Lisztomania movie review & film summary (1975)

To argue with Russell's extravaganza on any rational basis is clearly to miss the point. Russell is far, far beyond any vestigial concern with logic - and, to tell the truth, I'm starting to like his movies more now that he's frankly running wild. When, in "The Music Lovers," he provided the "motivation" for the cannon roars in the "1812 Overture" by providing Tchaikovsky with the startling vision of his best friend's head being blown off, we had to demur because the movie was being palmed off as a halfway straight biography. Now that Russell has cheerfully embraced absolute fantasy, we're not so offended: as well call a character Liszt as Snow White or Batman. And Russell redeems his liberties with an astonishing wealth of images. The spider-like Countess lures Liszt's engorged phallus to its last guillotine, the towers of Wagner's castle sport Nazi helmets, Liszt's groupies (including Lola Montez and George Sand) scream hysterically at his concerts and Wagner presides over the Nuremberg Rally as it might have been presented in a Gothic kindergarten. 

What does all this mean? Nothing at all. It's not even an attack on Hitlerism; the paraphernalia of Nazism is set decoration, just as the Napoleonic wars were in "The Music Lovers." Russell has taken as his subject his own view of genius, and, with the notable exceptions of "The Devils" and "The Savage Messiah," his geniuses have been composers. He's already Russellized Debussy, Delius, Strauss, Prokofiev, Bartok, Delerue, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Wagner and Liszt, and, God help us, next he's going to work on George Gershwin. And yet "Lisztomania" suggests that his previous film, "Tommy" has been more of an influence on him than most of his previous biographical films, especially the more conventional ones. He's left fact and documentation behind him, he's committed himself to sensation, emotion, the berserk and the bizarre, and composers are no longer the subjects of his films, just the occasions for them. "Lisztomania" is the latest, most outrageous outing for Russell's fecund unconscious and, while we must pause to whisper, "poor Franz," there's no denying the man is growing peculiarly interesting.

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