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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
From its stunning opening sequence, featuring Georgina Hale (who plays the wife of Gustav Mahler in this Ken Russell film) isolated in full mummy wrap and writhing with erotic yearning to the lush strains of her husband's music, Mahler distinguishes itself as the most poetic and archetypal of Russell's great-composer works. A kind of cinematic response to Luchino Visconti's 1971 adaptation of Death in Venice, in which Dirk Bogarde plays a Mahler-esque composer in search of beauty in the plague-filled city, Mahler stars Robert Powell as the great Jewish romantic from 19th-century Vienna, drafting enormous symphonic works in the midst of rising anti-Semitism. Converting to Christianity as a means of survival, Mahler carries on with his work but experiences an erosion of his health and sense of identity. Meanwhile, his self-effacing spouse represses her own creative drives to keep the resident genius afloat, plugging every leak and receding all but invisible into the woodwork. While the film is the least ostentatious of Russell's movies about music, it is hardly conventional, a mix of lyrical tableaux and comic fantasy that adds up to a stirring, dreamlike experience. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - This is not a movie about Mahler but a performance of his 7th Symphony
Please ignore all other reviews of this VHS to date (Jan 8, 2008). The reviews I've read must be of a different product. This is not a movie about Mahler, but a filming of a performance of his symphony no. 7 as conducted by Leonard Bernstein and performed by the Vienna Philharmonic (Wiener Philharmoniker). All 5 movements. I own most of this series on VHS. If you are a fan of Mahler and of Bernstein as I am, I think you will really enjoy this. I'm not sure if this has been put out on DVD, but ... Read More
Rating: - Gustav Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
This review is of the concert, as seen on the cover of the tape, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker, with a young Thomas Hampson in such excellent form. His Kindertotenlieder alone will break your heart. This is the Thomas Hampson that got me addicted, buying all his recordings and following his concerts and operas. Be warned, it could happen to you.
Rating: - Bizarre, But Beautiful
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 ... Read More
Rating: - Bizarre but Beautiful
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 ... Read More
Rating:  - Mahler, Ken Russell's movie
I think Russell's production is pure trash! What a waste of money! I love Mahler but seeing that movie left a bad taste in my mouth about Mahler. After viewing it I immediately consigned it to the trash can
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