The Music Lovers is a movie which highlights the director Ken Russell's virtues and vices. The virtues include an imaginative use of the 2.35:1 wide screen, working wonders with the Holy Mother Russia studio set, complete with golden onion domes, snow and icicles, and horse drawn sleighs. There is some wonderful Douglas Slocombe cinematography and the director coaxes fine performances from Richard Chamberlain, Glenda Jackson and Kenneth Colley, to name just three of the fine cast.
The vices are Russell's propensity to go over the top, even by his own unrestrained standards. The scene of Glenda Jackson baring all in a swaying railway compartment while her unhappy husband (Richard Chamberlain as the anguished Tchaikovsky) peers in horror at her nether regions, the whole bizarre scene accompanied by the emotionally charged music of the Pathetique Symphony is surely beyond bad taste. However, I must confess to enjoying Russell's utterly bonkers take on the 1812 Overture: those madcap images could only come from the mind of an eccentric genius.
Another favourite sequence is the performance of the piano concerto, with Chamberlain almost convincing the viewer that he is actually playing the complex score. Among the costumed extras making up the concert audience I'm sure I spotted a young Martin Amis, sitting behind Tchaikovsy's sister. (That would be another film credit, to add to 'A High Wind in Jamaica'.)
The vices are Russell's propensity to go over the top, even by his own unrestrained standards. The scene of Glenda Jackson baring all in a swaying railway compartment while her unhappy husband (Richard Chamberlain as the anguished Tchaikovsky) peers in horror at her nether regions, the whole bizarre scene accompanied by the emotionally charged music of the Pathetique Symphony is surely beyond bad taste. However, I must confess to enjoying Russell's utterly bonkers take on the 1812 Overture: those madcap images could only come from the mind of an eccentric genius.
Another favourite sequence is the performance of the piano concerto, with Chamberlain almost convincing the viewer that he is actually playing the complex score. Among the costumed extras making up the concert audience I'm sure I spotted a young Martin Amis, sitting behind Tchaikovsy's sister. (That would be another film credit, to add to 'A High Wind in Jamaica'.)