Ludwig (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ludwig
Directed by	Luchino Visconti
Produced by	Dieter Geissler Ugo Santalucia
Written by	Luchino Visconti Enrico Medioli Suso Cecchi d'Amico
Starring	Helmut Berger Trevor Howard Silvana Mangano Gert Fröbe Marc Porel
Release date(s)	March 7, 1973
Running time	184 min. 246 min. (European cut)
Language	Italian
IMDb profile

Ludwig is a 1972 film by Italian director Luchino Visconti about the life and death of Ludwig II of Bavaria, mostly known today for his blind admiration for Richard Wagner and his commissioning of many palaces in Bavaria such as Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee. Visconti's muse, Helmut Berger, stars as Ludwig, while Romy Schneider reprises her role as Elizabeth of Austria ("Sissi") from her 1950s Elizabeth trilogy.

Ludwig is a very languidly-paced film, but with an impressive sense of tragic crescendo. The fully-restored version, running over four hours, tries to build sympathy in the viewer for Ludwig's decadent, yet ultimately firmly constricted life. Visconti’s meticulous realism gives a bright picture of court life in the nineteenth-century Bavaria and shows with impressive dramatic pathos how a dreamy romantic idealist as Ludwig succumbs to the strenuous and urgent demands of his responsibilities as a king. The political sphere of counselors, clergymen, princes and kings, as well as the intricate and often tense relations between the members of the royal family are treated in the film with an acute and refined sensibility to aristocratic decorum and way of living. Ludwig's homosexuality is depicted but does not take center stage, even though his love for Wagner (who is a scoundrel in this film) has definite homoerotic overtones.

Instead of simply depicting Ludwig as mad, it is suggested that he was simply born a few centuries too late and would have made a good monarch during absolutism. However, in the 19th century the Bavarian king lacked real political power, causing Ludwig to indulge in his medieval Wagnerian fantasies while more or less ignoring the political reality at the time.