I hesitated where to post but with Roger Daltrey in the starring role, soundtrack by Rick Wakeman, same director as Tommy and guest appearances by Ringo Starr and Rick Wakeman, I thought this belongs more here than in "topics not related to music".
A maligned and controversial 1975 movie by Ken Russell, much less discussed than Tommy, it feels like everybody tries to pretend it never existed and just sweep it under the carpet.
A rather ridiculous plot, over the top glam / kitsch imagery, phallic symbols everywhere... if Tommy was weird this one surely topped it. But it is precisely because it was so silly and over the top that it has its charm (some connection to the peak of Prog here perhaps?
).
Liszt is presented as the "first rock superstar", with female audiences going nuts at his performances (which was historically true). Then the movie goes on to his sexual relations and the tricky friendship with Richard Wagner which turns into drama and rivalry due to Wagner embracing anti-semitism and nazional-socialism.
Ringo plays The Pope who forbids Liszt marriage with Princess Carolyn from Russia and Wakeman plays the weird character of a sort of Frankenstein Thor created by Wagner to eliminate the jews. Hilarious if you don't take things too seriously. All in all, seen in retrospect it feels liberating, something which could only be done in the 1st half of the 1970's, nowadays people seem to have lost that crazy and irreverent stance.
Wakeman's soundtrack was not very well received but in retrospect is not that bad, some re-interpretations of works by Liszt and Wagner with some Prog chops, nice Mellotron and Minimoog, but the ballads where Daltrey sings were really not very good, and for some reason Daltrey's singing was far from his capabilities at the time. Incidentally I don't know how much could Daltrey play piano but there are a few scenes where you see his hands on the piano and he does it quite well, it's not that typical filming where you see either the face of the guy or the hands but never the two together.
I don't know if the image censorship soft will allow seeing this pic but I try: Russell's imagery was certainly not subtle, Daltrey must have had fun filming these scenes
Daltrey's piano jacket is as kitsch as you can desire
Ringo as The Pope
Rick Wakeman as the Frankenstein Thor
Edited by Gerinski - July 20 2014 at 02:18