In typical OTT fashion, Ken Russell’s intentionally scabrous, down & dirty Tchaikovsky bio-pic landed as unintentional response to a recent ultra-conventional 70mm Soviet release.* Richard Chamberlain, who between this, PETULIA/’68 and LADY CAROLINE LAMB/’72, seemed to be trying to ‘out’ himself (three decades before outing himself!), is the great composer with even greater mood swings and an aversion to heterosexual coupling. Fearing rumors that might hurt his career, he opts to marry a lusty Glenda Jackson (very game in all senses of the word*) and quickly regrets it. (Their mere five-month relationship feels endless.) That, and Tchaikovsky’s long epistolary relationship to rich benefactress Madame Von Meck largely run the plot, along with long longing homosexual glances. All covered in chintzy period detail with lenser Douglas Slocombe compelled into hand-held hysteria between strikingly fine musical excerpts (André Previn/LSO) which show up higgledy-piggledy regardless of composition date. Only at the end, does Russell show his hand when brother Modest rejects ‘Tragic’ as a title for the Sixth Symphony and suggests ‘Pathetic.’ Russell knows full well that ‘pathetic’ and ‘Pathetique’ are not interchangeable here (and that almost all the historical ‘facts’ as presented are rubbish), but the childish joke is enough for him. Hence THE MUSIC LOVERS, with Russell like a kid thumbing his nose . . . then eating the booger. Even worse to come: LISZTOMANIA/’75!
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK/WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *As mentioned, that Soviet bio-pic, a very different kind of dud, but a dud nonetheless. And click on the LINK where you’ll also find our Watch This, Not That suggestion. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/09/chaykovskiy-tchaikovsky-1970.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *One nice touch here, when Jackson furiously strips down in hopes of sex play, she wears the same stripped socks as the dead Wicked Witch of the East in THE WIZARD OF OZ.
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