Ludwig: Visconti's Epic Gets the Restoration Treatment

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): **½ (movie) ***½ (DVD)

Appreciating Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (1972), just released by Koch-Lorber in its original four-hour version, will depend somewhat on one's understanding of the place of royalty -- particularly the King -- in the minds and hearts of the people being ruled. Americans may intellectually understand the concept of royalty and divine right, but have no direct connection to it. Italian director Visconti, himself an aristocrat, understood royalty's positives and negatives rather well, as demonstrated most by his film version of The Leopard, as well as by Senso and Ludwig.

When the latter was released theatrically in the U.S., it was cut by an hour. Naturally, we purists cried foul and have long felt we were cheated of the real thing. Now that the real thing has arrived, we can relax and pipe down. Alas, the four hour version is every bit as tiresome as was the three hour cut, though there are visual pleasures aplenty to compensate: the sets, costumes, castles and flesh. The latter is seen mostly via the gorgeous young men favored by this "mad" Bavarian King, and one scene (which I either slept through or don't recall in the theatrical version) has them reclining listlessly in every nook and cranny -- even hanging from the rafters and from a rather large tree -- inside what looks like a hunting lodge or barn, while snow falls quietly outside.

The fellow who mans the always smart and interesting website called The Gay Recluse says that the real story of the movie is the director's obsession with his lead actor, Helmut Berger. This may well be, but Visconti's other's obsessions -- for royalty, art and the creation of that art -- are clearly on display, as well. Unfortunately, Berger -- never a whole lot more than a pretty face -- is simply not up to the task of anchoring an epic (as, say, Burt Lancaster's performance does for The Leopard). He preens and emotes, eyes stare and nostrils flair, but anything approaching a rich, layered performance never shows up. Ludwig was troubled, probably genetically inbred, obsessed with Richard Wagner, castle-building and young men, and eventually becomes more loony than not. That's about all we get and -- given the film's running time -- it’s not enough to sustain interest. (Visconti dabbles with the idea that perhaps Ludwig, pretending, is actually wiser than he seems. But nothing really comes of this.)

Granted, the movie's extremely episodic structure (Wagner's here, now he's gone. Whoops, he's back), coupled to an expository, tiresome screenplay does not help its fine cast, which includes Romy Schneider (Princess Elizabeth), Trevor Howard (Wagner), Silvana Mangano (beyond exquisite as Cosima) and Helmut Griem (the loyal Count Duerckheim). Visconti does intersperse his narrative with talking-head interviews, an effect that showed up a decade later to much acclaim in Warren Beatty's Reds. (Unlike Beatty, Visconti used his actors in "age" make-up, rather than the real people, who were long since gone.)

Ludwig also suffers from heavy tone changes -- now stately, now philosophical, now failed comedic (the actress/prostitute and the Shakespearean declaimer) -- as well as from too much repetition. Princess Elizabeth visits a castle and we watch her walk slowly up the stairs to the entrance to tour the inside. Then she does it all over again with another castle. (Yes, it's like taking a lovely German castle tour, but this is a narrative, damn it!) Visconti loves to show, and then tell, and then show again. If you compare this epic to The Leopard, in every way -- from story to characters, sets, costumes and cinematography -- it's the lesser of two films.

Fortunately, there are extras here, and they are wonderful: a 30-minute documentary on Silvana Mangano that is fascinating and full of clips from many films that non-Italians may have not seen. Costume and set designer Piero Tosi gets his own nearly hour-long documentary, and finally the director himself is given a 55-minute feature entitled Luchino Visconti: Life as in a Romance. For these alone, this two-disc set is a pleasure. As far as Ludwig itself, Visconti completists will certainly flock to it. The transfer is generally first-rate: crisp and colorful (the scene in which the courtiers kneel in their rich, red robes is a knockout).