Wagner Without Fear

by William Berger

  Any film about Wagner must present aspects of his complicated character selectively, and this one is no different for all its length. His borrowing and his debts, for example, are well depicted, but there is no hint of his well-documented prodigal generosity, which tells us much about the man’s core relationship to money. Similarly, the movie shows Wagner running around screaming about the “dirty Jews,” which he certainly did, but fails to show us the disproportionate number of Jews who held central positions in his life, which makes the subject so much more interesting. Levi, Neumann, and Rubinstein are never seen. Other characters are oversimplified. Bülow comes off as a rather nice chap, and Ludwig is basically all wrong. Still, the movie is a major accomplishment. It is perhaps best approached after, rather than in lieu of, reading one of the standard biographies. The performers are all interesting, and often spellbinding. Burton is monumental when he isn’t asleep. At the very least, the camera work and the art direction, in the capable hands of a mostly Italian crew, are breathtaking.

  Parsifal (1982), directed by Hans Jürgen Syberberg. 255 minutes.

  File this one under the heading of “Very Deep.” Director Syberberg had previously filmed a notorious interview with Winifred Wagner shortly before her death in 1976, where she made the famous remark that she would kiss Adolf Hitler if he walked in the room today. He had also been noted for the film Our Hitler, a lengthy production with many marionettes dealing with contemporary Germany’s soul-wrenching relationship to the Third Reich experience. You can expect a bit of the same here, since he seems to need to come to terms with Wagner as he had with Hitler. Much of the action takes place on or in a giant death mask of Wagner, and the final resolution implies an inner psychological victory of cohesion rather than a world-redeeming metamorphosis.

  To accomplish this, Syberberg uses a self-conscious theatricality, complete with marionettes, deliberate in its anti-magnificence. The Flower Maidens are deformed. The knights are vaguely sinister (and you know what that means: their hall is filled with battle flags, including, yes, the Nazi one). The acting is stylized beyond that of the Grand Kabuki, and there is no shortage of the bizarre. Kundry’s Act I ride is on a carousel horse. She then emerges from a primal fjord—with a gondoliers’ post in it (presumably an allusion to Wagner’s life and death). And so on.

  Musically, it’s hit and miss. The Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic are conducted by Arnim Jordan, who also lip-synchs the role of Amfortas, sung by Wolfgang Schoene. This is meant to be profound, but comes off as a case of conductor ego run amok. The chorus (which uses women’s voices instead of boys’) should have spent less time rehearsing tortured expressionist poses and more time rehearsing vocalizing in unison. The venerable Robert Lloyd is impressive singing and acting Gurnemanz. He alone among the principals plays it at face value. Edith Clever acts Kundry well, considering everything, to the good singing of Yvonne Minton. Titurel is King Ludwig trapped in a leaky basement. Whatever.

  The most controversial touch was the role of Parsifal. Sung well by Reiner Goldberg, it is portrayed in the film by a boy who looks about twelve, and then, after Kundry’s kiss, by a young woman. She looks no stranger “singing” the tenor lines than the twelve-year-old did, and it all makes sense by the end of the movie. She and the boy come together in Wagner’s head, representing the union of animus and anima, while Kundry and Amfortas lie down and die together. Odd, but much more satisfying than most endings of this drama.

  Don’t see this movie as your intro to Parsifal. Rent a video of a stage production instead, and save this one until you’re jaded by standard representations. If hallucinogenic drugs play any role in your life, this movie would be an excellent place to employ them.

  Ludwig (1973), directed by Luchino Visconti. 248 minutes (!).

  This film is discussed by a great many Wagner fans, few of whom have ever actually seen it. It’s not currently available on video, and only makes rare appearances in arty retro movie houses. It also crops up on European television periodically, and devotees pass around pirated copies like rare contraband. Ludwig holds a place in film history as Visconti’s last work, made when that famous director was well beyond any such mundane considerations as audience appeal. Here we have the story of our favorite king of Bavaria from the time of his coronation to his death in 1886. At least, we think that’s what this film is about, since it’s filmed almost entirely in the dark! This was considered “heavy” by stage and screen directors in that era (cf. Karajan’s “pitch-black” Ring). What you can see is gorgeous. Helmut Griem unravels beautifully as the title character, Trevor Howard is weird as Wagner, and Romy Schneider stunning as the Empress Elizabeth. The film is so guarded emotionally that one never really plugs in. The net result is rather disappointing, all things considered.

