Another of Ken Russell's bumptious and self-serving "biographies" of canonized artists, this one more disjointed than most, as it riffles through the memories, fantasies, and dreams that enliven the Austrian composer's train trip back to Vienna after a collapse of health in New York City. Some of these visions -- a nightmare of death in which Mahler's fickle wife dances a can-can in red petticoats atop his coffin; a recollection of his conversion from Judaism to Catholicism presided over by Wagner's widow, cracking a whip and dressed as a music hall Nazi, all in black even to her lipstick -- are quite sufficient to put you on your ear. With Robert Powell and Georgia Hale. (1973) — Duncan Shepherd
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