Main Cast: Sarah Wynter, Jonathan Pryce, Vincent Perez, Gregor Seberg, Simon Verhoeven
Release Year: 2001
Country: US
Run Time: 99 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) delivers this fact-based drama about one of the most fascinating private lives of the 20th century. Alma Schindler (Sarah Wynter) was one of the most renowned young beauties in turn-of-the-century Vienna, sought after as a romantic conquest by some of the most famous men in the city, including the artist Gustav Klimt (August Schmolzer). She is won, however, by the most challenging and enigmatic artistic figure of them all, composer/conductor Gustav Mahler (Jonathan Pryce). His one demand is that she give up her own aspirations as a composer, which she has nursed for years. She agrees, and their marriage proves to be a devoted yet loveless union, producing two children but leaving Alma bereft of affection. She suppresses her frustrations as her husband's star rises, sublimating her ambitions completely. His career advances yield extraordinary music but equally notable controversies, and the marriage is riven by stress. When their oldest daughter dies, Alma's health is broken. While convalescing at a sanitarium, she meets another patient, Walter Gropius (Simon Verhoeven). He is gentle and attentive, and they begin an affair, which her husband accidentally learns of later. Their marriage survives, but Mahler also knows that he is a doomed man because of a damaged heart. After his death, Alma Mahler marries Gropius, an ambitious young architect with revolutionary ideas. Their marriage lasts but a few years, for Alma is drawn to another man, the artist Oskar Kokoschka (Vincent Perez). Kokoschka is young, iconoclastic, and daring -- all of the things that the career- and status-oriented Gropius isn't. Their affair yields a renowned painting of Alma that Kokoschka calls Bride of the Wind, a depiction of their passion amid a storm-swept background. They also conceive a child that Alma decides not to carry to term. She returns to Gropius for a time, while Kokoschka sells the painting for enough money to buy a commission in the army, and he is reported killed in action during World War I. Finally, after leaving Gropius, Alma meets a gifted author, Franz Werfel (Gregor Seberg), whom she marries. Her past catches up with her in an odd way, however, when Kokoschka returns, having survived the war and captivity -- he is still obsessed with Alma, to the point that he walks around Vienna in the company of a life-size doll of her, which he destroys in a fit of anger one night at a party. Meanwhile, in Alma's life with Franz Werfel, she finally finds peace and fulfillment, even as a composer -- the movie ends with a 1925 recital at which soprano Frances Alda (Renee Fleming) performed Alma Mahler Werfel's songs. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
It was inevitable that Bride of the Wind would have flaws, particularly in its structure and depth, as its subject matter is almost too large and deep for a serious drama; this was the kind of story that, in the 1950s or 1960s, would have been made as a 150-minute epic. As it is, even with the focus narrowed to a manageable length, the movie seems sketchy. Alma Schindler Mahler's life from 1902 through 1925 could reasonably have yielded three feature films, and director Bruce Beresford correctly focused on one key aspect: her unhappiness over her stymied creativity and her sexually and socially constricted existence, which drives her to terribly impulsive behavior in her love life. Beresford's film provides just enough insight into the time, setting, and personalities involved to make the film work as a period piece as well as a drama, without losing the significance of the supporting players and their impact on the world (though Mahler gets the lion's share of attention). The production design by Herbert Pinter and the score by Stephen Endelman (mostly adapted from the music of Gustav Mahler) also make Bride of the Wind a delight to watch and listen to, beyond the performances, which are uniformly first-rate. Jonathan Pryce makes a compelling Gustav Mahler, and Simon Verhoven, portraying Walter Gropius, looks like the reincarnation of Anton Walbrook. Perhaps nothing short of a ten-part miniseries along the lines of Berlin Alexanderplatz could do full justice to this subject, but Beresford has made a manageable work out of the material, one that is filled with passion and palpable love of the time, place, and characters. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
August Schmolzer - Gustav Klimt; Dagmar Schwarz - Anna Moll; Wolfgang Hubsch - Karl Moll; Johannes Silberschneider - Alexander Zemlinsky; Renée Fleming - Frances Alda
Credit
Christian Marin - Art Director, Steven Brown - Associate Producer, Kirt Eftekhar - Associate Producer, Joseph Middleton - Casting, Norbert Blecha - Co-producer, Shuna Harwood - Costume Designer, Richard Cowan - First Assistant Director, Bruce Beresford - Director, Tim Wellburn - Editor, Gerald Green - Executive Producer, Stephen Endelman - Composer (Music Score), Herbert Pinter - Production Designer, Peter James - Cinematographer, Lawrence Levy - Producer, Evzen Kolar - Producer, Marilyn Levy - Screenwriter, Dennis McTaggart - Supervising Sound Editor, Jason Adams - Supervising Sound Editor
Bride of the Wind is a 2001period drama directed by Academy Award-nominee Bruce Beresford and written by first-time scribe Marilyn Levy. Loosely based on the life of Alma Mahler, Bride of the Wind recounts Mahler's marriage to famed composer Gustav Mahler and her romantic exploits. The title of the film alludes to a painting by Oskar Kokoschka named "Die Windsbraut", literally meaning "The Bride of the Wind", though often translated as "The Tempest". The artist dedicated this painting to Alma Mahler.
The film poster artwork depicts Alma reclining on a chaise longue attended by a lover, with a field of flowers in the background. Alma's dress, her hair, the chaise, the field of flowers and even the air are replete with many of famed painter Gustav Klimt's stylistic elements.
