Mahler (film)

Mahler
	; Original poster for Spanish version of Mahler
Directed by	Ken Russell
Produced by	Roy Baird
Written by	Ken Russell
Starring	Robert Powell; Georgina Hale; Lee Montague
Music by	Gustav Mahler; Richard Wagner; Dana Gillespie
Cinematography	Dick Bush
Editing by	Michael Bradsell
Distributed by	Mayfair Films; Visual Programme Systems Ltd.
Release date(s)	24 October 1974; February 1975
Running time	115 min
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Mahler is a 1974 biographical film based on the life of composer Gustav Mahler. It was written and directed by Ken Russell for Goodtimes Enterprises, and starred Robert Powell as Gustav Mahler and Georgina Hale as Alma Mahler. The film was entered into the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Technical Grand Prize.¹

Plot

The film begins on a train journey with Gustav Mahler (Robert Powell) and his wife Alma (Georgina Hale) confronting their failing marriage. The story is then recounted in a series of flashbacks (some of which are surrealistic and nightmarish), taking one through Mahler's childhood, his brother's suicide, his experience with anti-semitism, his conversion from Judaism to Catholicism, his marital problems, and the death of his young daughter. The film also contains a surreal fantasy sequence involving the anti-Semitic Cosima Wagner (Antonia Ellis), widow of Richard Wagner, whose objections to his taking control of the Court Opera were supposedly removed by his conversion to Catholicism. In the process, the film explores Mahler's music and its relationship to his life.

Some outdoor sections of the film were made in Borrowdale, in the English Lake District.