  Lisztomania (1975), directed by Ken Russell. 106 minutes.

  By the same guy who had Ann Margret swimming in baked beans in the movie Tommy. Ken Russell makes that movie look positively understated in this over-the-top extravaganza. This film purports to tell the life story of Liszt as something of a rock star, with all the mid-1970s excesses associated with that milieu, including a heavy dose of T & A. Although Lisztomania is unmitigated trash, it is not without some entertainment value to the Wagner fan. An early scene shows Liszt (Roger Daltrey) playing variations of Rienzi—interspersed with “Chop Sticks”—to an audience of hysterical teenyboppers. When Wagner (Paul Nicholas) gets furious, Liszt says, “Well, we are in show business, Dickie.” Very plausible. The film cops out toward the end by simplistically turning Wagner into Hitler and misogynistically blaming it all on Cosima. Until that point, however, the movie is remarkably faithful to history amidst all its deliberate anachronisms. Perhaps the truth was more bizarre than Russell’s superficial shock value. The Wagner fan will also note that this movie, supposedly about Liszt, is ultimately about Wagner. One other note: Ringo Starr plays Pope Pius IX. Pretty rich.

  Song Without End (1960), directed by Charles Vidor and George Cukor. 130 minutes.

  Dirk Bogarde, as Franz Liszt, heaves his shoulders elegantly while pounding the ivories (music played by Jorge Bolet) amidst lush settings in this schmaltzfest directed by Charles Vidor (who died during the filming). Song Without End is, in its own way, even sloppier with the facts than Lisztomania. The gorgeous actress Capucine reinterprets the Princess von Sayn-Wittgenstein, Liszt’s “longtime companion,” as a virginal beauty (she was neither). There are at least two classically camp moments in the movie. During an imaginary meeting between the princess and Marie d’Agoult, the former Mrs. Liszt in all but name, the princess asks cattily, “Tell me, did he drive you to Paradise?” Marie answers, “Your Highness, he does not know the road.” Later, Martita Hunt as the grand duchess of Weimar delivers one of the all-time great truths when she warns the princess, “My dear, no man is worth half the Ukraine.”

  Wagner is treated shabbily in this film, which focuses on Liszt’s relationship with the princess at the expense of other aspects of his life. The movie ends circa 1864 with Liszt taking holy orders while Capucine strikes a pious pose in Saint Peter’s wearing a drop-dead ensemble by Jean Louis. Cosima is never mentioned by name. Perhaps, as the title suggests, a sequel was being considered. In Wagner’s two appearances in the film, he is rude and vaguely gross, which is an overstatement. Whenever Liszt champions the Wagner cause, he precedes it with tired apologies about the music redeeming the man.

  The main attraction of this movie for the budding Wagnerite lies in two of the perversely (or perhaps teasingly) selected location shots. Linderhof, King Ludwig’s creamy chateau with a Venusberg grotto, substitutes for the ducal court of Weimar, where Liszt was a sort of music director. The scenes that were supposed to be at the Court Theater of Weimar were actually filmed at the beautiful old Margravine Opera House of Bayreuth. Liszt is seen conducting the Pilgrims’ Chorus from Tannhäuser, during which the princess is served divorce papers in her box. Later, Dirk runs up and down the peculiar lobb
y of that old theater, and we can see the strangely tacky setlike cardboard balustrades of the grand staircase.

  Meeting Venus (1993), written and directed by Istvan Szabo. 121 minutes.

  All right, so Glenn Close lip-synching Kiri TeKanawa sounds more like a bad drag revue than a major motion picture, but this flawed, interesting film is well worth seeing anyway. The setting is a mythical multinational institution called “Opera Europe,” located in Paris and where, they say, one can be misunderstood in six languages. Their attempt to put together a production of Tannhäuser is seen through the prism of contemporary European politics and becomes a metaphor for the contentious political, cultural, and linguistic issues of European unification.

