I think it was around the time when Roger Daltrey rode a 10-foot penis statue into a giant guillotine that I realized that I had never seen anything quite like Ken Russell's Lisztomania before. A bizarre, stream-of-consciousness musical about the life and times of legendary pianist Franz Liszt, the film plays fast and loose with historical fact to the point where it's almost entirely a piece of original fiction. Two ideas dominate Lisztomania. The first is that Liszt was a rock star before there were rock stars. His concerts are swarmed with screaming girls who carry on like they were watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. The other idea is that Liszt's music and talents were stolen by none other than Richard Wagner who used them to promote anti-Semitic ideals which would one day evolve into the Nazi party. I can't speak as to whether or not either of these claims are based in fact, but I can admit that it makes compelling cinema. Russell channels the boundless creative anarchy of Terry Gilliam as he skips from one incredulous set-piece to another. In one scene Wagner will literally be sucking the blood from Liszt's neck while composing music. In the next Liszt will be gunning Wagner down with a weaponized piano equipped with wheels and flamethrowers. Russell's willingness to use historical anachronisms like Superman comics and an Incredible Thor costume reminds me of Derek Jarman's Caravaggio (1986) while his flippant re-interpretations of history smack of Alex Cox's Walker (1987). Whatever the case, Lisztomania is a film so unusual that seeing it isn't enough to make oneself believe it.
8/10
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