Ken Russell did have some interesting ideas that came across as entertaining but there were times where his style got ahead of him and the film in question, and Lisztomania epitomises a bit of both. Lisztomania is definitely a polarising film, people will find it wonderfully weird while others will find it tasteless. With me, both seem to be here which is the main reason why the film is not an easy one to rate. If you are looking for a biographical drama, look elsewhere, the first half does have a story to it(more than likely to be fictionalised though) but the second half is like you've having a long really surreal dream and the characters are merely parodies. There are some striking visuals that are colourful and surreal while the music is pulsating and catchy and there is evidence of wit and imaginative touches like the homage to Charlie Chaplin and Hammer films, the fantasy interlude, Liszt's arrival at the castle and the Frankenstein figure(though that may also come under vulgar too because it's Wagner and the Nazis). Fiona Lewis and Veronica Quilligan are good as well. Some of it can feel music-video-like though- much of the second half has very little plot and feels like an excuse to string different vignettes together with a lot of tone shifts- and while the special effects are mostly okay the spaceship is rather fake. Lisztomania does change tone a lot and some of the shifts come without warning and feel very chaotic and there are some touches that are vulgar like the piano torture machine, the giant penis, sex scenes at high speed, Nazi iconography. Not entirely which category the vaginal fantastic voyage comes under, visually it was imaginative but there was a real weirdness as well, the same could be said of the most unique version of the Pope you will ever see. Most of the acting is really not very good, Paul Nicholas is pretty awful, Ringo Starr has a naturalness but doesn't have much to do and Roger Daltry is rather dull. Russell has shown with his Elgar and Delius biographies that he can be restrained and Mahler also(though also with some outrageous images), but Lisztomania is the prime example that I've seen of his filmography where restraint and subtlety go completely out the window, and at times it can feel heavy-handed. Overall, very difficult to rate but is unlike many other films seen before, personally not entirely sure whether I liked or disliked it, most likely to be neither. 5/10 Bethany Cox

If you're tuning into Lisztomania hoping to find a biographical account of this remarkable composer, you're bound to be left bewildered and probably somewhat disappointed. For this is Ken Russell at his most self-indulgent, and anyone who knows Ken Russell will know that means a film of extraordinary vulgarity, obscenity, sexual innuendo, phallic imagery, anti-Nazism and more. Instead of telling the story in true-to-the-fact style, Russell has written and directed a film that relies upon allegory, metaphor and fantasy to point its message. For example, in real life Liszt was very popular with the public – in Russell's version Liszt puts on pop-star style concerts, complete with screaming female fans. The real Liszt was a confident womaniser – to symbolise this, Russell has him riding a twelve foot rubber penis over a bevy of scantily clad, open-legged women toward a giant guillotine that is used to sever his over active member! Liszt also had a strained relationship with fellow composer Richard Wagner (who married Liszt's eldest daughter) – in Russell's twisted vision Wagner is portrayed as a vampire possessed by the Devil, who dies only to be brought back to life as a Hitler-Frankenstein hybrid who shoots Jews with a machine gun disguised as a guitar (!) Franz Liszt (Roger Daltrey) gives a bravura performance at a concert for his army of adoring female fans. Part of the concert features music written by a young upcoming musician named Richard Wagner (Paul Nicholas). After the concert, Liszt is confronted by his mistress Marie (Fiona Lewis), who is irritated by her lover's continual unfaithfulness with other women. Before leaving his mistress for yet another concert – this time in Russia – Liszt is asked by his daughter Cosima (Veronica Quilligan) to write a romantic piece for her mother in order to repair their damaged relationship. Liszt foolishly states that he would sell his soul for the opportunity to do so… and later gets his wish, when he meets up once more with Wagner, who by now has become the Devil and who vampirises Liszt. During his absence his mistress and two youngest children are killed in fighting in their native Hungary, so Liszt seeks love with a Russian princess, but their marriage plans are scuppered when the church refuses to grant her a divorce. Liszt is visited by the Pope (Ringo Starr), who tells him that the only way he can find meaning and value in his life is by tracking down his old acquaintance Wagner and casting out the Devil in him.Don't say you weren't warned! A brief skim through this plot synopsis shows that Lisztomania is far from your average historical bio-pic. Daltrey is unable to carry the picture as the eponymous subject, but he is at least not as embarrassing as Starr, the Liverpudlian-accented Pope, nor Nicholas, the scenery-chewing, wide-eyed Wagner (these two performances are stunning in their awfulness). Better work is done by Lewis as Liszt's suffering mistress – she is terrific in a weirdly fascinating scene showing the rise and fall of her relationship with Liszt, done in the style of a Chaplin silent movie. Also, young Quilligan is surprisingly effective – and creepy – as his voodoo practising daughter. Russell shows no restraint whatsoever, and indulges in some of the most vulgar and tasteless sequences of his vulgar and tasteless career, but his visual assault does at least manage to convey some powerful cinematic images. These startling images alone are not enough to make Lisztomania a good film, but it can certainly be viewed on the level of a uniquely outrageous failure.

In Ken Russell's burlesque of Listz's life Franz is forever young, Felix Mendlessohn is never Wagner's friend, and Friedrich Nietzsche has been reduced to a hat! When we first catch sight of him, Wagner has come to one of Listz's piano recitals (in truth a rock concert) to ask the Master to play the overture to "Rienzi"; Liszt complies, yet keeps on interrupting the score with bits of "Chopsticks" when the audience (mostly 19th century groupies) grows bored. Wagner stalks off, dressed in a rediculous summer sailor suit, the Nietzsche German sailor's cap perched on his fuzzy head. And this is how it goes for Dick throughout the film; dressed as a Kronstad sailor from Eisenstein's "October 1917" he sneaks into Listz's Hungarian home to beg for money, then exhibits vampirism, afterwhich he seduces Franz's daughter Cosima. After Liszt beats Richard (looking more like the drawings of Wagner you see on CD covers) in a musical battle, the latter dies, only to rise from the grave as a FrankenHitler decked out as a Private in the German Wehrmacht. If Russell had waited a year, there would have been a good chance he would have punked out Wagner, giving the film the subtext of Classic Rock vs. the Sex Pistols. It might have worked.

I enjoyed Roger Daltrey's performance in Tommy, and I'm really into rock musicals, so I figured I'd give this one a try. Why did I bother??? It was SO UTTERLY BAD, with the only redeeming quality being Little Nell's brief (yet memorable) appearance. Go straight for Tommy and skip this crap if you can!!!