Whose buddies all knew him as Gustav

[sovay]

I have been having a run of the kind of days where I can't understand why my body keeps waking up at all. In the afternoon, spatch showed me a mural he had found a few days ago, which the owners of the house should be frequently complimented on, and in the evening we watched Ken Russell's Mahler (1974), which with all due thanks to gwynnega for the recommendation we turned out to love. Autolycus sleeps with his tail wrapped beneath his ears like a pillow. My ability to watch movies seems to have returned to a normal level; the time I have to write about them has not. The number of problems the institution of universal basic income would solve for me is honestly not small.

Comments

[sovay]

I always think of Later Russell as starting with Tommy, although I'm fond of it. Lisztomania is the first film where Russell lets himself go wild in a very not-good way. (I've never made it to the end of the film, and I have tried more than once!)

spatch has seen Tommy. Neither of us has seen Lisztomania, but Alex von Tunzelmann hated it.

I bounced hard off Gothic, but I love Salome's Last Dance.

I haven't seen that one! I was shown Gothic by some friends about ten years ago and it has a fantastic cast and generated an extremely entertaining single and I did enjoy the experience, but in the way where it probably matters that it has to be divorced completely from the actual history of the Villa Diodati in 1816. Like, I think the prologue of Bride of Frankenstein may be closer.

Before the pandemic, going to the movies wasn't all that comfortable for me because of vertigo, so I'd have to feel a lot safer before I'd consider going again.

Endangering yourself for the sake of vertigo doesn't sound like a great tradeoff to me, no.

[gwynnega]

That Alex von Tunzelmann article almost makes me want to try to get to the end of Lisztomania. (But not quite.)

Like, I think the prologue of Bride of Frankenstein may be closer.

Exactly!

I don't remember exactly why I hated Gothic so much. It may have been nothing more than the sad realization that it was going to be one of those Ken Russell films, as opposed to the kind that I love. (That single is great.)

[sovay]

That Alex von Tunzelmann article almost makes me want to try to get to the end of Lisztomania. (But not quite.)

At least his opinions of Wagner were consistent.