[billorites]

Pingy

[Dr. Sivana]

How could you not mention one of the better movies in the genre, The Glenn Miller Story? Technically, The Buddy Holly Story would also count.

[Richard Kimball]

Since it's a fictionalized account, it might not fit here, but Bob Fosse's All That Jazz was one of the best movies about the creative process. Also, Ann Reinking was in it, automatically making it great.

[ClearCase_guy]

Of Russell's big-budget, sweeping and sensationalistic extravaganzas, the most successful is The Music Lovers, a 1970 feature about Tchaikovsky.

My parents took me to see this movie when I was probably 12 or so. My parents exposed me to quite a bit of questionable culture (I tend to now have odd, eclectic taste, but I wasn't terribly scarred).

This Ken Russell movie has never been made available on DVD, which is great crime. It's over-the-top, and it's bad history, but it is a remarkable movie.

[MinuteGal]

What a pleasure to read a well-written article these days.

The author's very interesting sweet-and-sour critique made me want to see all those old "composer" movies over again...along with a box or two of Milk Duds and a grain of salt.

Leni

[Artemis Webb]

Really nice post billorites.
Thanks.

[kalee]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Love_(film)

If you can find it.,..Song of Love with Katherine Hepburn playing
Clara Wieck Schumann.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Mr. Sawhill doesn’t like much, does he? He must have been paid by the word to write this lengthy, pointless bilge.

[ken5050]

"De-lovely" was horrid..however, there is one magical moment..Alanis Morrissette does a 5 minute redndition of "(Birds do it)..Let's fall in love" that is pure magic..

Anyone see the recent Bobby Darrin biopic?

[left that other site]

Nobody has made a movie about Hector Berlioz yet. His could be a totally cool Psychedelic surreal head trip and could be called “Symphony Fantastique”.

Artsy Fartsy! LOL!

[ConservativeDude]

“They give us a Tchaikovsky who’s a queeny hysteric, a morally reprehensible narcissist”

Which is to say, a typical fag.

On a more highbrow note, this is an excellent article.

[a fool in paradise]

Russell went even farther with his campier instincts in his ultra-flamboyant, notorious 1975 Lisztomania, which proposes Liszt as a bare-chested glitter-rock icon. I didn't enjoy it as much as The Music Lovers, but it's certainly worth searching out. Full of nudity, disco-ready renditions of Liszt's music and S&M fantasy sequences, the film comes — for better and worse — as close to The Rocky Horror Picture Show as any composer-biopic ever has. It's also true to the general outlines of Liszt's life, as well as amazingly shrewd about the nature of tabloid stardom.

[a fool in paradise]

Kinski Paganini (1989) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganini_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Paganini

[ADemocratNoMore]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned “Beethoven - Eroica / John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique (2003)- The day that changed music forever.

http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Gardiner-Orchestre-Revolutionnaire-Romantique/dp/B000936H7S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1277525674&sr=8-1

A must see, must own movie, IMHO.