Friday, February 6, 2015

February 6 - Klimt

Today’s movie is a biographical drama with a scene that happens on February 6. Watch it tonight and enjoy.

KLIMT                                  

On February 6, 1918 [2:00 to 5:22] Egon Schiele comes to see the dying Gustav Klimt in the hospital. Klimt starts thinking back on his life. He is an artist who is deeply involved in the philosophical debate about the theory of art. Klimt is so avant-garde, he is not happy to win a gold medal at the 1900 Paris Exposition for his art. He meets Lea de Castro and begins a sexual relationship with her, watched by Duke Octavo and her double. His paintings are not as well received in his hometown of Vienna. He throws himself into a decadent lifestyle and soon has a fourteen illegitimate children by Jewish mothers and syphilis. He steals his own painting back from a museum. Klimt meets Egon Schiele. Klimt’s hallucinations become more and more disjointed as he slowly dies on February 6, 1918 [1:27:06 to 1:33:20].

A very mixed up film. Beautiful and innovative cinematography, but even if you know Klimt’s story you could not figure it out from this film or what message you’re supposed to take away. A mysterious movie, rather like Klimt’s art. 

The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece Portrait of
Adele Bloch-Bauer by Anne-Marie O’Conner (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012) at
page 64 gives the date of Klimet’s death

Producers - Matthew Justice, Arno Ortmair, Dieter Pochlatko and Andreas Schmid

Director - Raúl Ruiz

Screenplay - Gilbert Adair, Raúl Ruiz and Herbert Vesely

Runtime – 2 hours 11 minutes(director’s cut), 1 hour 36 minutes (theatrical release)

Released – March 3, 2006      

Starring –

John Malkovich as Klimt
Veronica Ferres as Midi
Stephen Dillane as Secretary
Saffron Burrows as Lea de Castro
Sandra Ceccarelli as Serena Lederer
Nikolai Kinski as Egon Schiele
Aglaia Szyszkowitz as Mizzi
Joachim Bibmeier as Hugo Moritz
Ernst Stötzner as Minister Hartl
Paul Hilton as Duke Octave
Annemarie Düringer as Klimt's Mother
Irina Wanka as Berta Zuckerkandl

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015.





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