Klimt

Judging from the reviews here you either love this movie or you absolutely hate it. I for one loved it. Being from Austria myself, you often get confronted with Schiele and Klimt - especially in Vienna, to a point where you're basically sick of it. Because of that I never got to fully appreciate these two artists until much later. This movie did help me to appreciate the artwork more. I was able to see this movie at the premiere in Austria when it came out and haven't seen it since then (though I would like to) and I had to think about it many times since then.

I can imagine that the reason many people didn't like this movie was because it's not what they expected.

If you want to see a straight forward, biographical accurate movie about the life of Gustav Klimt, then this movie isn't for you.

The basic premise is that Gustav Klimt is lying on his death bed and in a manner of flashbacks you get to see random scenes about a fictitious story revolving around a mysterious woman. Blinded by the fever, the scenes appear surreal and deliver a feeling similar to what you may feel upon viewing Klimt's artwork.

There's no straight plot following this movie and the real Klimt may not have been the way he appears in the movie, but that was never intended anyway. What this movie does is brilliantly deliver an atmosphere very fitting to the Wiener Moderne. The very important "Kaffeehaus Kultur" at the time, where intellectuals of Vienna spent the entire day in coffee houses is portrayed very precisely as well.

I also think that Malkovich and Nikolai Kinski seem to be a near perfect cast for Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele.

Anyway, if you've read this review and get the feeling that this movie is not for you, then don't watch it. But if you're intrigued by what you've read then by all means, go see this movie!

This is a superb movie; IF (and this is a big if) one is already familiar with the life and work of Gustav Klimt. This movie was intended as an "art house" film, and was never meant to be a major theatrical release. However, even for an "art house" film it is rather specialized in how it portrays Gustav Klimt; and if one is not familiar with this artist (and Vienna at the turn of the 20th century) then this film is quite confusing and vague- the quantity and quality of female imagery notwithstanding. Despite its very specialized nature some major stars are in this film though only one is an American and even he lives and works mainly in Europe. That star is John Malkovich; who is in the title role. Malkovich gives a fine job though he does not resemble Klimt as closely as some other actors who have portrayed Klimt in the past (most notably August Schmolzer in "Bride of the Wind"). The only other actor in this film that may be recognized by Americans is Saffron Burrows; who portrays his great love interest. Her role is fictional, but serves as a continuity thread through this film which depicts in an allegorical manner his career and life from 1900; when Klimt won a gold medal at the great Paris Exposition to 1918; when he died.

The other actors are notable European actors whose works have generally not been seen in the United States. The notable German actress Veronica Ferres portrays Emily Floge; Klimt's lifelong companion. Again, unless you are familiar with the life of Klimt the role of Floge in this movie is very difficult to understand. And, it is never explained in the movie. Basically, Klimt and Floge were in-laws by the marriage of Gustav's brother to Emily's sister. The seemed to never have been "lovers" but the unmarried Emily seems to have been a wife (as well as business partner) to Gustav in every other respect. It was a complex relationship and Ferres explains in a side featurette ("The Making of Klimt") the difficulty of showing this relationship. The Austrian actress Aglaia Szyszkowitz portrays "Mizzi"; a model who bore two kids for Klimt of which one is shown- his son Gustav. He never married her, and the movie implies that he saw his kids only occasionally without financially supporting them in any noticeable manner. In real life Klimt did financially support his children by this woman. Of note is that the nickname for Emily Floge was "Middi" and the pronunciation of the two names is very similar; adding to the already considerable confusion.

The movie does portray Klimt in a negative manner concerning his offspring. He acknowledged paternity of four children and the movies deals with the other two as well as the two of Mizzi. Those children are dealt with almost as afterthoughts and one is positively embarrassing (perhaps the ultimate embarrassment). In reality Klimt probably had many more kids and this concern is mentioned briefly in the film. The film is certainly critical of Klimt in this regard; as well as his attitude towards women in general. There are some historical inaccuracies in this film such as a nurse in a Vienna hospital in early 1918 who has a VERY obvious British accent. This is highly unlikely, to say the least, to have been the case considering that the Austrians were in war with the British at that point, but overall the historical settings and costumes are well researched. The movie overall is well researched, but, again, quite confusing to somebody who is not very familiar with the life of this genius. I recommend that anybody who wants to see the film to first read up and look at the artworks of Klimt. Then the film will make sense and be seen as the superb achievement it is.

KLIMT:A Viennese Fantasy à la manière de Schnitzler is a controversial film, a montage of the elements of the art world and the sociopsychological tenor of the times of the infamous fin de siècle in Europe, a period greatly influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud, thee novels and 'performances' of Arthur Schnitzler that focused on the emergence of the new views of sexuality. Being about the rise of sensualism in art and the subsequent Jugenstil (Art Nouveau) and Vienna Secessionist movement, writer director Raúl Ruiz (with aid from Herbert Vesely and Gilbert Adair) has painted a larger than life canvas of this fascinating period in art and in history in general and happens to populate it with significant character from the period. No, the film is not based on hard facts and yes, there are inconsistencies throughout. But that is of less importance than the allure of the period that very successfully comes through this film using the magic of light and the fluidity of the camera.

Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918) was a strange artist, a man who believed in a sensualist artificial religion and an artist who favored erotic imagery in his canvases. He was controversial in his time, yet today his paintings using gold leaf and silver leaf and design patterns of expression that defined Art Nouveau sell for many millions of dollars: his style is still imitated and he is still celebrated as the father of erotic art. The film opens and closes with Klimt (John Malkovich) submerged in healing waters in a rather stark hospital, attended by a nurse and his disciple, the equally sensational Egon Schiele (Nicolai Kinski, keeping his hands in the spread-finger style Schiele painted so often!). From this point bits and pieces of Klimt's bizarre life are explored, at times explained through imaginary conversations with his secretary (Stephen Dillane). His marriage, his 'affair' - or is it simply a manifestation of the influence of a muse? - with Lea de Castro (Saffron Burrows), his self indulgence in all things erotic (he is said to have has many affairs with Viennese women yielding a large number of children who bear his genetic puzzle), and his conflict with the Academy of Art, a sense of disgust with the current oeuvre of painting as sterile, and his prodigious output of paintings and drawing of the female nude - all are depicted with tremendous imagination here. The cinematography is as strange as the story it captures, using falling snowflakes in one scene to suggest the falling pieces of Klimt's gold leaf enhancement of his most famous works in others.

The dialogue is at times raw and at other times superficial and the audience is begged to indulge in the fantasy that is being recreated. But the film stands well as an example of an art history period and John Malkovich makes a credible Klimt. This is more a film for art students and art lovers who are eager to explore the beginnings of Art Nouveau than a film for audiences eager for accurate biography.

Grady Harp

While the world relaxed and enjoyed itself between wars. When art was a solitary and experimental endeavor. When Europeans rediscovered the power of nature in sex and in some cases the other way around. When lives really could be deep, and debauched and intelligent too, three men came out of Vienna: Freud and Wittgenstein were two of them. There may have not been such a concentration of greatness for many decades before and until the Fasori Gimnázium, also under by then slippery Austrian rule.

There's a commonality among those two and Klimt, and even between them and the more cerebral Budapest next generation. Its a matter of passion, sense (in both meanings) and concept curvature. While the two great art nouveau geniuses were wondering about space in Brussels and Barcelona, Klimt worked his space, curvature ans escape from the inside of women. Lots of women.

His work is of that type that is immediately attractive, so lots of people decorate with it. A brief familiarity with it breeds confusion, so unless you dig as deeply in viewing as he did in making, it will not connect. As a result, if you are serious about making a film of him, about him, you simply cannot do the normal thing: somehow artificially inducing drama into portraying a few known events. You cannot do what Greenaway did with Rembrandt, simply showing sexual passion and making the film painterly.

So along comes Ruiz, who is a strange bird, very much like Klimt. There's no middle familiarity with him. Either you know him deeply, you wrap your life where he has, or you miss the passion. You think him dull. You actually believe that someone would spend this much energy fine tuning the ordinary. Well, the thing about these three men is that they were their own worst critics. They all three created their own new worlds were none was before, worlds so perfect and pure anyone of lesser power would be unable to break them. Then they each turned on their own creation, finding and exploiting the weaknesses of their own creations, selves and now us. The art is not in the man but in how he made himself broken.

Look at each of them and see the beauty in partial dismemberment. Ruiz denotes this at the beginning with otherwise inexplicable, powerful amputee sex. As with Ruiz' best work, people act as others, split selves, whores of themselves, auditors and bureaucrats of sex. Love must be dissymmetric. Narrative to have power must be a bit jagged inside, where you want to go.

I admit, I think Malkovich was a bad choice. He really can be dull. But he is supposed to stagger through this, finding puddles of warm light, clean frames or open enclosure. The women are the thing, always the thing here and they are drawn well.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

"I want to wash out my brain." "Did I miss something or did this film stink?" Comments heard on exiting the screening of "Klimt" at the Siskel Film Center, Chicago July 4, 2007

Hunter S. Thompson blew the journalistic world away by openly reporting events through the prism of his own drug-soaked experience. Terry Gilliam's cinematic portrayal of this in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" conveyed this brilliantly.

So far as I know, Gustav Klimt did not portray his artistic vision in an ether-soaked stupor or in a state of syphilitic delirium. My problem with Mr. Ruiz portraying him as though he did is that Klimt actually led an exuberant revolutionary artistic movement in a city and continent exploding with creative energy, and this portrayal could hardly be farther from the truth. Even a non-linear poetic portrayal of the creative process should shed some truth on its essence.

The tone of the movie was static, suffocating, semi-conscious and joyless. Klimt's life was full of color, sexual experimentation and living life to its fullest, so it additionally seems odd that John Malkovich sleepwalks through his performance with less joy than Rod Steiger in "The Pawnbroker."

If Mr. Ruiz wanted to make a film about a fever-dream (Klimt died of pneumonia following a stroke, not of tertiary syphilis as suggested in the film), perhaps he should have entitled it "Fever-Dream: with a whimsical guest appearance by my fantasy of Gustav Klimt."

This film may be of use to film students to prove that images and sound do not automatically add up to a movie.