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Mahler

Format: Blu-ray

136 ratings

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Product description

Composer Gustav Mahler's life, told in a series of flashbacks as he and his wife discuss their failing marriage during a train journey.

Product details

Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.78:1
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Product dimensions ‏ : ‎ 25 x 2.2 x 18 cm; 81.65 Grams
Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ Japanese
Language ‏ : ‎ English (PCM)
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B007HWNQ6O
Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1

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136 ratings

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John

Freudian symbolism from director at his worst!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 August 2020

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Ken Russell has attempted to bring his Freudian interpretations of several composers to the screen - Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Mahler. The latter is by any standard the most extreme. Melvyn Bragg wrote the screenplay for the 1971 movie 'The Music Lovers' about Tchaikovsky and his struggles with his homosexuality. Strangely enough the story deals with various forms of madness. Russell wrote the script for 'Mahler' (1974) which in itself is totally bizarre - or is it ART?
As usual with Russell, he uses Freudian symbolism through the film and employs absurd, comical scenes that pay tribute to the silent era of Chaplin and Harold Lloyd slapstick. Some scenes are quite striking - as when Mahler (Robert Powell) is pictured striding about his summer house conducting a section of Mahler's First Symphony with an imaginary orchestra. Although the story in part is about Mahler's fragmenting marriage with Alma, the farcical scenes of his 'conversion' to Catholicism and the demented Nazi inspired portrayal of the goose-stepping Cosima Wagner are not only distasteful but asinine.
If you are looking for a biopic about Mahler give this a wide berth. The only reason I gave this artful mess three stars is due to the music, played conducted by the great Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

2 people found this helpful

Film Buff

Ken's personal favorite

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 September 2013

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Maverick British director Ken Russell made his name in the 60s at the BBC where he made several very good biopics of famous composers such as Delius, Debussy, Elgar and Richard Strauss. He continued in the same vein with full length features like The Music Lovers (Tchaikovsky) and Lizstomania (Liszt and Wagner). His most successful venture (as Russell himself averred) was undoubtedly Mahler (1974) in which for once his flamboyant visual excess is perfectly married with the opulent post-romanticism of his subject.

Gustav Mahler was an Austrian composer who was more famous as a conductor when he was alive, his music suffering half a century of neglect before the 1960s Mahler boom exploded courtesy of Leonard Bernstein's CBS recordings of the complete symphonies and song cycles. This was quickly followed by Luchino Visconti's Thomas Mann adaptation, Death in Venice (1971) in which the writer Gustav von Aschenbach is replaced by the composer and the film is consequently swamped with Mahler's music (particularly the adagietto from the fifth symphony). Russell's cheeky little biopic is a direct reply to Visconti's stuffy pretension in that Mahler's life is depicted in a series of fanciful and extremely funny flashbacks which play on different themes that wound through his life and seek to interpret the music itself.

The film is structured around Mahler (Robert Powell) journeying by train back to Vienna with his wife Alma (Georgina Hale) and the flashbacks show us his childhood where we encounter his violent inn keeper father (Lee Montague) who beats him up to the sound of the brass band of a nearby military barracks, and his escape into the surrounding woods to discover the sounds of nature. Military marches and the sounds of Mother nature permeate all of Mahler's music. We see his early married life with Alma as she rushes about the countryside silencing everything so that her husband can compose at his lakeside retreat, a device which underlines Mahler's use of bird song, church bells, folk melodies and dance, especially the Austrian landler. Then there is his suppression of Alma's talent as a composer herself, a theme which figures large in their later marital troubles - Russell's script is largely based on Alma's very biased biography of her husband. Mahler imagines his own funeral with Alma (a notorious adulteress playing to her equally flawed adulterer husband) doing a striptease on his coffin while her various lovers look on. We see the loss of his child and other members of his family and the insanity of his friend Hugo Wolf (David Collings) - the cost of being afflicted with an artistic gift. In fact fear of death (fate itself) overshadows the film as it does all of his music, especially his fear of the mighty 9. Beethoven, Bruckner and Schubert all died after completing 9 symphonies and Mahler tried to cheat fate by titling his ninth 'Das Lied von der Erde', but of course died after his official ninth, leaving his tenth incomplete.

