the lead actor who played ludwig was incredible. the sets, the acting, the dialogue, the editing was all great. i can't decide if it's better then the leopard or not.
share> i can't decide if it's better then the leopard or not.
The Leopard is better, no question about it. Ludwig suffers a lot from its traumatized production history, but also Visconti was partially to be blamed for being too self-indulgent.
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The odd thing about your last sentence is that the first clause is perfectly factual but the second is your opinion presented as fact.
You might choose to "blame" Visconti for being self-indulgent, and so might certain critics, but many astute viewers don't feel that way at all. And even if they did agree with you, there's no such thing as absolute taste.
Of all the things you could have come up with to criticize Ludwig in contrast to The Leopard, indulgence surely is the most inappropriate. Ludwig is a film about an indulgent man, almost about indulgence. The ball scenes in Leopard are surely the most indulgent scenes in cinema history, Visconti said goodbye to the storyline and just went roaming around the ball for what, 40 minutes?
I love both films and couldn't choose between them, I just don't see your distinction.
"Une catastrophe, c'est la première strophe d'un poème d'amour"
Obviously not a film for everyone, but after seeing the complete four-hour version of this, I am convinced it was ideally suited to Visconti's majestic and elegiac vision and he certainly knew what he was doing in casting Helmut Berger. Berger seems exactly right here, as does Trevor Howard as Wagner and of course Romy Schneider as Empress Elizabeth. As one might expect, its an absolutely stunning film visually, and a compelling depiction of "Mad King Ludwig". I only wish something had been shown of him as a child or teenager, to give us a bit more knowledge of why he was the way he was, his family life when young, etc., something to explain more Visconti's feeling for why this king who had everything felt the need to retreat into his interior world...but then it would probably have been another hour longer! We're left with basically just his homosexuality and consequent "differentness" to explain it all, and I found that somewhat simplistic.
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