Rock Bottom

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

LISZTOMANIA

Directed and Written by KEN RUSSELL

The analogy may be arguable, but the argument is stimulating. It may well be that Franz Liszt was the first performer to court--and then find himself victimized by--celebrity akin to that accorded a rock star. Adolescents swooning at his concerts; the rich, famous and equally gifted vying eagerly for his attention; sexual swag collected at every stop on his endless concert tours--it all fits with what we know about contemporary life at the top of the charts.

Therefore, the idea of an anachronistic demi-rock opera starring demi-pop Star Roger Daltrey as Liszt has a certain cheeky appeal. The possibilities for gaining some fresh perspectives on popular culture, past and present, seem worth the risk of affronting our conventional biographical expectations. For a few minutes early in the film, when Director Russell presents a Liszt recital as if it were indeed a rock event, the experiment justifies itself. Poor old Franz becomes a hugely comic figure as he tries to satisfy the demands of his groupies (they want him to play his hit, Chopsticks), his conscience (by introducing some new music by a radical named Wagner) and his id (casing the audience for a suitable post-concert bed partner). If there is such a thing as bravura irony, this sequence is a prime example.

Analogy, however, is not drama.

Whatever point Lisztomania has to make is nailed down in one scene.

Thereafter, the audience sees the composer as lunatic victim: in one scene he climbs into a huge piano with a wrathful countess; in another he flies over Germany on a bombing mission. His crew: a bevy of ex-mistresses. Liszt ends as he begins, Candide with piano, an innocent exploited by everyone he encounters, especially Wagner (who became his son-in-law). Lest the audience wonder about the personality of Wagner, the film transforms him into Dracula, literally sucking the blood of his first patron, then into Dr. Frankenstein, sole creator of a monster named Hitler.

Does Russell actually believe such nonsense? Probably not, but it is a good excuse for hurling self-consciously shocking images upon the screen. These, in turn, are obviously designed to distract us from the fact that the film is intellectually bankrupt, unconcerned with historical characters or events. Russell's gift for imagery is undeniable; his outrages grab our attention even as common sense whispers that they are false, strained, childish in the worst sense. But the sensations have only a short-term effect; the mind cannot be conned. One leaves the theater feeling manipulated, ill-used, ripped off.

Counting his early best work for television, this is Russell's tenth essay in musical biography. In the past he has been stringently criticized for the careless manner in which he mixed the facts of these lives with his personal responses.

Even that tense mixture seems prefer able to the unmixed subjectivity of this Lisztless exercise. Lisztomania is not only a parody of biographical convention, but a self-parody as well -- a non stop effort to blind audiences to a once interesting sensibility now decayed into vulgarity.

Richard Schickel

Roger Daltrey, everyone agrees, swings a mean microphone.

He spins it above his head, letting it fly farther and farther, in ever widening circles, like a lariat. The stunt was Daltrey's trademark as lead vocalist of The Who; it is still a profitable skill onstage and in films. Tommy, The Who's rock opera, was a gimcrack parlayed into a remunerative cultural artifact. So far, the various Tommy albums and movie receipts have accounted for some $50 million, in which Daltrey retains a generous participation.

Daltrey also has two solo record albums to his credit--the second was 18 on the charts--an impending concert tour with The Who and the starring role in Lisztomania.

Such solo flights have threatened the security of Roger's group. The Who members have never been mates offstage--"We don't really get on," Daltrey admits. "We just make music together." But recently Pete Townshend, the group's leader and author of most of its music, has intimated that Daltrey has been slighting his collaborators. Despite this, Daltrey, 31, claims: "There is no real problem. Keith Moon, our drummer, is a bit jealous, but that's because he always wanted to be a movie star." The Who blitzkrieg of North America will open on schedule, Nov. 20 in Houston, and presumably intramural tensions can be vented onstage. After all, the group first became famous for smashing guitars, trashing amplifiers and wreaking havoc for the edification of its audience. In any case, Daltrey says, "we go our separate ways but always come back when the time is right."

Iron Maiden. Daltrey's way has twice coincided with the tortuous path of Russell, whose wide-screen fantasies appear excessive even against the standards of the rock world. In Tommy, Daltrey was imprisoned in an Iron Maiden constructed out of hypodermic needles. Lisztomania begins with Roger frenetically kissing the breasts of the Countess Marie in time to an amuck metronome, a scene that the star remembers vividly. "It was the first day on the set, and no one knew anybody else. Ken yelled, 'O.K., Roger, take off your clothes, get in bed and have an orgasm!' "

"Roger is a brilliant performer," Russell states unequivocally. "He has a curious quality of innocence that makes him perfect for Liszt." Russell's fantasy puts that innocence through some peculiar trials. In the new film, Liszt disappears in the vagina of a paramour ("It's just part of the job," Daltrey maintains); later he sprouts a 10-ft. penis. "A one-foot penis is dirty, but ten feet is funny," says Roger loyally. "There's nothing really all that bad in this movie. I'll let my Mum and kids see it."

The kids are three in number (one by a first wife). Daltrey and his present wife Heather, a former model, preside over a 280-acre farm and a 30-room Jacobean house restored by Roger himself. Mum and Dad, who live in the same late-Victorian house in Acton where Roger was raised, visit frequently. They are proud of their only son, even though success has brought disadvantages. The house has been burgled three times --"They think we have money because of Roger," says Mrs. Daltrey--and some of the outrages Russell has required their son to commit on-screen are a little difficult to cope with. But the elder Daltreys are learning. Roger took a snapshot of his grandmother, 88, cuddling up to the oversized phallus from Lisztomania, now stashed in Daltrey's barn as a souvenir. When Roger reported on the movie's opening scene, Mr. Daltrey managed to suppress his outrage. Said Mum: "It makes his father jealous."

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