Metrograph

A companion piece to Visconti’s The Leopard in its depiction of aristocracy in decline as well as a prequel of sorts to his The Damned, describing the conditions that allowed for the consolidation of Prussian power over a newly unified German Empire that set the stage for the Third Reich, Visconti’s opulent epic features Helmut Berger as the increasingly unhinged and isolated King Ludwig II, driven to folly by his unrequited passion for his cousin, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Schneider, reprising her starmaking Sissi role in a very different cinematic context), and his fondness for emptying his kingdom’s coffers to build fairy-tale castles and subsidize Richard Wagner’s career. A favorite film of Schneider’s and a very personal one for Visconti, a distant relative of the late King and an infamous chain-smoker who gave Berger, as the monarch in later life, tar-black teeth resembling his own.

Distributor: AGFA