing is imagined with Mahler as a David-esque warrior, approaching the lair of Cosima Wagner, who's resplendent in Wagnerian/Nazi drag. Yes, it may seem anachronistic -- unless you know your European History. (Russell's next film, "Lisztomania," also played with the whole Nietszche/Wagner/Supermen will become Nazis idea, but far less successfully.)

Anyway... "Mahler" is a funny and moving film that weaves time, memory and emotion to explore how an artist got where he is, and does it with beautiful imagery, imagination and, most of all, the incredible music of Mahler himself. It's definitely worth a look and a listen.

Rating:
Summary: With Mahler's Music, Russell Hits All the Right Notes...
Review: All right, I'll admit I'm a big Ken Russell fan from way back, although many of his films are flawed. Yes, he can be excessive (q.v. "Tommy") or overly obscure (q.v. "Women in Love"). But, when he gets it right, he gets it, and "Mahler" is one of his films where reality and his flights of fantasy balance each other perfectly. Centering around what is probably Mahler's last journey home, the composer and his much younger wife have been having a bumpy time of it. While she ponders dumping him for a young Austrian soldier, Mahler's medical condition sends him on a series of flashbacks and fantasies through his own life.

A highlight of the film (often edited out in American editions for some reason) is Mahler's "conversion" sequence, when he trades Judaism for Catholicism as a career move -- and the whole thing is imagined with Mahler as a David-esque warrior, approaching the lair of Cosima Wagner, who's resplendent in Wagnerian/Nazi drag. Yes, it may seem anachronistic -- unless you know your European History. (Russell's next film, "Lisztomania," also played with the whole Nietszche/Wagner/Supermen will become Nazis idea, but far less successfully.)

Anyway... "Mahler" is a funny and moving film that weaves time, memory and emotion to explore how an artist got where he is, and does it with beautiful imagery, imagination and, most of all, the incredible music of Mahler himself. It's definitely worth a look and a listen.

Rating:
Summary: Mahler Madness!
Review: Anyone knowing about Ken Russell's films knows to expect something a little eccentric. With "Mahler," he does not disappoint. For the lover of unusual films, as well as Mahler's grand orchestral canvases, this film provides many delights.

A convalescing Gustav Mahler (Robert Powell) ponders his life while on a train trip with his wife Alma (Georgina Hale), who is having an affair with a military officer. While it covers certain events from his life, including the misery and tragedy of his childhood, the film's real strengths derive from its more fantastical aspects. Russell examines the composer's psyche in some bizarre, anachronistic, and sometimes darkly humorous vignettes, some of which have to do with Mahler's Jewishness in anti-Semitic "fin de siecle" Austria. Some highlights: Mahler debasing himself to prove his worthiness to a B&D clad Cosima Wagner during the musical number "Jewboy," sung to a very familiar tune by her husband; seeing his own funeral with Nazi pallbearers, a nude Alma frolicking to the playfully nightmarish Scherzo from his own Seventh Symphony; and his own frolics with what appears to have been his true love, Death.

Despite being the protagonist, Mahler is not completely a hero. Russell also examines Mahler's autocratic attitude towards his wife's composing, culminating in her burying her own compositions. The music selected for this scene is not by Mahler, but rather a Wagner piece with a very appropriate title. Perhaps this explains Mahler's phantasmic vision of Alma frolicking at his own funeral; does Russell have Mahler realize the delusion of consigning Alma exclusively to the role of muse, rather than leaving her to define herself as another creator?

Having seen Russell's film, the prospect of a straight biopic about "events" in Mahler's life seems to me rather anticlimactic. Anyone wishing to see a straight biopic of Mahler should probably avoid this film. (You may wish to wait for a movie currently in the works about Alma Mahler.) However, those with an appreciation for unusual films and/or Mahler's music should give this film serious consideration.

