Royal Rot

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

LUDWIG

Directed by LUCHINO VISCONTI Screenplay by LUCHINO VISCONTI, UGO SANTALUCIA and SUSO CECCHI D'AMICO

Ludwig runs for three hours, and the only interesting thing that happens during this deliberately enigmatic biography of the 19th century monarch, popularly known as The Mad King of Bavaria, is that his teeth slowly rot and fall out.

They are replaced by increasingly elaborate, architecturally fascinating examples of period bridgework. Since, however, one of the reasons the historical Ludwig failed to brush three times a day and see his dentist twice a year was that he was preoccupied with the construction of those huge, zany castles on which his fame--and much of modern Bavaria's tourist industry--rests, it seems perverse of Director Visconti to give us so many splendid views of the royal mouth, and only one or two postcard snaps of the royal passion.

Still, as demonstrated by Visconti's previous excursions through the darker realms of the German soul (The Damned, Death in Venice), decay in some form or other is the only thing that really interests him. It is thus natural for him to see Ludwig's molars as the mirror of his soul, while ignoring the fact that quite another side of the royal character was expressed in such glorious excesses as the romantic Schloss Neuschwanstein, the rococo Linderhof, and the unfinished imitation of Versailles, Schloss Herrenchiemsee. Ludwig's edifice complex may nearly have bankrupted his kingdom and cost him his throne, but he was, lunatic or not, the last great master builder of the Romantic Age.

Yet, as played here by the international beauty Helmut Berger, Ludwig never consults a plan, hectors an architect or drives a construction foreman crazy. Visconti doesn't even make anything humanly or dramatically interesting out of Ludwig's other major project--rescuing Richard Wagner (Trevor Howard) from his debts and subsidizing the premiere of Tristan and the beginning of work on the Ring Cycle. Such activities imply a mysterious will and energy that cries out for interpretive speculation; but this would interfere with Visconti's simple view of Ludwig as a moony homosexual victim of his era's political and intellectual climate, a notion he establishes in the film's first moments and never bothers to develop further. Nor does he do much but dawdle over Ludwig's passion for his cousin Elisabeth, Empress of Austria (Romy Schneider).

Maybe Visconti is afraid that complexity of character--he uses all his actors as bits of movable scenery--or dramatically meaningful sequences would distract attention from his endless, pointless photography of galloping horses, gliding boats, and light-footed lads. Or maybe the movie is a huge metaphorical joke: Ludwig, after all, built empty, rambling castles where no one ever lived. This movie is constructed along a similar plan. There was, though, a certain magnificence in Ludwig's madness. Visconti's movie is merely maddening.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.