Event

Mahler on the Couch

7:30 PM Mahler on the Couch (Mahler auf der Couch)
Directors: Percy (BAGDAD CAFÉ, SALMONBERRIES) and Felix Adlon
Run time: 97 minutes
In German with English subtitles

In 1910, Gustav Mahler met Sigmund Freud. Paralyzed by despair over his cheating wife, the maestro sought the help of the father of psychoanalysis. Their famous four-hour encounter at a Dutch seaside resort is the framing device for this delightful, witty and artistically rigorous collaboration by the father and son team Percy (BAGDAD CAFÉ, SALMONBERRIES) and Felix Adlon. The film ties together Mahler's musical genius and his doomed love for his vivacious, young and creative wife Alma. With flashbacks and documentary-like interviews with Alma's mother (Eva Mattes) and other pivotal personalities of Vienna's art scene, the film explores the source of Gustav's great joy and sorrow, while suggesting that Alma is in every note of music he wrote during their marriage. With brilliant performances by Johannes Silberschneider (Mahler) and Barbara Romaner (Alma), the film offers a hypnotic portrait of Alma nee Schindler – as attractive, young Bohemian, as a frustrated wife, and as megawatt presence in the era's intellectual demimonde who would become a tireless lover of notable artistes. The Adlons use a film score entirely derived from Mahler's music, recorded by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.