Rating:
Summary: My first impression was a 4 star, but now I say 5 stars.
Review: As a Mahler lover, I could say that the music in the dvd is excellently played. The sellection is right. Most scenes seem to be adequate to his life.
Some parts of the film resulted rather funny to me,e.g. when Mahler is forced to fight a dragon and comes out of its cave with a pork head, then eating part of it. Some would say it is symbolic, but this part seems to be in contrast with the rest of the film, which could be said to be serious. But anyway, it is ok, I mean it is not disgusting. I think that any Mahler lover just does not want any representation to be unrespectful of the artist we love so much. This film is respectul.
A scene in which Alma is represented as being shadowed by him is twofold, as you can take her as death walking behind him. There is also a scene with death arriving in a boat, mixing her with the soprano singer who practiced with Mahler. Interesting.
Just the beginning of the film, pays its price. With a shocking fact plus the climax of his unfinished tenth symphony.
Even though there are many scenes in which Alma is depicted as to prone to flirt, the emphasys, in my opinion, does not go beyond the line. In fact, a scene starting with Beethoven`s statue in a graveyard, in a time close to Mahler`s death, is I think, depicting quite acurately the state of mind of Gustav.
I mean, I think Alma could have been just waiting for his death in order to find for herself a younger lover. Maybe I am wrong.
To finish, as a Mahler lover I always end up deeply sad, because he died early. I wonder, what if he had lived for 60 years. Why Albert Camus died in his 40s.
In fact there is no god; but had there been one, he was the one who killed Mahler and Camus, because he would have seen that these guys were creating perfect art, and his universe is chaos.
We all know that Gustav Mahler is the only God ever existed.

Rating:
Summary: For any Mahler lover, a DVD worth having in a collection
Review: As a Mahler lover, I could say that the music in the dvd is excellently played. The sellection is right. Most scenes seem to be adequate to his life.
Some parts of the film resulted rather funny to me,e.g. when Mahler is forced to fight a dragon and comes out of its cave with a pork head, then eating part of it. Some would say it is symbolic, but this part seems to be in contrast with the rest of the film, which could be said to be serious. But anyway, it is ok, I mean it is not disgusting. I think that any Mahler lover just does not want any representation to be unrespectful of the artist we love so much. This film is respectul.
A scene in which Alma is represented as being shadowed by him is twofold, as you can take her as death walking behind him. There is also a scene with death arriving in a boat, mixing her with the soprano singer who practiced with Mahler. Interesting.
Just the beginning of the film, pays its price. With a shocking fact plus the climax of his unfinished tenth symphony.
Even though there are many scenes in which Alma is depicted as to prone to flirt, the emphasys, in my opinion, does not go beyond the line. In fact, a scene starting with Beethoven`s statue in a graveyard, in a time close to Mahler`s death, is I think, depicting quite acurately the state of mind of Gustav.
I mean, I think Alma could have been just waiting for his death in order to find for herself a younger lover. Maybe I am wrong.
To finish, as a Mahler lover I always end up deeply sad, because he died early. I wonder, what if he had lived for 60 years. Why Albert Camus died in his 40s.
In fact there is no god; but had there been one, he was the one who killed Mahler and Camus, because he would have seen that these guys were creating perfect art, and his universe is chaos.
We all know that Gustav Mahler is the only God ever existed.