  The characters are all parodies, but anyone who has worked around opera can tell you that these parodies have a basis in fact. Along the way, there’s actually a lot of Tannhäuser. The Venusberg scene in S & M fetish gear is superbly corny, and accurate, Eurotrash. The opening night is threatened when the unions call a strike and the fire curtain cannot be lifted. The diva (Close) suggests singing in front of the fire curtain. At the finale, the chorus of oppressed peasant pilgrims (very Götz Friedrich) carry the flowering staff through the opera house, having such an effect that the conductor’s baton blooms, while Close glows in fabulous white chiffon! What’s not to like? Well, plenty. The reductive stereotypes are tiring. But if you can enter the surreal spirit, this is a rewarding movie. The very idea of Tannhäuser in Paris is an excellent forum for these issues—personalities and politics destroyed the 1861 production, and matters have only superficially changed since then. Besides TeKanawa, René Kollo, Hakan Hagegard, and Waltraud Meier provide the main voices, demonstrating that the music is given pretty fair due for a movie.

  The Fisher King (1991), directed by Terry Gilliam. 137 minutes.

  The title refers to the ancient source myth of Parsifal, and this neomyth shows us Robin Williams as the innocent fool and Jeff Bridges as the ailing king. Williams’s alienation from society is that he is a homeless man (nice touch), while Bridges’s “wound that won’t heal” is alcoholism (very nice touch). The action takes place in contemporary New York, where the Holy Grail is in a private collection on the Upper East Side. In all, the movie is more interesting than satisfying, from a Wagnerian point of view, because in trying to make a universal myth “relevant” it becomes the story of individuals rather than of communities.

  The film depicts Bridges’s downfall (literally) from hot-shot radio host in an uptown penthouse to impotent souse in a downtown flophouse whose faith in life and love is restored by the compassion of the homeless man. Lovely, but how exactly does this save the planet? In a way, the film suffers from being too devoted to the myth as Wagner saw it, whereas Wagner himself did whatever violence necessary to the old myths to tell the story he wanted to tell. Since we must have conventional romance in our films, this film has a love interest (Amanda Plummer) who is fun but, unlike the eternally enigmatic Kundry, ends up also being brought out by contact with the homeless man. Instead of the question marks left behind by Kundry, we have something of an homage to family values. Mercedes Ruehl (who won an Oscar for this) plays Bridges’s girlfriend, and she is her usual brilliant self. Interesting to note that she is the most successful character in the film, and is the only one without an analogue in Parsifal.

  What’s Opera, Doc? (1957), directed by Chuck Jones. Music arranged by Milt Franklyn, lyrics by Michael Maltese.

  It’s hard to know what category to place this cartoon in, except probably that of the greatest single union of Wagner and film. In case you don’t already know, this is Bugs Bunny (as Brünnhilde, sort of) and Elmer Fudd (as Siegfried, sort of) sending up Wagner in a big way. The music used is as follows: the Dutchman Overture, “The Ride of the Valkyries” (using the immortal Iyrics “Kill da wabbit,” etc.), Siegfried’s Horn Call, the Tarnhelm theme from Rheingold, some Venusberg music from Tannhäuser followed by the Pilgrims’ Chorus (containing the unforgettable dialogue “Oh, Bwünnhilde, youah so wovewy!,” “Yes, I know it, I can’t help it!”), the Immolation Scene from Götterdämmerung, and ending, as Wagner himself had, with a reprise of the Pilgrims’ Chorus. This cartoon has permanently defined Wagner for most Americans. Tell people you are planning to attend a performance of Wagner opera, and count how many will sing “Kill da wabbit” at the mere mention of the name.

  Attentive viewers will also note the use of the Lohengrin Act III Prelude in that other minor masterpiece of this genre, Long Haired Rabbit.

  Twilight of the Golds (1996), directed by Ross Marks. Screenplay by Jonathan Tolins and Seth Bass, based on the play by Jonathan Tolins. A Showtime presentation. 95 minutes.

  A gay Jewish artist (Brendan Fraser) is staging a “people’s” version of the Ring, lasting only seven hours and financed by corporate tie-ins. His uneasy relationship with his family explodes when his pregnant sister (Jennifer Beals) and her genetic researcher husband (Jon Tenney) discover in prenatal testing that their child will be gay. Moral crises ensue. The artist and the girl’s parents (Garry Marshall and Faye Dunaway) are at sea trying to provide guidance.

