| Subcategories | Drama Condition (condition-type) |
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The Music Lovers [1970] | ![The Music Lovers [1970]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VMSA72RSL._SL500_.jpg)
| Director: Ken Russell
Actors: Richard Chamberlain, Glenda Jackson, Max Adrian, Christopher Gable, Kenneth Colley
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: Video
Used (3) Collectible (1) from £34.99
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 7961
Format: Pal
Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
Media: VHS Tape
Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 118 Minutes
EAN: 5013037141795
ASIN: B00004CJLJ
Theatrical Release Date: 1970
Release Date: August 13, 1990
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| Customer Reviews:
 The greatest British feature film ever made? Quite possibly. August 30, 2008
Basiledes (North Wales)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This film has so much going for it that you should stop and think twice before dismissing my claim.
First of all it is a genuine Tragedy in the Aristotelian sense.
Secondly, it the Tragedy of a major musical genius who is also a popular romantic artist.
Thirdly, he is treated by Russell as the representative Romantic Artist who tries but fails to live up to his ideals. This has always been Russell's main theme as an filmaker but we need to have his films about Debussy, Rossetti, Isadora Duncan and Richard Strauss, to put alongside some of the ones we have, to see this pattern as a whole.
It also touches profoundly, especially at the climax, on the subject of shamanism and genius.
Fourthly, the expressionistic visual style of the film is an attempt to create a visual equivalent of romantic music as an art form. In this it is nothing less than an experimental arthouse film - and a successful experiment too.
What other film in the 'all time great' category has this sort of grand universality of subject matter - Art, genius, Tragedy, the Romantic Artist, failed ideals of the highest kind? None at all with the exception of 'Les Enfants Du Paradis' or perhaps the Russian film of 'War And Peace'. Neither of them is British so I nominate this film as the best British feature film on the grounds of subject matter combined with its powerful treatment in a fairly non-naturalistic (I give points for this because it is more of a purely cinematic aesthetic than naturalism is) and original way, stamped in every frame with the directors vision.
We also need to have Russell's films about Wordsworth, Coleridge, Bruckner, Vaughan Williams and Martinu, and the early one about Prokoviev, all made for television like the missing films I mentioned above.
 Interesting approach to the biopic. January 2, 2003
Jason Parkes (Worcester, UK)
19 out of 30 found this review helpful
Ken Russell continues the work evident in early work based around such composers as Elgar- and that he would continue with 1974's Mahler. Here he applies his own philopshies and wonderful style towards the life of Tchaikovsky- working again with Melvyn Bragg and making a film far more interesting than such films on composers as Immortal Beloved, Amadeus and the abysmal Shine. People get really up in arms if people don't stick to the facts with biopics- but what are the facts here? - people will always have alternate recollections of the same events (see Reds) and what is wrong with interpreting/re-reading a life symbolically (there should be a tragedy somewhere, where we see Beethoven pretend to listen to his own works being performed and cannot- while this could be seen as a statement of fact, it could also be seen that someone who has created something cannot experience it for themselves, which is an ironic symbol- here speculation is applied- of course this is not a documentary!)- Andre Previn's music is excellent, and the lead performances are very good- particularly Glenda Jackson- who approaches the role with great erotic abandon. Look at this film, it's no masterpiece like Women in Love or The Devils, but it is far greater than touchy critics like Roger Ebert or whoever writes Halliwell's Film Guide suggest. At worst, it is hugely ambitious- not something that can be applied to contemporary British cinema...
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