Mahler (Ken Russell, 1974)

Nov

12

World Pneumonia Day

Mahler (1974)

Gustav (Robert Powell) and Alma (Georgina Hale), both in a three piece suit with top hats. She's in a shadows, wearing a tight, black veil that completely conceals her features. DP: Dick Bush.

A sickly #GustavMahler (Robert Powell) and his wife Alma (Georgina Hale) dwell on their shared lives while travelling to Vienna by train. Storylines – circular like a journey, rondo like #Mahler's compositions – drift from the ordinary to the grotesque.

“I don't want to imitate nature. I want to capture its very essence. As if all the birds and the beasts die tomorrow and the world became a desert, when people heard my music – they would still know, feel, what nature was.”

– Gustav Mahler

This would be the composer's final tour. A train took him to a Vienna sanatorium where not much later he'd succumb to #pneumonia.