Richard Claeys <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>If you really want to torture your worst enemy, why not set up a worst-of
>Ken Russell film festival, and make them sit through "Lisztomania,"
>followed by "The Music Lovers," and, for dessert, "Salome's Last Dance."
>That unfortunate trio set the cause of music on film back far worse than
>anything related to "Amadeus,"

A word for "The Music Lovers".  Its constant vitality, occasional beauty
and over-the-top outrageousness deserves much better than to be bracketed
with those two disastrous later efforts.  Its lack of solemnity should not
be mistaken for flippancy.

A good portion of the fun comes from the fact that Russell parodies the
whole musical bio-pic caravanserai so exuberantly.  Lines such as "It's
the best thing I've ever written and I'm not going to change a note of it"
(Tchaikovsky), "My husband wrote this music, you know" (Mrs T., during a
performance of Swan Lake) and, best of all, "Why not call it The Pathetic,
because that's what you are" (T's brother) are not to be taken at face
value for one moment.

Russell was and is a genuine music lover himself who knew perfectly
well what he was doing.  As a hit-and-miss director he has often been
misunderstood, never more so than in "The Music Lovers", like "Women in
Love" and "The Boyfriend" a ripe product of his high summer, and one which
captures a real flavour of that manic-depressive whirligig which is Russian
life and music.

Like his Delius film "Song of Summer" (perhaps the best film ever about
any composer, and now available on British Film Institute DVD) "The Music
Lovers" is a disconcertingly memorable film which deepens on acquaintance.

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"