Rating:
Summary: Mahler/Christ/Ken Russell
Review: Film auteur Ken Russell made at least six biographical movies about celebrated composers, three of which enjoyed commercial release in the United States: "The Music Lovers," about Tchaikovsky; "Mahler," about its titular subject; and "Lisztomania," really about Wagner as much as it was about Liszt. Unseen in commercial release in North America (and unseen by me) are studies of Frederick Delius, Sir Arnold Bax, and Bela Bartók. Known for his extravagance - and, let us be honest, his vulgarity - Russell nevertheless believes passionately in these projects and endows his composer-artists with an especially powerful aura. (At one point, in the late 1960s, Russell apparently tried to help in the promotion of Lyrita's release of symphonies by Bax, although his plan was eventually scuttled by Lyrita's management.) The Tchaikovsky, Liszt, and Mahler films are all studies in the link between neurosis and creativity and portray the artist not merely as a social outcast, unfit really for society, but as a martyr to his own talent, which inevitably consumes him. "Mahler" (1974), as fantastic as portions of it might be, maintains the closest marriage with reality. Robert Powell (famously Jesus in Zeffirelli's film of that name) as Mahler represents perfect casting. For one thing, he looks the part. British beauty Georgina Hale (where is she twenty-five years later?) is alternately innocent and whorish as Alma Schindler, who, twenty years younger, became Mahler's wife only to betray him, as Mahler perhaps betrayed her, too. There is enough neurosis in their story to go around. Russell gives us not so much a straight narrative as a series of vignettes in flashback from Mahler's point of view as he returns by train to Vienna for the last time in 1911, the year of his death. Using Bernard Haitink's recordings of the Mahler symphonies (with the Concertgebouw Orchestra), Russell illustrates the music in the visual fantasies or episodes that make up the film. Examples? To the apocalyptic "organ chord" from the First Movement of the Tenth Symphony, we see Mahler's lakeside hut at Maiernegg burst into flames; then a cocooned female figure gradually emerges from her chrysalis in a weird ballet. To the death-march on "Frère Jacques" from the First Symphony, with its interruptions by an oompah-ing klezmer band, we see Mahler watching his own funeral and interment helplessly, his coffin carried by black-uniformed SS men while Alma, in matching SS miniskirt and jackboots, does a lewd dance on the grave. In a crucifixion scene accompanied by bleeding chunks from Wagner's "Ring," Cosima Wagner, the Mistress of Bayreuth,gives him a pass for being circumcised, then compels him to eat pork, thus licensing him to conduct the most Teutonic of Teutonic music. (This follows the announcement of the composer's conversion to Catholicism - as I said, nothing is too vulgar for Russell.) For the "Veni, Creator Spiritus" from the Eighth Symphony, Russell gives us a cinematic suite of Gustave Doré engravings based on Dante's "Paradiso." And so it goes. At one point, a reporter claiming to be "Ernst Krenek" bursts into Mahler's Pullman compartment. (The real Ernst Krenek would have been about three years old at the time.) What holds the sequence together is the music in combination with Powell's remarkable performance. He even convinces when he undertakes the thankless job of conducting an unseen (and of course nonexistent) orchestra for the camera. (We all do it, but none of us wants to be photographed while doing it.) While room remains for as less surreal treatment of Mahler, Russell's, despite its eccentricity, is still a worthy attempt. Aficionados of Mahler will especially want to have it. I recommend it with the cautions implicit in what has gone before.

Rating:
Summary: "Memories ....of the Way it was done! "
Review: How soon we forget! Whilst movies like 'Moulin Rouge' [the current version - NOT to be confused with the Houston masterpiece] stimulate "oohs" and "aahs" today, we tend to forget that dear old Kennie R. patented all of this way, way back!!!

This is not the most spectacular of the Composer bios, but quite, quite effective. Kinda 'rapes' the senses over and over and over - that's the only way to describe it! Magnificently costumed [Alma Mahler's train ensemble is Perfection!] Edited,
Scripted and Cast - give Russell his due! Pity though that we are not treated to a widescreen, sound enhanced vision of the work - same goes for all of the rest, [especially "The Music Lovers"].

A great deal of ground is covered in this work - seen in flashback by Mahler [Robert Powell who also starred in 'Tommy'] who is currently on a journey with wife Alma [alumni Georgina Hale]. Miss Hale as Alma Mahler is both fire and ice, cold and sensual, deprived and depraved as Alma, and who wouldn't be? Husband - Gustav - kep her firmly in tow, or did he? [Forced her to abandon a most promising career - ah men!].

