Ludwig (1972) - film review

Ludwig II is a mere youth of nineteen when he ascends to the throne of Bavaria in 1864.  A sensitive and idealistic young man, he shows far more interest in the arts and architecture than he does in matters of state.  He is obsessed by the music of Richard Wagner and is a generous patron of the composer.  Preferring the company of his own sex, the only woman who interests Ludwig is Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, but she is unable or unwilling to be his consort.  Instead, he declares that he will marry her younger sister, Sophie, but later changes his mind and immediately begins an affair with a young actor. As Bavaria goes to war with Prussia, Ludwig can think only of art and the many great castles he intends to build.  His ministers conclude that he is mad and contemplate his removal...

The disintegration of the aristocracy and aristocratic values is a recurring theme in the work of director Luchino Visconti and is perhaps portrayed most vividly in this lavishly staged portrait of the life of King Ludwig II of Bavria.  It is not too difficult to see the connections between the director, who was the descendent of one of Italy’s oldest and wealthiest dynasties, and the film’s subject.  Both Visconti and Ludwig allowed art to take over their lives, compromising their social position – although the former was a true artist who achieved great things whilst the latter’s greatness lay in sponsoring those who did have talent, notably Richard Wagner.  

Ludwig offers a fascinating portrait of an intriguing historical character (who, like Visconti, was an overt homosexual with a taste for the extravagant), but it is clearly far more than that.  What the film shows us is how man’s natural, deeply ingrained desire for freedom can never be satisfied.  Art can free a man’s spirit to a degree, but it is a ladder than can only take us so far above the mud in which we live.  The chains that thwarted Ludwig in his pursuit of fulfilment are echoed in the life of Visconti, indeed any artist whose efforts are frustrated through the constraints of talent, time, money and social obligations.  Ludwig is a film that echoes with the cry of despair of an artist who seeks perfection but knows he can never achieve it.

The tragic descent into paranoia and isolation of a man whose only solace in life is art, who prefers building castles to court politics and playing at toy soldiers with the lives of other men, is a story of the utmost poignancy.  In what is widely regarded as his best screen performance, Helmut Berger conveys the pathos and obsessive character of Ludwig with searing conviction.  The actor had previously made an impact in Visconti’s earlier film, The Damned (1969) and would become the director’s lifelong partner.   In the part of Elizabeth of Austria, Romy Schneider reprises the role (Sissi) that she played in a series of films of the mid-1950s and which brought her stardom at an early age.

With its sprawling four hour runtime and its ambitious, beautifully composed tableaux depicting Bavarian court life in the mid-19th Century, Ludwig is Visconti’s most unrestrained and artistically self-conscious film.  Its reputation has suffered from being released in various poorly edited versions; only the complete four hour version has the integrity and power that its maker intended.  Slow moving and occasionally self-indulgent the film may be, but watched in its entirety the patient spectator is rewarded with an extraordinary cinematic experience.

© James Travers 2008

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