Mahler (1974)

Thursday, November 15, 2018 @ 7:00 PM
Globe Cinema - 617 8th Ave SW Calgary, AB
$12 General | $10 Members/Seniors/Students | $40 5-Pack Punch Pass | $99 Season Pass

DIRECTED BY KEN RUSSELL | UK | 115 MINS.

Ken Russell returns to his BBC roots with this lush and pastoral account of the life of Gustav Mahler. In hallucinatory interludes imagined by Russell, then at the peak of his powers, Mahler (Robert Powell) imagines the trials and tribulations of the life that led to his classic music.

Featuring evocative English Lake Country landscapes, a sterling cast including Georgina Hale as Mahler’s long suffering wife Alma, and Mahler's powerful and mournfully soulful music, Russell fashions one of his most complete and stimulating tales regarding the nature of musical creativity and the sacrifices, personal and professional, that are a part of the artist's life.

- Written by Scott Lang

MASTERS: KEN RUSSELL

A true iconoclast among British filmmakers, Ken Russell began his career in television, making films for the BBC that combined elements of the documentary and the biopic to radical effect. Many of Russell’s television films focus on composers, a trend he would continue throughout his career, resulting in baroque theatrical features about the likes of Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Liszt. Whether making biopics like Mahler, adaptations of canonized literary classics such as Women in Love, or wild phantasmagorias such as Altered States, Russell’s approach was always flamboyant and brash, the resultant films luxuriating in the tawdry or sensational. Often controversial, Russell always maintained the courage of his convictions and a defiant consistency of vision. Never beholden to decorum or conventional standards of good taste, Russell’s films continue to maintain their ability to shock, awe, and delight. His is a decadent cinema suggesting that civilization may not be so civilized after all.

About Calgary Cinematheque

We are a non-profit film society dedicated to presenting significant, challenging, and essential works of cinema art in Calgary. During our season, which runs from October to April, we screen films weekly, in curated programs which situate each film in a thematic and historical context. We do this because we believe cinema is an essential form of artistic, social, and political expression. Audiences should be able to engage with a wide range of cinematic expression, not only with what is commercially viable. We believe in the power of sharing these experiences with other people in a theatrical setting and we strive to cultivate a community around that experience.  

Calgary Showtimes: Mahler (1974)

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