Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

prguy721 The films of director Ken Russell certainly aren't known for restraint, and The Music Lovers is no exception. In fact, every ounce of punch it delivers survives to this day. I recently showed this film, and someone present who was only a child when it came out couldn't believe it was released in 1970. In any case, the tortured life of Tchaikovsky (mostly because of his gay closet-case existence), as intensely portrayed by Richard Chamberlain, creates a compelling story that may not be as historically accurate as it could have been. Even so, it's high on entertainment value, and you won't be able to take your eyes off the screen due to the lavish production values, a grand score by the London Symphony Orchestra and one of Glenda Jackson's many astounding performances. This time around, she's Tchaikovsky's neglected wife. In some ways, she ends up stealing the show as her life completely and shockingly unravels. If anything, regardless of how one reacts to the indelible scenes in the The Music Lovers, the one thing it isn't, is forgettable.

zounds82 I have not seen The Music Lovers since the 1970s but it remains vivid in my mind, regardless of its historical inaccuracy. Perhaps it was that I was just coming to terms with my homosexuality at the very time I saw it at 17. Nevertheless, I have its visual images burned into my mind and will do for the rest of my life. That says something about the imagination of the director. No other Russell film made such an impression on me, though, I have to say, so perhaps the effect had to do with my love of Tchaikovsky's music and my identification with his struggles. How I would like to have met Tchaikovsky! What a musical imagination he had! So many great works that will live forever.

rdjeffers Flaming Love, and CholeraSunday October 22, 12:00pm, The Cinerama"Gossip dies without a few facts to support it my friend. Tchaikovsky gives them plenty."The fifth of seven vaguely biographical features based on the lives of prominent composers, The Music Lovers (1970) is director Ken Russell's florid distortion of romantic Russian master, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Throughout his long career, a primary criticism of Russell's work has been that the garish, excessive and vulgar in-your-face style of this former television director is merely amplified on the big screen. Casting one of televisions biggest stars in the title role, production values which have become decidedly dated, and the frequent use of dizzying camera movement do little to contradict this observation. Still, Russell's typically over-the-top portrayal of an artist who struggles with childhood trauma, a difficult (but very unconvincing) temperament and sexual frustration, does have several breathtaking visual moments: The incredible bonfire scene, dancing with the swans, and Nina (Glenda Jackson) ravaged through an iron grate by lunatic asylum inmates. The beautiful score is of course, Tchaikovsky.

Hamilton1781 Ken Russell's "The Music Lovers" might be one of the, if not the best film ever made on the subject of classical music. I emphasize this, because as a historical biography it could be described as merely sensational.Russell portrays Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain) as a closet homosexual who is haunted by the past and present. In order to obtain social acceptance, he marries a sexually ravenous young woman (Glenda Jackson). Their marriage, of course, proves to be disastrous, and Peter flees from his wife, isolating himself in the countryside to compose music for Madame Von Meck (Isabella Telezynska), a rich aristocrat and widow. But Tchaikovsky's past comes back to haunt him several times before the film's manic and grotesque conclusion.Russell has constructed images that are beautiful and disgusting (often in the same scene) and the film is a perfect accompaniment to the inspiration and ambiance felt in the composer's music.The best scenes involve the seamless meld between sound and image. A concert at the beginning of the film beautifully transposes images of audience members listening to Tchaikovsky's latest piece, with the fantasies that the music inspires in them. Numerous fantasy sequences throughout the film teeter on the edge of insanity, highlighting the composer's feelings and fears.Which brings us to the film's astonishing and loony climax: an excessive montage set to the "War of 1812 Overture" that must rival any other sequence in the history of film for its inappropriateness. The piece is no doubt Tchaikovsky's most well known work, which brought him wealth and fame. But Russell presents his transition from composer to "star" entirely in fantasy. I could try to describe this sequence for you, but it would be futile. It must be seen to be believed. Let's just say that the climatic cannons from the "Overture" are put to violent and hilarious use.The components of the film come together perfectly. Everyone seems to have been in their element while filming. The cinematography by Douglas Slocombe is absolutely beautiful, and proves to be the best feature of the film. This is possibly the best "looking" Russell film. Glenda Jackson's performance as the nymphomaniac wife is perfectly in tune with Russell's histrionic presentation. And though Richard Chamberlain does not fair as well, he shows some emotional depth that has hardly been seen in his other work.Russell's pyrotechnic camera-work is so breathtaking that it is a wonder why the man cannot find work these days. "The Music Lovers" is an exercise in the pure joy of film-making and the emotions it can invoke within us. Perhaps Russell's career slipped through his fingers in the late 1970's (along with his budget), but this film, like Tchaikovsky's greatest compositions, is a work of genius.