Music Lovers - La Symphonie pathétique

Watching a Ken Russell film is, if anything, an experience, and this was certainly was an emotional rollercoaster. Although it has less of the absurdist/surrealist touches that would come to characterize his later films, it still had a rhapsodic quality that deftly blended the music and visuals. While I can't claim to be overly familiar with Tchaikovsky's life, by now I'm used to Russell's approach in this area: taking the raw, biographical material and concocting something purely fantastical out of it. It's an approach that I quite like, something which moves beyond the mundane and quotidian details that characterize ordinary life and creates something magical and mythological, that lays bare the inner life of its characters. I also liked how the film played with blurring lines, revealing underlying connections between music and sexuality, ecstasy and insanity. This was certainly less insane of a movie than LISZTOMANIA, but just as dramatically thrilling. It is cinematic art.

Although this film is difficult to follow at times (and, reportedly, historically inaccurate, too; I wouldn't know), there are still several reasons to see it:

1) Glenda Jackson's outstanding performance (you won't believe that the actress we see at the final stages of the film is the same one who played Tchaikovsky's wife early on, but it is - her transformation is amazing).

2) Some truly impressive sequences; be sure to watch this movie on tape, so you can rewind it and watch them again.

3) Tchaikovsky's music, of course.

4) Lush sets and costumes.

Ken Russell is a very unpredictable director; just when you think the film is about to start boring you, he'll give you a wonderful moment out of nowhere.

I've always enjoyed watching this movie, so much because the music alone stands out for its exhilarating beauty. ( Possible Spoilers! ) Though not historically accurate, it captures the psychological emotions and passions, especially during the seven minute portion when the composer is playing the piano and imagining what the complete second movement of his Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23 "visually" represents to himself, and what Antonina's amorous delusions would of wished it meant! In totality, the performance of this concerto and the visual interactions between Tchaikovsky, Sasha, Antonina, Madame von Meck, and the others in the concert hall are extremely intense concerning one of Russia's most famous composers. The director Ken Russell does an excellent job at directing his actors and actresses to portray the required emotional intensity, though somewhat comical over exaggerated script of the story based on the book, "Beloved Friend" The Story of Tchaikovsky and Nadejda von Meck. But, even so the excellent acting by the leading and supporting actors and actresses move this film into its "pathetique" or tragic climax. The acting by the wonderful actress Glenda Jackson is superb in her interpretation of the unbalanced Antonina Milyukova. Her performance is an effective counterbalance to Richard Chamberlain's extraordinarily complicated portrayal of Peter Tchaikovsky with all of his emotional energies concentrated on his musical compositions and his private personal torments controlling his "fate" of never having what society would deem a "normal" life! So much said that this excellent movie is a tribute to a composer genius, especially on the anniversary ( 6th November 1893 ) of the one-hundred-eleventh year of his unfortunate mysterious death by his own hands. My rating for this movie is a 3 out of 4.

One of Richard Chamberlain's most memorable and fringe roles. Glenda Jackson is brilliant. The romance, passion, melodrama, and ultimate tragic fate of the main characters are all intensely portrayed with rich cinematography and the most lavish sets Russell ever used. The film carries that subtle yet omnipresent surreality which is a trademark of Russell's films, and which some find so annoying, and others so seductive and heightening of the experience. A truly wonderful but sad film.

Ken Russell's "The Music Lovers" might be one of the, if not the best film ever made on the subject of classical music. I emphasize this, because as a historical biography it could be described as merely sensational.

Russell portrays Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain) as a closet homosexual who is haunted by the past and present. In order to obtain social acceptance, he marries a sexually ravenous young woman (Glenda Jackson). Their marriage, of course, proves to be disastrous, and Peter flees from his wife, isolating himself in the countryside to compose music for Madame Von Meck (Isabella Telezynska), a rich aristocrat and widow. But Tchaikovsky's past comes back to haunt him several times before the film's manic and grotesque conclusion.

Russell has constructed images that are beautiful and disgusting (often in the same scene) and the film is a perfect accompaniment to the inspiration and ambiance felt in the composer's music.

The best scenes involve the seamless meld between sound and image. A concert at the beginning of the film beautifully transposes images of audience members listening to Tchaikovsky's latest piece, with the fantasies that the music inspires in them. Numerous fantasy sequences throughout the film teeter on the edge of insanity, highlighting the composer's feelings and fears.

Which brings us to the film's astonishing and loony climax: an excessive montage set to the "War of 1812 Overture" that must rival any other sequence in the history of film for its inappropriateness. The piece is no doubt Tchaikovsky's most well known work, which brought him wealth and fame. But Russell presents his transition from composer to "star" entirely in fantasy. I could try to describe this sequence for you, but it would be futile. It must be seen to be believed. Let's just say that the climatic cannons from the "Overture" are put to violent and hilarious use.

The components of the film come together perfectly. Everyone seems to have been in their element while filming. The cinematography by Douglas Slocombe is absolutely beautiful, and proves to be the best feature of the film. This is possibly the best "looking" Russell film. Glenda Jackson's performance as the nymphomaniac wife is perfectly in tune with Russell's histrionic presentation. And though Richard Chamberlain does not fair as well, he shows some emotional depth that has hardly been seen in his other work.

Russell's pyrotechnic camera-work is so breathtaking that it is a wonder why the man cannot find work these days. "The Music Lovers" is an exercise in the pure joy of film-making and the emotions it can invoke within us. Perhaps Russell's career slipped through his fingers in the late 1970's (along with his budget), but this film, like Tchaikovsky's greatest compositions, is a work of genius.