The visuals as usual are stunning - watch for Ken's cameo as a shepherd, Mahler's funeral - with the nude Alma atop the casket, gyrating.....and what's with all of the Quazi-Nazi images? The conversion sequence - Mahler from Judiasm to Catholicism is positively sado-masochistic; complete with a domanatrix whip weilding Cosima Wagner! Not forgetting the chrysalis opening sequence. The early 'family' flashbacks - the dinner sequence is mildly startling - those East End London accents!

BUT Mr. Russell does not disappoint with this one - there's even a sly dig at Visconti's "Death in Venice", a reprise of the 'obsession' sequence - delightful.

Rating:
Summary: Attention Mahler fans! This has a soundtrack for you!!
Review: I confess, art films are, for the most part, lost on me. If you like Ken Russell and the kind of movie he makes, you will like "Mahler." A lame remark for a lame movie. As an ardent and devoted fan of Mahler's music I felt compelled to watch this thing, but books are far more revealing about Mahler and his legacy than this pretentious and overwrought wallow in ponderous piffle. The one part that I did like, of course, was the music. Russell puts it to good use - but regrettably we don't see much of Mahler the conductor. In any case, the movie is too bad to be boring, but I look forward to a less arty and more straightforward motion picture interpretation of Mahler's life. Maybe someday.

Rating:
Summary: Strictly for "art movie" fans. Mahlerians be wary.
Review: I look forward to Ken Russell's Mahler listening to the hype, but it ended up in a horrible disappointment. Never mind if it's an art movie, Ken Russell ended up making more of an abstract mess of what-he-thought was an interpretation of Mahler's life. If you can stomach bizarre movies like Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, then you can bear the scenes like the Mahler's mock funeral and the Conversion with Cosima Wagner. I don't mind all of these supposedly symbolic and dream-like scenes of Mahler, but it expands little on his private life unlike movies like Amadeus and Immortal Beloved, no matter if the movies are partly fictional. I was under the impression that Robert Powell was going to conduct his Symphony no 8 and then Mr Russell will accompany the score with more symbolic events or picture narratives. It didn't happen eventually. There are vital stories of Mahler's life that are missing; how he became a world-class maestro from being a lowly conductor in a spa resort, his reputedly eccentric tantrums with his players, struggle with anti-Semitism in Vienna, how he met Alma Schindler and of course, the triumphant performance of his life; the Eighth Symphony.

It also seems that Ken Russell made this film as if intended for only Mahlerians. Sadly, viewers will be left baffled about Mahler by the end of the film. How are they suppose to understand the justopoxition of irony in scenes of Mahler's childhood? (for example, Mahler's father found out his son had skipped piano class and the whole family was struggling from getting Mahler hurt, the scene where young Mahler locked himself in a storeroom was accompanied by brass band music). Viewers do not understand why Mahler dominated his wife to such an extent she was forbid to compose. We didn't see Mahler conduct any orchestra at all except for the part he imagined himself conducting a Landler in his home. What is so damned special about Mahler? What is the hype? In Amadeus, moviegoers familiar by Mozart are convinced by his genius through demonstrations shown in film.

The music in this film is AWFUL to extent Mahler's music is clattered around the film as snippets using when suited to Russell himself. Haitink isn't a mature Mahlerian yet compared to Bernstein and most of the music conducted by Haitink is trash, even though at his later years his interpretations mature steadily. Seriously, I thought it was led by some Hollywood conductor when at the ending credits, I cannot believe the soundtrack was conducted by Bernand Haitink! Simply baffling when considered his interpretation of Symphony no 9 is so legendary that Deryck Cooke, a Mahler scholar, declared it the finest he ever heard.

To sum it up, if you're looking for chronological biography of a film like Amadeus, this is a let down. If you're a Ken Russell fan, a rent is considered. Otherwise, just stay your bloody hands elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful music put to the screen
Review: If you love the music of Mahler, you will love this movie. Although the picture quality is less that perfect, the way the movie is shot and the way his music is put to life is wonderfully entertaining.