Mahler on the Couch Austria/Germany, 2010, 97 minutes, German with English subtitles A Film By Percy Adlon and Felix Adlon Public Exhibition Formats: 35mm, DCP, Digibeta, BluRay, DVD |
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NYC Theatrical Run Extended by Popular Demand!
“Very witty and erotic…Percy Adlon is up to old tricks in this, delightful, artistically vigorous and occasionally loony fantasia about Vienna's cultural elite 100 years ago.” –The Hollywood Reporter | Read Full Review
“The scenes with Karl Markovics, as Freud, are the lingering appeal of this artfully composed film, framed with aesthetic care and scored with Mahler’s music, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen (working with the Swedish Radio Symphonic Orchestra). Freud’s presence in the film springs from a playful premise: What happened when Mahler, a sufferer of migraines tortured by his wife’s infidelity, turned to Freud for relief?” –The New York Times | Read Full Review
"During the late summer of 1910, a distraught Gustav Mahler journeyed to Holland to spend a single afternoon with a vacationing Sigmund Freud, and their onetime encounter serves as the departure point for this eccentric and expressionistic reverie on love, loss, and the birth of modern marriage."
–The Village Voice | Read Full Review
'Mahler' Conducts a Witty Fantasia –Chicago Sun-Times | Read Full Review
Mahler Biopic Hits Right Notes –Chicago Tribune | Read Full Review
'Percy and Felix Adlon tease out the famous counseling session in Mahler on the Couch. –The Jewish Week | Read Full Review
'Alma, Gustav and Sigmund: Mahler on the Couch' –Classical TV | Read Full Review
'Mahler on the Couch' Recounts Fateful Therapy Session' –WQXR New York Public Radio | Read Full Review
TrustMovies.com | Read Full Review
MAJOR THEATRICAL RELEASE
Austria • Germany • Japan
North American Festival Screenings
WORLD PREMIERE
• Los Angeles Film Festival
OPENING NIGHT FILM
• New York Jewish Film Festival 2011
Farthest North Jewish FIlm Festival (2016)
New York Jewish Film Festival (2016) - Special Screening
Washington Jewish Film Festival (2015)
Columbus GA Jewish Film Festival (2015)
Budapest Jewish Film Festival (2014)
Museum of Fine Arts Houston/ Houston Symphony Orchestra (2014)
Maine Jewish Film Festival (2013)
Florida Atlantic University Kultur Festival (2013)
Columbus Symphony Orchestra/ Drexel Theater (2013)
Rio de Janeiro Jewish Film Festival (2012)
Sao Paolo Jewish Film Festival (2012)
Spokane Jewish Cultural Film Festival (2012)
Orange County Jewish Film Festvial (2012)
East Bay International Jewish Film Festival (2012)
Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival (2012)
Denver Jewish Film Festival (2012)
East Bay International Jewish Film Festival (2012)
UK Jewish Film Festival (2011)
Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival (2011)
German Currents, Museum of Photographic Arts; San Diego, CA (2011)
Colonial Theater New Hampshire (2011)
Goethe Institute; Washington, DC (2011)
Washington DC
Jewish Film Festival (2011)
North American Theatrical Runs
Theatrical Run: Living Room Theaters; Boca Raton, FL (March, 2013)
Theatrical Run: Living Room Theaters; Portland, OR (January, 2013)
Theatrical Run: Savoy Theater; Montpelier, VT (January, 2013)
Theatrical Run: The ShowRoom Cinema; Asbury Park, NJ (2012)
Theatrical Run: Coolidge Corner Theater; Brookline, MA (2012)
Theatrical Run: Cinema du Parc; Montreal, Quebec (2012)
Theatrical Run: Real Art Ways; Hartford, CT (2012)
Theatrical Run: Movies of Delray; Delray Beach, FL (2012)
Theatrical Run: Movies of Lake Worth; Lake Worth, FL (2012)
Theatrical Run: The Ryder; Bloomington, ID (2012)
Theatrical Run: Sag Harbor Cinema; Sag Harbor, NY (2012)
Theatrical Run: The Tower Theater; Miami, FL (2012)
Theatrical Run: Film Society of Lincoln Center; New York, NY (2012)
Theatrical Run: Gene Siskel Film Center; Chicago, IL (2012)
Berkshire
Jewish Film Festival (2011)
Birmingham and Midland Institute (2017)
Synopsis
This exuberant imagining of the real-life marriage of Gustav Mahler (Johannes Silberschneider) and his tempestuous wife Alma Schindler Mahler (the luminous Barbara Romaner) is a sensory feast of art, sex and celebrity in fin-de-siècle Vienna. Chafing under her agreement to give up her own musical ambitions, Alma seeks passion in the arms of the young, dashing architect Walter Gropius, which sends a tormented Mahler to Sigmund Freud for consultation. “Cameos” by Gustav Klimt and Max Burckhard. Moving and funny (the sessions with Freud are sly gems) the film is filled with Mahler’s sublime music conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Beautifully written and directed by Percy Adlon (Bagdad Café) and his son Felix Adlon.
