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Lisztomania

Play trailer Poster for Lisztomania R 1975 1h 44m Fantasy Play Trailer Watchlist
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46% Tomatometer 13 Reviews 59% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
Composers Franz Liszt (Roger Daltrey) and Richard Wagner (Paul Nicholas) live wildly, surrounded by groupies and mistresses.
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Lisztomania

Critics Reviews

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Pauline Kael The New Yorker 10/20/2023
Russel can't seem to pull the elements of filmmaking together. Go to Full Review
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times 10/23/2004
3/4
It's a berserk exercise of demented genius, and on that level (I want to make my praise explicit) it functions and sometimes even works. Most people will probably despise it. Go to Full Review
Eddie Harrison film-authority.com 11/30/2023
3/5
…a deliberate travesty, Lisztomania is arguably peak Russell, packed with striking images and questionable scenes… Go to Full Review
David Sterritt Christian Science Monitor 08/06/2021
I await the day when Russell forgets about drawing crowds, and settles down to serious visualizations of the serious music that has meant so much to his life and career. Go to Full Review
Bernard Drew Gannett News Service 10/04/2019
Ken Russell's latest pyrotechnical heresy, Lisztomania, is upon us, a mad, fantastic joy ride that will outrage some, dazzle others, and leave no one bored. Go to Full Review
Andrew Todd Birth.Movies.Death. 09/01/2019
Lisztomania is a total mess, but it's a mess with Ken Russell's typical grandiosity and oddness of vision. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Liam D @Mediawatcher2003 07/02/2024 A spiritual follow up to Tommy. This feels like it gets lost in the madness but with some great music plus beautiful costumes and production design See more Alec B 02/21/2024 The first half has the right kind of wild, surreal energy (I like that from its first seconds the movie announces it has no interest in historical accuracy or good taste) but it becomes more labored and a bit boring in the second. At a certain point Russell's use of Nazi imagery seems less like a coherent thesis and more like an attempt to force meaning and commentary into this mess. See more Dave S 02/10/2023 Director Ken Russell made some monumentally bad movies over the course of his career, but at the top of his dung heap of cinematic garbage, one movie sits alone – Lisztomania. The film features Roger Daltrey as Franz Liszt, the 19th century Hungarian composer. There really is no plot to speak of as the movie is more a series of set pieces that may or may not be related to anything Liszt actually did during his life. It is filled with bad writing, bad acting, bad sets, annoying editing and enough phallic symbols to make you think it was thrown together by a horny 12-year-old schoolboy. There are a lot of movies out there that are entertainingly bad. Lizstomania isn't one of them. It is irritatingly bad and makes you wonder what the point of it all was. And that's the rub – there is no point. See more 07/25/2022 The first half has the right kind of wild, surreal energy (I like that from its first seconds the movie announces it has no interest in historical accuracy or good taste) but it becomes more labored and a bit boring in the second. At a certain point Russell's use of Nazi imagery seems less like a coherent thesis and more like an attempt to force meaning and commentary into this mess. See more bill v 04/10/2022 During it's initial theatrical release, I saw this film with a friend. In the middle of the movie, he ran out of the theater, screaming "what am I doing with my life?" Looking forward to seeing the second half. See more william d @acsdoug 03/09/2022 As a fan of Ken Russell's previous outing, Tommy, I was looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, whereas Tommy has some semblance of coherence, Lisztomania is just a mess. I thought Roger Daltrey gave a good performance in Tommy, but if you think about it, he spent most of that movie as a blind deaf mute. Here he actually has to say lines. Roger Daltrey is no actor. See more Read all reviews
Lisztomania

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Movie Info

Synopsis Composers Franz Liszt (Roger Daltrey) and Richard Wagner (Paul Nicholas) live wildly, surrounded by groupies and mistresses.
Director
Ken Russell
Rating
R
Genre
Fantasy
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Oct 10, 1975, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 1, 2009
Runtime
1h 44m
Sound Mix
Surround
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