Songs of a Wayfarer
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List Price: $29.95
Features
• Classical
• Color
• NTSC
In Theaters : 01 February, 1975
Video Release : 15 September, 1992 |
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Songs of a Wayfarer Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥
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Bizarre, But Beautiful
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Bizarre but Beautiful , June 19, 2005
Okay, this film does appear very strange at times, as it shows Austrian composer Gustav Mahler smashing a Star of David, taking a sword to symbolically kill a dragon (the old traditional German masters), and eating pork washed down with a mug of milk to show his renunciation of his Jewish roots, just to get ahead on the music scene.
If you can't stand an anachronistic Cosima Wagner goose-stepping back and forth to determine if Mahler is worthy to conduct in Vienna, then you should'nt watch this film.
But you'll be missing something valuable. Ken Russell captures Mahler the genius, who was both arrogant, and yet uncertain.
Many of Mahler's most beautiful themes are used throughout the film and always at appropriate places. It was in this way that the film captures Mahler's genius for taking what he hears in the natural world and tranforming it into his symphonies. Especially poignant was an English version of a song from Kindertotenlieder, which accompanies a nightmarish fleeing of Mahler's daughters through the forest during a storm.
A portion of a symphony which includes the sound of a rattle, is led into by Alma trying to quiet the Mahler children, shaking a rattle. Likewise one of the frightening "what the animals of the night tell me" phantom monsters of the Third Symphony, appears to young Gustav as a white horse terrifying him in as a very literal "night mare."
As one who believes Mahler was the greatest of the Romantic composers, and perhaps also a sort of musical philosopher or even theologian, I find more to enjoy in Ken Russell's Mahler each time I watch it. It's a little bizarre at times, but also very beautiful.
Two more quick comments: Robert Powell, the actor who plays Mahler, looks astonishingly like the composer.
The "bad transfer" which other reviewers have remarked about, has obviously been corrected, as current copies are perfect.
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