That it happened is fact. How it happened is fiction." - Percy & Felix Adlon
Based on a true story. August 1910. Devastated and confused by the discovery that his beloved wife Alma is having an affair with Gropius, Mahler travels to Holland to consult with Sigmund Freud, who is on vacation in Leiden. Feeling humiliated and betrayed, Mahler initially refuses the couch, but when Freud wheels a camp bed into the room, he relents. Their encounter stretches into the night as Mahler vividly recounts his seduction of Alma, the beautiful darling of Vienna’s arts scene, their unexpected but passionate love affair and their eventual marital troubles. The next day, the two great men go their separate ways. Overjoyed with what he sees as his cure, Mahler travels to rejoin Alma.
David Ansen of Newsweek on Mahler on the Couch
“Percy Adlon, who delighted audiences with Bagdad Cafe and Sugarbaby, is back in rare form with Mahler on the Couch. Mahler is none other than the great turn-of-the-century composer Gustav Mahler; the couch belongs to no less than Sigmund Freud, whom the freaked-out maestro, desperate for help, tracks down in Holland after discovering that his beloved wife Alma has had an affair with the young architect Walter Gropius. Adlon's passionate and witty film, which he co-wrote and directed with his son Felix, is a portrait of the fascinating, fevered, and doomed marriage between these two powerful partners. The headstrong Alma—played by the fiercely sensual Barbara Romaner—both worships her much older lover and chafes under his domination. Avoiding stuffy biopic conventions, Mahler on the Couch honors the complexity and humanity of both of its tormented lovers, keeping our sympathies in a constant state of flux.”
VIDEO: Behind the scenes with the filmmakers
Huffington Post | Interview with the filmmakers & star by Michael Kurchfeld
Jewish Daily Forward | Interview with Percy Adlon at the New York Jewish Film Festival
Downloads
Press
Kit
Film
Website (English)
Film
Website (German)
Percy Adlon filmography
Original Press
Kit
Media Links — Reviews
| Review: "Eccentric and expressionistic..." | The Village Voice |
| A Father and Son Team Take On Freud and Mahler | NY Jewish Week |
| ‘Mahler’ Conducts a Witty Fantasia | Chicago Sun-Times |
| “Mahler on the Couch" hit of the German Film Festival | San Diego News |
| Review: " Esta filme es sublime" | El Nuevo Herald (US Spanish-language newspaper) |
| Review: "Opening a window to the world of cinema" | Montreal Gazette |
| Review: "Mahler au bord du gouffre" | Le Devoir (French-language newspaper) |
Media Links — NYJFF Screening
| Tell Me About Your Childhood, Mr. Mahler The Composer’s Visit With Freud Opens the New York Jewish Film Festival | Jewish Daily Forward |
| "Mahler on the Couch" To Open 20th Annual New York Jewish Film Festival | Indiewire |
| Feminists in Focus: "Mahler on the Couch" Without Jewish Guilt at the New York Jewish Film Festival | Lilith |
| NYJFF: The Adlons' "Mahler on the Couch" Pairs the Composer with Alma and Freud | TrustMovies |
Media Links — Freud & Mahler
| A Lively Musical Corpus Gustav Mahler, Almost a Century Dead and Still Kicking | Jewish Daily Forward |
| Measuring Mahler, in Search of a Jewish Temperament | Jewish Daily Forward |
