Mahler

If you are in the camp of liking Ken Russell, you are going to love this movie. If you like Mahler's compositions and think you're going to get a straightforward biopic (more on this later), you're in the wrong place.

This film is beautifully shot, the acting is over the top in many cases, the imagery will at times be disturbing, the metaphors will run deep, like all Russell's movies.

I just heard of Georgina Hale's passing in January of this year (2024) so was drawn to watch this film again because she was fantastic. I know she won a BAFTA for it, but she should have been given more recognition outside of the UK for this role.

I want to return to the term "straightforward biopic" now. By that I mean the cookie cutter, sanitized tripe that moviegoers normally eat up like Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocket Man, A Beautiful Mind, etc., that take real people who had very interesting lives and then manipulate, fabricate, and distort to give us our feels but no substance. You're better off just watching a documentary in most cases.

If you're going to do a biopic, I say go all in like Ken Russell does. While you may get his version of the story, at least you're going to be in for a beautiful and wild ride that will also make you think.

This movie, while beautifully shot, grows completely out of control as is moves along. The once over of Gustav Mahler by Ken Russell falls into the trap that all the other Russell films do--over excess. The shot of Mahler biting into a pig snout is one of the most disgusting and offensive images I have ever seen.

Like Tchaicovksy before him composer Gustav Mahler gets cuffed about in grand fashion in this bio on his life by Ken Russell. Russell as usual pulls no punches while landing some low blows in this brilliantly sardonic take on the composer conductor's life and career.

Gustav Mahler ( Robert Powell ) ill but unaware he' ll be dead within a year rides exhausted aboard a train across the Eurpeon landscape with his wife whose looking to get off at the next stop with a lover. In the depths of despair he reflects upon his past; a brutal father, a brothers suicide, a death of a child infidelity , religious conversion to attain status as well as the immediate problem of holding onto his wife.

Such downward spiral tragedy is prime Bergman territory but in the hands of Infant Terrible Russell it is a wild, irreverent , dark humored ride down the tracks accompanied by the composers magnificent writings both skillfully and comically matched to imagery and situation. Cosima Wagner as a Brunhilde Nazi, the impoverished siblings as the Marx Brothers, the sacrilegious conversion rite intermixed with scenes of pastoral beauty that inspired him unfold at a rapid and provocative tempo.

Powell is a dead ringer for the composer and he does a commendable job of conveying his ego, cynicism and vulnerability huddled in his exclusive passenger car. It is Russell's jaundice and vivid interpretation though that will leave the viewer mesmerized or revolted. With Ken's films there is no in between.

Mahler is an interesting case. Whereas Ken Russell's films are either just over the top (his theatrical films), or maybe even too subtle (his television work), Mahler is both. Its closest companion may be always the simple but exquisite Song of Summer, but there is that usual kitsch and excess you can find without a magnifier from Lisztomania and other Russell classics.

What I'm trying to say is that if you find Russell's television work too tame, and The Devils and Tommy are just too much, Mahler might be your film. It's not Russell's best, but in this film he found a balance which is rare to him. It may be a slow and long film, but in the end game is wonderfully rich and profound in explaining the essence of artistry and creativity. And much like Michael Powell did to ballet dance in The Red Shoes, Russell doesn't just explain his subject matter in Mahler: he brings it alive. It's like the romantic Gustav Mahler himself made this film.

And, of course, there is the music! Much recommended to everybody.

Ken Russell made several films for the BBC on artists and musicians like Fredrick Delius, the composer, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the painter and poet, and one of the founders of the Pre Raphaelite movement. The Rossetti film features the late Oliver Reed in an engrossing performance. This Mahler film is quite good. I feared watching it because I thought Ken Russell would make a circus of Mahler's tempestuous life, but it's a fairly controlled foray, except for the aforementioned sequence with Wagner's widow, BUT she was well acquainted with Hitler, and she never met a Nazi she didn't like, so the scene with her was founded on fact.

Robert Powell, and the lovely Georgina Hale, give beautiful performances. I looked in their credits and see THEY ARE BARELY WORKING TODAY. Maybe their own choice or a preference of stage work. I can't believe they would pass up today's movie money. They have not appeared as far as I can see in any major movie project for years. I don't get it. Russell, if he worked with the editor fitting the music to the film, shows a real feeling for the music. Even today Mahler's music is a specially acquired taste, and if much of it sounds bizzaire today, think what it sounded like to listners in 1906. A special kudo must go to David Collings as the insane composer Hugo Wolf. An acting gem. Also no current acting credits. David where are you? We need guys like you, Robert Powell, and Georgina Hale.