  This classic modern Jewish family, portrayed by one of the most relentlessly goyische casts ever assembled in Hollywood, struggles with the issues at stake until all works out. Sis keeps the baby, loses the husband, and practically marries her brother. The brother’s “relevant” Ring premieres, the reunited family attends, and he leaves us with some interesting, if a bit “warm and fuzzy,” observations on the meaning of Siegfried crossing the magic fire. Obviously, there are some major issues at stake here, and all miraculously resolved in ninety minutes! Rosie O’Donnell is excellent fun as Sis’s buddy, and Jack Klugman entirely steals the show in five minutes as the doctor’s Orthodox Jewish father, who is almost the only moral compass available. Interesting.

  Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1950), written and directed by Albert Lewin. With Ava Gardner, James Mason, and Nigel Patrick. 123 minutes.

  What were they thinking? More Carmen than Pandora, Ava Gardner plays a tanned and tarty saloon chanteuse in Spain in the 1930s. She’s not interested in any of her many suitors except James Mason, who plays a Dutch sea captain named, if you can believe it, Hendrick van der Zee. Oy! As luck would have it, he’s that Dutch sea captain, condemned to wander until … well, you read about it several chapters ago. There are car races (why?) and matadors and you name it, all filmed in psychedelic Technicolor. Late-night TV viewing at its most bizarre.

  Interrupted Melody (1955), directed by Curtis Bernhardt. With Eleanor Parker, Glenn Ford, and Roger Moore. 106 minutes.

  This is a big-screen adaptation of Marjorie Lawrence’s autobiography of the same name. Lawrence was a great diva of the 1930s, primarily noted for her Wagner performances. She was stricken with polio in 1941, and, though confined to a wheelchair for several years afterward, resumed her career by singing first to the troops and eventually on the operatic stage in specially staged performances. You can imagine what Hollywood producers of the 1950s could do with that! The movie cheerfully blends fact and fancy to achieve a high-gloss tearjerker. At her first Götterdämmerung at the Metropolitan, Lawrence argues to follow the libretto’s instructions for the Immolation Scene, which say to leap on the bareback horse and ride into the flames. Come opening night, by golly, she does just that, and makes history. This much is fact. Lawrence was from the Australian outback and had no trouble with this feat. After the polio, she is seen making her “comeback” as Isolde, arranged in elegant immobility on the stage. While singing (you guessed it) the Liebestod, she rises to her feet and stands, and right at the moment of the climactic key change! This, alas, is not what we can call fact, but it is perhaps the single most messianic use of the Liebestod in film yet. This movie has many snippets of Wagner’s music in it, and is also interesting for the glimpses of operatic production values of that time. The singing was done by Eileen Farrell.

  Wagner Soundtracks

  Wagner’s music
has seeped into the communal subconscious, and it’s easy to see why moviemakers are so often tempted to borrow a few grand effects from the composer and save themselves a lot of work. The list below is by no means complete; “The Ride of the Valkyries” alone has made casual appearances in at least ten movies not included here, and if one were to include the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin, another entire volume would be needed. This is meant as a demonstration of how deeply this music is embedded in our culture, even among people who think they’ve never heard a note of it. Or, as you might prefer to say to friends who question your new interest in Wagner, “Relax, you’re soaking in it!”

  A Farewell to Arms (1932) The stirring scenes depicting the collapse of the Italian army and its retreat after the battle of Caporetto in the First World War are accompanied by music in which the thunder motif from Das Rheingold is repeated—and repeated and repeated. You won’t want to hear it again for some time after seeing this Gary Cooper/Helen Hayes film.

  Humoresque (1946) Whoever cast John Garfield as a concert violinist obviously held nothing sacred, so don’t be too surprised when you hear the Liebestod from Tristan played as a violin solo (!) in the score of this famous tearjerker while Joan Crawford kills herself. Isaac Stern played the off-camera fiddle. This film stylishly reduces the whole issue of Eros/Thanatos to its lowest common denominator in the simplistic imagination: Love Kills.

  The Great Dictator (1940) Few people remember that one of filmdom’s most sublimely twisted scenes owes much of its impact to an ingenious use of Wagner’s music. Charlie Chaplin plays Adenoid Hynkel in this fierce satire of Hitler. When fantasizing about world domination, Hynkel dances dreamily with a helium-filled globe as his partner—to the exquisite strains of the Lohengrin Prelude. The globe bursts and ruins the sobbing dictator’s reverie, brutally interrupting the music as well.