| When Mahler Took Manhattan | New York Times |
| Gustav Mahler and the Art of Alienation | Center for Jewish History |
| The Persecution of Creativity: Jews, Music and Vienna | Center for Jewish History |
| Is Gustav Mahler's Music Inherently Jewish? | Jewish Voice & Herald |
| Mahler: Music & the Language of Antisemitism in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna | Book Review |
| Mahler Gets Sanitized Celebration, Erasing Nazi Cruelty | Bloomberg News |
| Reading Mahler: German Culture and Jewish Identity in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna | Book Review |
| Smart Jews in Fin-de-siècle Vienna: "Hybrids" and the Anxiety about Jewish Superior Intelligence | Sander Gillman essay |
| Psychotherapy's Jewish Roots The Author of 'American Therapy' Discusses Freud | Jewish Daily Forward |
| Mahler's Loves, Rivals, Baton Captivate in Paris Show: Review | Bloomberg News |
| Interviews (video & transcripts) about Mahler (including the "Jewish Question") with conductors -- Alan Gilbert, Herbert Blomstdt, Simon Rattle, Riccardo Chailly, Manfred Honeck, Antonio Pappano, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson Thomas, Pierre Boulez, Franz Welser-Most, Pierre Boulez, Michael Gielen, David Zinman | Mahler Universal Edition |
Cast
Johannes Silberschneider GUSTAV MAHLER (see Where
to and Back trilogy)
Barbara Romaner ALMA MAHLER
Karl Markovics SIGMUND FREUD
Eva Mattes ANNA MOLL
Friedrich Mücke WALTER GROPIUS
Lena Stolze JUSTINE MAHLER-ROSE (see The
White Rose)
Nina Berten ANNA VON MILDENBURG
Manuel Witting GUSTAV KLIMT
Matthias Franz Stein ALEXANDER VON ZEMLINSKY
Michael Dangl BRUNO WALTER
Karl Fischer CARL MOLL
Max Mayer MAX BURCKHARD
Michael Rotschopf ALFRED ROLLER
Johanna Orsini-Rosenberg BERTA ZUCKERKANDL
Simon Hatzl ARNOLD ROSE
Daniel Keberle FRANZ HIR
Crew
Written & Directed by Percy Adlon and Felix Adlon
Produced by Eleonore Adlon, Burkhard Ernst, Konstantin Seitz
Original Music by Gustav Mahler
Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen
Conducting The Swedish Radio Symphonic Orchestra
Director of Photography Benedict Neuenfels
Behind the Scenes Documentary - Also Available
Music Making with Esa-Pekka Salonen: Scoring “Mahler On The Couch”
Germany | 2010 | 43 Min | English and German with English Subtitles | Read More (PDF)
Go behind the scenes with filmmakers Percy and Felix Adlon and acclaimed conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen as they conceive and record the soundtrack for the Adlons’ stirring feature film Mahler on the Couch. Salonen conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Gustav Mahler’s Adagio, the first movement, of the unfinished 10th symphony. The Adlons make the unusual request to record, in addition to the full symphony, isolated moments with single instruments, “moments” they weave into the film’s narrative. The documentary includes scenes from the film, married to the music being recorded.
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Home Use DVD: $29.95 Does not include Classroom or Library Use Rights or Public Performance Rights. More Information |
Home Use Blu-Ray: $34.95 Does not include Classroom or Library Use Rights or Public Performance Rights. More Information |
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