Ken Russell is nuts. In the best way possible, of course.
Lisztomania is a musical work of pure insanity to cover a figure of pure insanity. Played by The Who’s Roger Daltry, classical composer Franz Liszt is a predecessor to the pop culture figures of modern times. Liszt was a sexually charged musical who toured around Europe with such an ostentatious stage presence that he inspired a fervor in his fans that would be dubbed Lisztomania. Women would scream, faint, and fight over his silk handkerchiefs and velvet gloves, sometimes ripping these souvenirs to shreds.
Beyond his insane fan presence, the legend of Franz Liszt is immense and complicated. Liszt had an affair with a Countess while she was still married, causing her to leave her husband. Liszt retreated to a monastic life in Rome under the Pope. He moved around from Paris to Rome to Weimar to Budapest. While Wagner was in political exile, Listz help elevate his profile as a composer. He even died at one of Wagner’s music festivals after being invited by his daughter. Liszt lived a kaleidoscopic life that would never lend itself to a traditional biography.
In order to deal with Franz Liszt’s immense life, Ken Russell turned Lisztomania into an ultimate guide of coding and metaphor taken to ridiculous extremes. The opening scene has Franz Liszt having sex with the married Countess set to a metronome. As he speeds the metronome up, so does his thrusts, obliquely referencing Liszt’s reputation for keeping perfect time. Though Russell gives no road markers to what trait or event he is referencing, each insane element of Liztomania has a basis in metaphor and meaning. Franz Liszt’s libido is out of control, so he rides a giant penis in a kaleidoscopic musical number. Later, Russell turns Wagner into a Nazi vampire developing an empire in his castle at Bayreuth, home of the musical festival. It’s a cavalcade of surrealism.
Lisztomania has an over-the-top density of sheer psychedelic insanity, but Russell gives no road markers for us to discern what each surreal element means. This combination makes Lisztomania incredibly difficult to watch, especially if you’ve never witnessed a Ken Russell film before. Rick Wakefield’s gorgeously intense score, reworking Franz Liszt’s compositions into a sort of electronic prog rock, adds to the exhausting factor of Ken Russell as his most unrestrained.
Perhaps that’s why I think Liztomania is simultaneously the best and the worst way to make a biopic. Anybody who wants to learn about Franz Liszt will come away from the movie having learned absolutely nothing. Anybody who studies Franz Liszt may come away pissed off at Prog Rock arrangements of favorite pieces. Serious minded fans of classical music will probably be turned away from a chamber with ceramic butts exerting sleeping gas. Serious rock fans won’t be able to make heads or tails of the film. And yet, if somebody sees Lisztomania and then reads up on Franz Liszt, they’ll chuckle their fool brains off at some of the more ostentatious details that Russell includes. This is a work of passion and love that has the narrowest audience of me and maybe 20 other people. If you can climb on its wavelength, you’ll see things you never thought you’d see (for better and worse).
There is nothing quite like Lisztomania. Nobody really talks about it, but it needs to be recognized as the bizarro classic that it is. Ken Russell’s far tamer Busby Berkeley-imitation The Boy Friend came out on blu-ray this week, but I think you should watch this instead.
