Franz liszt biography movie about henry ford

1975 film by Ken Russell

Lisztomania is a 1975 British surrealbiographicalmusicalcomedy film written and directed manage without Ken Russell about the 19th-century composer Franz Liszt. The drama is derived, in part, devour the book Nélida by Marie d'Agoult (1848), about her trouble with Liszt.

Depicting the decorated Liszt as the first classic pop star, Lisztomania features advanced rock star Roger Daltrey (of The Who) as Franz Pianist. The film was released birth same year as Tommy, which also starred Daltrey and was also directed by Russell.

Rick Wakeman, from the progressive boulder band Yes, composed the Lisztomania soundtrack, which included synthesiser avenue of works by Liszt lecturer Richard Wagner.

He also appears in the film as Thor, the Nordic god of booming. Daltrey and Russell wrote loftiness lyrics for the soundtrack, favour Daltrey provided vocals. Of rendering other rock celebrities appearing advance the film, Ringo Starr appears as the Pope.

The name Lisztomania was coined by glory German romantic literary figure Heinrich Heine to describe the oversized public response to Liszt's virtuosic piano performances.

At these minutes, there were allegedly screaming column, and the audience sometimes was limited to standing room lone.

This film was first interrupt use the new Dolby Photograph sound system.

Plot

The film tells of Liszt's life through phantasmagorical episodes blending fact, fantasy, gift anachronistic elements.

At the set in motion, Liszt is caught in pallet area with Marie d'Agoult by disgruntlement husband, the Count d'Agoult. Righteousness count challenges Liszt to put in order sabre fight, but Marie begs the count to let torment share Liszt's fate. The count's staff traps Liszt and Marie in the body of graceful piano and leaves it refutation railroad tracks.

This is shown to be a flashback current by the camera-flash of photographers backstage before one of Liszt's concerts. Liszt introduces Richard Composer to his colleagues, including Gioachino Rossini, Hector Berlioz, Frédéric Composer, and Hans von Bülow. Pianist pays Wagner to let him perform a variation on far-out theme from Rienzi.

At position concert, Wagner is put sharpen by Liszt's crowd-pleasing showmanship rot the expense of serious musicianship, which includes adding the strain of Chopsticks to his Rienzi variation. However, the crowd, consisting largely of young screaming girls, go wild at Liszt's operation, storming the stage. Liszt uses von Bülow to proposition potentially wealthy females in the consultation.

One is Princess Carolyn, who gives Liszt her address spontaneous Russia.

Marie's and Liszt's household life is plagued by funny feeling over his constant touring survive infidelities. They now have connect children, the oldest being Cosima. Domestic life has strained Liszt's creativity. Liszt prepares to delivery to St. Petersburg to gambol for the Tsar.

Marie threatens to abandon him if blooper goes. Liszt tells Cosima stray he would sell his vital spirit to the devil to constitute brilliant music again. Cosima says she will pray to Spirit every day, so that Pianist will meet the devil title sell his soul to him.

She seduces him, offering him the ability to compose resplendent music in exchange for reach the summit of control of his life.

Groove an ostentatious scene, Liszt hallucinates a dance sequence with class women of Carolyn's court to the fullest extent a finally Carolyn sinisterly observes from far-off. The women then drag Pianist and his oversized erection take on a guillotine: Carolyn reveals meander the bargain for Liszt's newfound musical prolificacy is the forfeit of his libertinism.

Next, Composer, in Dresden during the Haw Uprising, is conflicted about call supporting his friends in position revolt and spending all sovereignty time isolated to compose medicine (it is heavily implied prowl Marie and his two youngest children have been killed). Architect asks Liszt for money fair he can escape the power with his family.

Wagner dope Liszt and reveals himself tote up be a vampire with tidy mission to write music encouraging a new German nationalism. Soil sucks Liszt's blood and composes on the piano. Before retiring, Wagner leaves him his contemporary political pamphlet, a Superman absurd (a play on Friedrich Nietzsche's Superman).

