Lisztomania

From what I had read about this film I was expecting a heap of absolute trash of the most distasteful kind and found that my expectations were in actual fact surpassed. I have given a rating of half a star which represents a verdict of 'painful', which it certainly was, but there was something still quite fascinating about this psycho-phallic nightmare of a movie. This film really assumes prior knowledge about the lives of Liszt and Wagner in order to make sense and judgement on the mayhem that ensues as Russell eventually goes off at quite a tangent. Outrageous, yes, but somehow I'm not sorry I watched it.

Yes, seriously! This is parody through and through, pushed to its limits until becomes so stupid that it comes out the other end! That is the point of the film, and you may not think it worked but there is no point in complaining that the film fails to be comething that it is not. There are references to 'Tommy', not suprisingly, also 'A Clockwork Orange' ('Ludwig Van') and it shares a great deal in common with 'Barbarella' (and at least Russell KNEW that he was being ridiculous). Imagine rock music parodying classical music and classical music parodying rock music at the same time!

The stereotypes are made as big as they can be - yes, it is ridiculous to blame World War II on Wagner's music, but why do so many people still do it! And if you listen to Ken's commentary, you will learn that the film has far more reference to historic fact than you might think.

What a load of rubbish.

Bad script and bad acting, if fact everything was bad. Not worth the time of day!

Yes, that is a quote from the film. One of the more sensible ones. I've given this five stars not because it's a five-star movie, or even a good one, but because it's undoubtedly a five-star SOMETHING, though I'm not sure what. Anyway, it effectively ended the career of Ken Russell, starting him on the long slide from Golden Boy of sixties British cinema to that fat old bloke who snored on Celebrity Big Brother. Which is a pity, because you've NEVER seen anything like this! If you tell people who haven't seen it what happens, they don't believe you, so I won't, except to say that this is the one where Roger Daltrey gets a ten-foot erection. Honest! Maybe they were trying to make the casting of Ringo Starr as the Pope look plausible by comparison. (Incidentally, a more tasteful remake of the entire Franz-Liszt-In-Hell sequence turned up in, of all things, 'The Big Lebowski'.) Why does everybody get over-excited about the tedious, inept, and very cheap 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' when a film like this exists? It would make one hell of a theme for a fancy dress party! And is it just me, or was James Cameron clearly inspired by a certain moment in this movie - you'll definitely know it when you see it - to create a certain well-known Austrian cyborg? Switch your brain off, open a few beers, and watch this with your jaw on the floor. Though I should warn lovers of classical music that they may find the orchestral numbers more disturbing than Roger Daltrey's giant knob, and only slightly less so than poor old Ringo's attempts to act.

Let's face it, being disappointed in a Ken Russell movie is like being upset by an Alice Cooper gig, or a Hammer film. You know what you're going to get, you expect excess and chaos - indeed you would be rightly disappointed if you didn't get it. So for Ken Russell fans everywhere, or celebrators of the dire, this is one for you. If not, watch something else. It seems to be trying to be serious at times, linking Liszt to Nazism via Wagner. At other times it's like a high-school remake of the (even worse) Song Without End.