With the possible
exception of The Devils (1971), which
employs provocative imagery while telling a meaningful story about historical
persecution, the musical biopic Lisztomania
is British director Ken Russell’s most outrageous movie—no small accomplishment. Lisztomania is also one of the weirdest big-budget films ever made,
since it contains a man riding a giant phallus like it’s a bucking bronco, composer Richard Wagner reincarnated as a machine-gun-wielding hybrid
of Frankenstein’s monster and Adolf Hitler, and a climactic battle in which
composer Franz Liszt flies a fighter jet built from organ pipes that blast his
music like guided missiles. Not exactly Amadeus.
Based upon a real-life phenomenon that occurred during the career of
19th-century Hungarian composer Liszt, who reportedly drove audiences into
something like the frenzied adoration later associated with 20th-century rock
stars, Lisztomania opens in such a
juvenile fashion that writer-director Russell makes it immediately clear he is
uninterested in simply re-creating history. Liszt (Roger Daltrey) cavorts in
bed with aristocrat Marie (Fiona Lewis), kissing her breasts in time with the
clicks of a metronome. She repeatedly accelerates the metronome’s speed, so
Liszt accelerates his smooching. Then Marie’s husband arrives, and a “comical”
duel ensues, during which Liszt—clad only a s sheet he’s tied around his
privates like a diaper—tries to evade the rapier with which the husband hopes
to castrate Liszt. From camera angles to editing and music, the whole scene is
designed to feel like a cartoon, setting the childish tone for everything that
follows.
In the course of telling a story that’s only vaguely connected to the
real Lizzt’s experiences, Russell portrays Liszt as a debauched celebrity
pandering to public appetites with performances that are beneath his talent,
while also spending much of his private time bouncing from one woman’s bedroom
to the next. Liszt’s sexual wanderings climax with a fantasy sequence during
which Liszt grows the aforementioned Godzilla-sized erection—which, at one point,
several women straddle simultaneously.
As the movie drags on, the plot
grows to similarly oversized proportions. On instructions from the Pope (played
by Ringo Starr of the Beatles), Liszt is charged with luring his former colleague,
Wagner (Paul Nicholas), back to Christianity. This doesn’t go well, because
Wagner has become an evil scientist preoccupied with bringing the Norse god
Thor (Rick Wakeman) to life, although Thor, for some reason, wears the costume
associated with the version of the character appearing in Marvel Comics of the
’60s and ’70s. Sprinkled amid this nonsense are various scenes in which
Daltrey, the lead singer of The Who and the star of Russell’s previous film, Tommy (released a few months earlier in
1975), sings original rock songs. There’s more, too, including a scene
decorated with ceramic buttocks that issue smoke through their—you get the
idea.
One imagines that Russell had a grand old time generating concepts and
then seeing if his production team could realize them without quitting in
protest of his bad taste. Furthermore, actors play their roles with tremendous
glee. However, the level of stupidity on display throughout Lisztomania is staggering. Whereas
Russell’s best films are the work of a sophisticated provocateur, Lisztomania feels more like the
bathroom-wall scratchings of a 13-year-old boy who giggles whenever the subject
of sex is raised. Suffice to say, Russell’s lifelong devotion to classical
music found more worthwhile expression elsewhere.
Lisztomania: FREAKY