Most startlingly of all we see Mahler's conversion from Jew to Catholic in a bid to get around arch anti-Semite Cosima Wagner to get the position as chief of the Vienna State Opera. Cosima (Antonia Ellis) is depicted as a goose-stepping Nazi dominatrix who forces Mahler to forge a sword, slay the dragon (a pig of course), eat pork and jump through a hoop of fire - all done, naturally enough, to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries with awful made up English lyrics to match. Cosima Wagner didn't actually have anything to do with Mahler's appointment to the Vienna State Opera, but the facts that Mahler converted to Catholicism to get the post, that Cosima was an even more vicious anti-Semite than her celebrated husband and that it was an anti-Semitic smear campaign in the Viennese press which eventually forced Mahler out of the job, are all true enough. Russell here remains true to the spirit rather than the letter.

It goes without saying that the film is very brash and irreverent, but it's surprising how close Russell actually takes us to the nature of the music and how much from Mahler's life is illuminated by the very OTT romantic treatment. The performances are all admirable as is the use of the splendid Lake District locations that stand in for the Austrian countryside. The film was made on a tiny budget, but it never really shows - showpieces like the lakeside hut bursting into flames to the explosion of atonality at the center of the adagio of the tenth symphony, and the concluding outburst of the Alma theme from the first movement of the tragic sixth symphony as the couple alight from their train, really make sense.

It's surprising how much of the music is included in the film. Only the eighth symphony is ignored, an omission that's surprising as the 1909 Munich premiere was the crowning triumph of Mahler's whole composing career. It's even more surprising that Russell doesn't make anything of the affair Alma had with the architect Walter Gropius during the rehearsals for this particular event. The low budget also presumably precluded a depiction of Mahler's American years when he conducted the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera, leading to conflict with Arturo Toscanini no less.

All in all though, the film is great fun - a wonderful introduction to Mahler for those new to his music, and a surprisingly insightful compendium of information for those who think they know their Mahler well. The DVD is good, though the aspect ratio is 4:3, not wide screen. I'm assuming that was how the film was initially released, but I'm not sure. The picture is very clear and the soundtrack superb, Mahler's music (Bernard Haitink conducting the Concertgebouworkest, Amsterdam) sounding truly wonderful. At this price, Ken's personal favorite is worth picking up by anyone with an interest in classical music and British cinema. Too many of Russell's later films are so dire that it's refreshing to be reminded that once upon a time he really was one of our brightest and best talents. Mahler may very well be his finest achievement.

21 people found this helpful

Robert Fletcher

Great to see again

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 June 2014

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I first saw this film not long after it came out some forty years ago. I've wanted to get a copy for some time and so was delighted to see it available on DVD from Amazon.

It is important to realise that this is a Ken Russell film and not a docudrama. And so license is taken with some of the historical information for dramatic purposes. But his does not detract from the overall effect.

The film takes as it's basis a rail journey by Mahler to Vienna (his last?) with his wife Alma. This punctuates a series of flashbacks and dream sequences that provide insights into the man and, more particularly, his music.

The music is not all Mahler's. There is a sexually explicit extract from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and also a parody using the Ride of the Walkyries on Mahler's (pragmatic?) conversion to Roman Catholicism.

Another central theme is the failing relationship between Gustav and Alma and the emergence of Max Gropius on the scene. Aspects of this, particularly Alma's composing aspirations (actually appreciated by Gustav when it was too late), are not handled all that well.

But overall, as an attempt to provide some insights into Mahler's wonderful music, the film is worth watching.

6 people found this helpful

Davidj

Great film: well recorded

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 December 2019

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We had been meaning to get hold of this film for quite a while as it is not always available. Great film and well recorded on the DVD. Will watch a few times as we love the way Mahler's music is integrated with the sometimes way out Ken Russell extravaganza scenes.

One person found this helpful

Media Scribe

Mahler

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 April 2014

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This is a wonderfull film and one of the least outrageous from Russell's repertoir. It is an ideal introduction to the great composer. Not only does give a sample of some of his defining works but it attempts to look into the mind of the composer. It even explores the origins behind the distinctive tonality of his work. Influencing events throughout Mahler's life are also included. For such a complex subjec,, Russell always maintains interest by a pacey and diverse story line. What a gem!!

3 people found this helpful

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