Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4609 in VHS
• Released on: 1992-04-15
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Formats: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 103 minutes

Amazon.com
Lisztomania, Ken Russell's follow-up to Tommy (both films were released in 1975) finds him even more in the mood for desultory spectacle than his garish pop artistry adapting the Who's rock opera. Seeking to tell the story of superstar composer Franz Liszt through a freewheeling series of pop allegories, kitsch, quotes, and pastiches, Russell hopes to reflect in contemporary terms the runaway train of Liszt's celebrity, love life, and alleged rivalry with Richard Wagner.

Roger Daltrey, the Who vocalist and star of Tommy, returns to Russell's circus as Liszt, a great pianist nevertheless seduced by the ease with which he can make women squeal by playing flamboyant renditions of "Chopsticks." Floating on a sea of groupies, Liszt struggles with the possibilities of real love while also encountering the vampiric Wagner's exotic plans for world domination. Intuitive impressions, not history, are what this film experience is for, and toward that end Russell pulls out all the stops, planting Liszt into a heartbreakingly Chaplinesque short film, casting Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman as a cryogenic viking, and placing the hero in phallic jeopardy when his genitals are subjected to a guillotine. Some of this striking stuff works, some of it doesn't, but all of it is determinedly undisciplined. With Paul Nicholas as Wagner, and Ringo Starr as the Pope (!). --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

A disgrace Warner persist on VHS.
Indispensable, cult-status Ken Russel movie (not only for fans of The Who), that masterfully captures and subversively portrays on screen classical piano player/composer Frantz Liszt's personality: a legendary genious of a man whose life and times match that of a Rock star, 100 years before Rock was invented. If Glen Gould is the flamboyant 20th century classical piano player that rocked an establishment, just watch this movie to compare the original Master on his heyday.

Unfortunatelly however, VHS does not deliver. The movie should've long ago been digitally transfered on DVD. Don't get mislead by Amazon referring to this product as DVD 1992 release, it's default listing manner. If you look closely by the picture it's actually VHS edition only. True, Warner still persist not to release it on DVD, obviously they don't expect a blockbuster out of it. Guess we'll have to wait for Criterion Collection to salvage it. 4* for the movie, 0* for Warner.

Cult Film: For freaks who know their Classical music history
I had the rare and unexpected pleasure of seeing this film in a theater in college and, fortunately not while on drugs. Knowledge of (classical) music history, particularily from the late Romantic period (and if you know about Franz Liszt's life, all the better) helps one to appreciate all the little "in-jokes." An appreciation of mid-70's "stadium-rock" culture also helps. Casting Roger Daltrey as Liszt seems about perfect as he adds that modern rock-star's charm to the salacious fellow.

It certainly takes liberties with interpretation of historic events (as Russell's "biographies" tend to do) but there is a lot of outrageous humor. Witness the scene when exiled in the Countessa's castle, Liszt has this fantasy sequence where she comes riding in on top of a 10-foot penis. Bizarre as it may seem, it's not entirely unrealistic; Liszt was a known philanderer and let's face it, he loved the ladies and they adored him. Wagner, who spends the whole film chasing Liszt down, emerges at the end of the film as a proto-Nitzschean-cum-Nazi-Hitler "ubermensch." It's bizarre, and I guess you'd have to understand the Wagner-Nitszche-Hitler connections. (Though meant as humor, some people, understandably, walked out of the film at this point. I was surprised that more didn't earlier but perhaps they sat at the back of the theater.) Wagner comes across as something of a juvenile wuss and, of course later marrys Liszt's daughter.

This is definitely not a film for a lot of people. Non-traditional or "deviant" classical music buffs would best appreciate this film... I have yet to see "Mahler" but I hear it is of the same vein. The cinematography looks a little cheap at times but the production is consistent and there is a lot of great costuming and "methodical" bad acting which really is part of the whole schtick. It's not as tasteless/shocking as a John Waters' film or "Return to the Valley of the Dolls," which is good because it does show and require some sense of intelligence and understanding of historical events/references so I would certainly not categorize it as deconstructionist. It's a lot more (intentionally) weird than "Amadeus" but not a full-out freakshow. Go to a Marilyn Manson concert of Karen Finley performance for one of those.

Offensove at times but funny
There are many long reviews here analyzing every detail of this film. I will only say that it does become too phantasmagoric and even in its deliberate excess and offensiveness the measure of good taste is a bit lost. I do think that it's great and entertaining that some scenes are shocking, but when the shots become too fixated on the same thing, it feels like a great joke that is being told too many times - it looses its zest. To me, Mahler was a better one in terms of being better balanced. This picture is still a good entertainment, though.