Lisztomania (1975)

While it may lack narrative sense, this is, without a doubt, one of the most unpredictable and hypnotic viewing experiences you could ever hope to have.

There's no reason to suggest that Russell was just earning a paycheck on Lisztomania; clearly his full attention was on the giant penis, or the giant penis marble columns, or the giant heavenly penis pedestal.

It's not for those who find Russell's zany antics a bit much.

Franz Liszt(Roger Daltrey) performs at a sold out show, almost entirely composed of screaming teenaged girls. The only exception is Richard Wagner(Paul Nicholas), a promising young composer, whose work Liszt makes fun of before Wagner slinks off into the darkness. Fame is not all fun and games as Liszt is commanded to perform for Tsar Nicholas, taking him away again from his paramour Marie(Fiona Lewis) who gave up everything to be with him. At least, his daughter Cosima(Veronica Quilligan) makes him a doll which should comfort him until he makes a detour to visit Princess Carolyn(Sara Kestelman). With baroque, anachronistic and stylistic energy and imagery that includes an additional debt to classic and silent films, Ken Russell is less interested in the facts of Franz Liszt's life, assuming the audience is already familiar with his story and music(all I know is from the film "Impromptu" which featured Julian Sands as the Hungarian composer), than with creating a personal and psycho-political film that tries with a good deal of success to show what the inside of an artist's head looks like. Of course, not everything we see in there is pretty, as Liszt lives constantly in fear of being castrated and/or trapped. That's nothing compared to Richard Wagner who Russell sees as the root of all evil, i.e. Nazism. While I admire the effort to show the Nazis not occuring in a political vacuum, their causes probably went beyond just one classical composer.