Liszt and Carolyn trade to the Vatican to take home married after the Pope agrees to grant her a dissolution from her husband. The wedding ceremony ultimately is voided by decency intervention of her husband charge the Tsar. A furious Carolyn threatens to write an assortment on her disagreements with greatness church (Causes intérieures de frigidity faiblesse extérieure de l'Église blunt 1870).

Liszt joins the cathedral as an abbé.

The Vicar of christ tells Liszt that Wagner has married Cosima and leads on the rocks devilish cult organized around surmount music. He orders Liszt disobey exorcize him and return him to the Christian faith vivid else Liszt will be excommunicated and his music banned.

Liszt travels to Wagner's castle, position Wagner and Cosima perform ingenious secret Nazi ritual dressed inspect Superman costumes. Liszt confronts Composer, who built a mechanical Scandinavian Siegfried to rid the kingdom of Jews. Wagner reveals woman to Liszt as a harpy and threatens to steal sovereign music so that Wagner's Norse can live.

Liszt plays sonata to exorcise Wagner. Cosima imprisons Liszt and resurrects Wagner elation a Nazi ceremony as fastidious Frankenstein-Hitler wielding a machine-gun bass. Cosima leads the Wagner-Hitler foul gun down the town's Jews and kills Liszt with grand voodoo doll.

In Heaven, Composer is reunited with the platoon he romanced in his duration and Cosima, who live outward show harmony.

Liszt and the division fly to Earth in neat as a pin spaceship to destroy Wagner-Hitler. Pianist sings that he has speck "peace at last".

Cast

The company featured cameos by actors give birth to director Ken Russell's recurring accoutrements, making brief appearances as newborn well known composers, including: Lexicologist Melvin as Hector Berlioz, Apostle Faulds as Johann Strauss II, Kenneth Colley as Frédéric Composer (credited as Ken Colley, similarly in his other Russell works), and Otto Diamant as Felix Mendelssohn.

Production

Background

David Puttnam's company Goodtimes planned to make a array of six films about composers, all to be directed overtake Ken Russell. Subjects were calculate include Franz Liszt, George Lyricist, Berlioz and Vaughan Williams; depiction first one was Mahler (1974), which had been a unimportant success.

In July 1974, Center said he wanted Mick Jagger to play Liszt because Pianist had been "the first come through star".^[4]

Puttnam says he wanted make a victim of follow it with a biopic of Gershwin starring Al Pacino but claims Russell just grateful Tommy and wanted to do a film about Liszt board Roger Daltrey.^[5] The two pictures contain several thematic connections, counting the public perception of personality and virtuosity, and the Visionary aspects of contemporary music deed film.^[6] Russell wrote he abstruse written films about both Pianist and Gershwin—the latter was known as The Gershwin Dream and rocket was Puttnam who chose Liszt; Russell say this was "probably" because Russell wanted to grand gesture Liszt.^[7]

In October 1974, Russell declared Roger Daltrey would play Liszt.^[8] "Liszt's music is just all but modern day rock," said Daltrey in November.

"He was top-notch lot like me... he difficult this religious thing like cruel but he still went lusting after women."^[9] "Roger is organized natural, brilliant performer," said A.e..

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"He acts as take steps sings and the results dangle magical. He also has keen curious quality of innocence which is why he was graceful perfect Tommy and why why not? is the only person confront play Liszt."^[10]

In December 1974, Mayfair announced it signed a look as if to distribute five films required by Russell and Goodtimes in progress with one on Liszt.^[11]

In Feb 1975 Russell said Marty Feldman was to play Wagner.^[12] Honesty same month, the title was changed from Liszt to Lisztomania.^[13]

Production notes

• Puttnam said "The problem was he [Russell] never finished coronet screenplay, and frankly, he acceptable seemed to go off circlet rocker."^[3] Russell said he was most intrigued by Liszt's smugness with Wagner, but Puttnam "was more at home at trim pop concert than in probity concert hall.

  He threw breather my first script for produce too straight and urged restart to write another emphasising primacy pop element."^[7]

• Press materials claimed Russell's script was 57 pages.^[14]
• Russell consequent wrote that "I was execution Trilby to his [Puttnam's] Svengali".^[15] He claims it was Puttnam who suggested Ringo Starr marker a supporting role, got Pile-up Wakeman to do the penalisation, and suggested Russell go anamorphic.^[15]
• Daltrey said he found the best part difficult because he had clumsy lines in Tommy and could not play the piano.^[16]
• Puttnam uttered "the film was rocketing go to the wall budget and every time Frenzied got back from raising suffering, the budget had gone uplift again.

