Opening today and running to Dec. 19 at the Carlton Cinemas is The Wagner Files, a German made-for-TV documentary that purports to explore the fraught relationship between the music of Richard Wagner, his complex psyche and the women in his life.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
The Wagner Files, made to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth this year, is available in two formats. Toronto moviegoers get the longer, 90-minute version, which uses a CSI-type of investigative format to take us into the maelstrom that was Wagner’s existence.
The result is irredeemably awful.
No one will ever — anywhere, at any time — capture the complexities of Richard Wagner in 90 minutes. So, what to do? Find one or two particularly probing examples of his marriage of musical and operatic genius with a personality most aptly described as a scumbag — or do a Wikipedia bio-lite treatment.
Filmmaker Christian Beetz, who created The Wagner Files to fit into his TV documentary series The Culture Files, has chosen the latter, providing us quick brushstrokes from childhood to death in Venice.
Rather than explore Wager’s serial and ethically challenged manipulations of the people who supported him, or the reason why the composer repeatedly stole their wives or daughters, the doc mentions a few instances and moves on. The film makes a feeble attempt to go into the psychology of the relationship with last wife Cosima, but pretty much gives up by declaring Wagner had an infatuation with pink silks and roses.
The composer’s artistic progress is left alone, but we do get an ever-churning soundtrack of his orchestral scores — ending melodramatically with the cathartic closing music from the final opera in the Ring Cycle.
The charitable person might conclude that a slight biography is better than none at all, especially for people unfamiliar with the 19th century musical titan. But the Culture Files people undermine what little they achieve with a visual conception that works better as a spoof of what an overly creative modern documentarian might attempt.
Any movement or scenery is unabashedly today’s. So, when Wagner is fleeing, he is doing it from the inside of a fast-moving a car, with camera lens trained on the dashboard’s GPS unit. The composer and Cosima (played by Samuel Finzi and Pegah Ferydoni, who appears to have been born to play Frida Kahlo) have been transplanted into a decadent 1933-meets-2013 world of glassy surfaces and ornate telephones.
As our narrator (who changes her pronunciation of the composer’s name over the course of the film) provides historical background, director Ralf Pleger has added crudely sketched cartoons for visual support. Meanwhile, the doc-requisite talking heads have been parked in what looks like the interrogation room at secret police headquarters.
Like anyone else who has succumbed to the spell of Wagner’s art yet been repelled by his personal story, the talking heads tell us that, ultimately, there is no way to reconcile the two, and we must simply celebrate the composer for his musical legacy.
We’re lucky Pleger limited his feature-length cut to an hour-and-a-half.
To save your pfennigs and your precious time, dear reader, sate your prurient biographical desires on this trailer instead (if you’re a glutton for cinematic punishment, you’ll find the Carlton’s showtimes here):
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
