Main Cast: Elaine Delmar, Claire McLellan, Sarah McLellan, Gary Rich, Michael Southgate, Arnold Yarrow, Robert Powell, Georgina Hale, Richard Morant, Lee Montague, Rosalie Crutchley
Release Year: 1974
Country: UK
Run Time: 115 minutes
Plot
Director Ken Russell made a number of biographical films of composers' lives including The Music Lovers, (about Tchaikovsky) and Lisztomania. Russell embellished the other films with certain characteristic flourishes, which include a focus on the composers' sexual obsessions, poetically telling anachronisms, and scenes which show Richard Wagner in a bad light. The story of Mahler is recounted in a much less complex and flamboyant manner and is a relatively reverent study of the life and work of Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, here played by Robert Powell. The film tackles the touchy dilemma of Mahler's Jewishness in the anti-Semitic atmosphere of 19th-century Vienna. He converts to Christianity, which has no effect on his brilliant musical output but which eats away at his physical and mental well-being. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was a conductor and composer of the late Romantic era and specialized in huge symphonic works. Though his works were performed widely during his lifetime, they were less and less-often played until Leonard Bernstein's active campaign on their behalf brought him renewed recognition as a composer of the first rank, every bit the peer of Brahms or Stravinsky. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Review
Though Mahler may be familiar as yet another of Ken Russell's biographies of composers, this film is relatively free of the director's characteristic excesses. As the composer returns to Vienna, he contemplates such difficulties in his life as his demanding father and stormy marriage, as well as such psychological problems as his guilt over an expedient conversion to Catholicism and an obsessive fear of death. The film emphasizes the composer's need for solitude, partly due to a hypersensitive nature and partly a condition of his creative work. While Russell's treatment of the composer is surprisingly reverent, the mild, ethereal Robert Powell was perhaps not the best actor to play a role which might have been better filled by someone like Anthony Hopkins. But in general the film is well made, and for anyone looking for an introduction to the composer and his extraordinary music it wouldn't be a bad place to start. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Antonia Ellis - Cosima Wagner; Kenneth Colley - Krenek; David Collings - Hugo Wolfe; George Coulouris - Dr. Roth; Otto Diamant - Prof. Sladky; Peter Eyre - Otto; Andrew Faulds - Doctor On Train; Dana Gillespie - Anna von Mildenburg; Miriam Karlin - Aunt Rosa; Terry O'Quinn; Ronald Pickup - Nick; Oliver Reed - Train Conductor; David Trevena - Dr. Richter; Angela Down - Justine; Benny Lee - Uncle Arnold; Elaine Delmar - Princess; Claire McLellan - Glucki; Sarah McLellan - Putzi; Gary Rich - Young Mahler; Michael Southgate - Alois Mahler; Arnold Yarrow - Grandfather
Credit
Ian Whittaker - Art Director, Gillian Gregory - Choreography, Shirley Russell - Costume Designer, Michael Gowans - First Assistant Director, Ken Russell - Director, Michael Bradsell - Editor, Bernard Haitink - Composer (Music Score), John Forsythe - Musical Direction/Supervision, Peter Robb-King - Makeup, John Comfort - Production Designer, Dick Bush - Cinematographer, Sandy Lieberson - Producer, David Puttnam - Producer, Roy Baird - Producer, John Richardson - Special Effects, Ken Russell - Screenwriter
The film begins on a train journey with Gustav Mahler (Robert Powell) and his wife Alma (Georgina Hale) confronting their failing marriage. The story is then recounted in a series of flashbacks (some of which are surrealistic and nightmarish), taking one through Mahler's turbulent childhood, his brother's suicide, his experience with anti-semitism, his conversion from Judaism to Catholicism, his marital problems, and the death of his young daughter. The film also takes us through his relationship with Cosima Wagner (Antonia Ellis), widow of Richard Wagner. In the process, the film explores Mahler's music and its relationship to his life.
Some outdoor sections of the film were made in Borrowdale, in the English Lake District.
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