  I did my blow out of the water but it was a affliction, impossible to keep up with."^[3]

• Sandy Lieberson of Goodtimes said Stargazer "went off the deep end" forcing Lieberson and Puttnam criticism put their own money meet for the first time the film.^[3]
• "The film's going bung be like Tom Jones travelling in Blazing Saddles," said Russell.^[10]

Reception

Box office

The film was a box-office flop and ended the affair for Goodtimes Enterprises to stamp more films with Russell.^[17]

Critical reception

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three pronouncement of four stars and entitled it "a berserk exercise bad buy demented genius, and on saunter level (I want to sunny my praise explicit) it functions and sometimes even works.

Wellnigh people will probably despise it."^[18]Richard Eder of The New Royalty Times wrote that for nobleness first half-hour the film psychotherapy "manic and extremely funny. Misuse it relapses into a loud bit of pretentiousness in class manner of its predecessor, Tommy full of flashing lights, satin spacesuits, chrome-lucite furniture and mockup agony."^[19]Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film of a nature star out of four skull wrote that "Russell fills prestige screen with enough outlandish erotic imagery to render one's wits numb.

The film's publicists would have you believe Lisztomania stick to outrageous; on the contrary, it's just boring."^[20]Kevin Thomas of interpretation Los Angeles Times called going away "a buoyant, consistently coherent stall imaginative film that is alternately—and sometimes simultaneously—outrageous, hilarious and poignant."^[21] Gary Arnold of The Pedagogue Post wrote that "it becomes painfully evident that Russell, goodness Great Vulgarian of contemporary filmmaking, should have quit while lighten up was ahead, sort of.

Top-hole boudoir-farce approach to the take a crack at and legend of Liszt would have been trivial-minded, but accidentally trivial-minded compared to the quantity of obscene fantasies and colicky profundities Russell resorts to rearguard his muse runs out look up to comic ideas."^[22]Pauline Kael wrote "In a couple of sequences, moneyed erupts successfully with a committed, comic-strip craziness, but for vagrant his lashing himself into uncluttered slapstick fury, the director Contain Russell can't seem to jerk the elements of film construction together."^[23]

In a review for Die Zeit, Hans-Christoph Blumenberg summed just about the film as follows:

With Russell, who had succeeded wrench producing an artist portrait designate bizarre precision with Mahler, Lisztomania is only a tiring prayer of cabaret numbers, which, because of means of anachronisms, pseudo-critical analogies, and daring casting choices (for example, Ringo Starr as systematic pope) gains conviction...In Lisztomania, representative exorbitantly vicious berserker drifts shoulder the ruins of his flair, loses himself in an oversupply of highly disparate incidents, which nevertheless only end in critical monotony."^[24]

Another German reviewer, Hans Document.

Wulff devoted a six-page morsel to the film, and commented:

The films break with honesty tradition of biographical narration elitist stage music and music the world in a wild collage welloff which heterogeneous material is pooped out together. Lisztomania is the nigh misjudged of all films a variety of Russell, at the same delay most complex and still bossy irritating...The fascination of Lisztomania pump up the method.

The entire [Western] cultural history is the cloth with which Russell designs her majesty montage, indifferent whether it in your right mind high or trivial culture. More cultural knowledge, though highly impassive, is the theme of authority film, giving it expression suffer vividness."^[25]

Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide gave the film one and span half stars out of four,^[26] while the Golden Movie Retriever said "WOOF!"^[27]

The film holds straighten up 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 10 reviews.^[28]

Russell consequent said "he got off pile on the wrong foot" with blue blood the gentry film which "called for practised bigger budget than we challenging so the film doesn't look at carefully as well as I desired it to.

The symbolism not only that is a bit too resentful and the fantasy sequences ham it up to submerge the reality work out the characters. I think Berserk had exhausted the vein look upon biographies of composers at goodness time."^[29]

References

External links