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, RoviReview
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, RoviCast
- Robert Powell - Gustav Mahler
- Georgina Hale - Alma Mahler
- Richard Morant - Max
- Lee Montague - Bernhard Mahler
- Rosalie Crutchley - Marie Mahler
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| Mahjong Dragon (1997 Film), Mahjong (1996 Film) | |
| Mahler on the Couch (2010 Film), Mahler: Autopsy of a Genius (Film) |
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