Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 235: Fri Aug 25

Mahler (Russell, 1974): Cinema Museum, 7pm


Over five days in August (Wednesday 23rd – Sunday 27th) the Cinema Museum will be celebrating the life and work of the director Ken Russell with a host of famous guests, including Glenda Jackson, Robert Powell and Georgina Hale. You can find the selection of his movies, TV films and rare shorts in the line-up here. This screening will be followed by an interview with the stars of the film, Robert Powell and Georgina Hale, conducted by Brian Sibley.

Time Out review:
This musical biography, Russell-style, comes over like a cross between a comic strip and Life with the Mahlers (or the trials of bringing up and living with a genius). All the usual brashness and obsessions are there, which may well offend the purists, especially as the film is very much a reply to Visconti's Death in Venice. What he gives us is in fact one of the more successful excursions into the cinema of pantheism, a series of tableaux interpreting Mahler's music. Robert Powell is suitably impressive as the composer, and Georgina Hale excellent as his wife (on its most serious level, the film is about her stifled creativity). Despite the low budget (maybe because of it), Russell has produced his most appealing work since his BBC Omnibus days.
(This review is uncredited online and in the Time Out volume of collected reviews) 

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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