During our visits to Bavaria, we have visited one of his castles (hoping to see the others sometime but only managed to view them from a distance as yet), seen the spectacular stage musical that was put on at the special theatre made for it at Fussen, and I have read a fair bit about him, and I watched this movie enthralled. Ludwig II is a truly fascinating, tortured personality and played so magnificently by Helmut Berger who is so perfectly cast - I couldn't imagine a better performance than this nor a better movie about his life although as I don't understand much German, I haven't had the chance so far to see any other versions.
No-one could ever forget, I think, their first sight of his "fairy tale" castle Neuschwanstein (the Bavarian Kinds were the Swan kings). This castle is well known over the world as the castle on which Disney's fairy tale castle logo is based. Inside it's said to be amazing.
Ludwig inspires, I think, surprise, awe, admiration, and yet much pity and at times considerable annoyance. This highly artistic and yet emotionally troubled man was not fitted to be a King, much as his close relative and friend Empress Elizabeth of Austria was not entirely fitted to be an Empress and the same at times despairing suicidal tendencies and other problems disturbed them both. Both had difficult lives. Yet it's difficult to know if they would have been any happier as nonenties without the money and position to all too often do and spend exactly as they pleased. Ludwig showered Wagner with money, aiding Wagner for a while to produce some of his great work as the composer was often desperate for money. Is that a good way or a bad way to spend your populace's taxes - on someone who was not even Bavarian yet was a genius? Hard to say.
It seems no-one knows for sure whether Ludwig eventually killed himself or was murdered. In the stage musical it is shown as suicide in an incredible scene when nearly all the stage is turned into a real lake into which Ludwig walks slowly to his drowning. At the time we saw this, my husband refused to believe it was really water but must be an illusion. Not so. The Making Of video showed the actor swimming away from the stage lake under water. I haven't been able to find a DVD recording of the show, a great shame, as it would make a fine duo with this superb movie.
No-one could ever forget, I think, their first sight of his "fairy tale" castle Neuschwanstein (the Bavarian Kinds were the Swan kings). This castle is well known over the world as the castle on which Disney's fairy tale castle logo is based. Inside it's said to be amazing.
Ludwig inspires, I think, surprise, awe, admiration, and yet much pity and at times considerable annoyance. This highly artistic and yet emotionally troubled man was not fitted to be a King, much as his close relative and friend Empress Elizabeth of Austria was not entirely fitted to be an Empress and the same at times despairing suicidal tendencies and other problems disturbed them both. Both had difficult lives. Yet it's difficult to know if they would have been any happier as nonenties without the money and position to all too often do and spend exactly as they pleased. Ludwig showered Wagner with money, aiding Wagner for a while to produce some of his great work as the composer was often desperate for money. Is that a good way or a bad way to spend your populace's taxes - on someone who was not even Bavarian yet was a genius? Hard to say.
It seems no-one knows for sure whether Ludwig eventually killed himself or was murdered. In the stage musical it is shown as suicide in an incredible scene when nearly all the stage is turned into a real lake into which Ludwig walks slowly to his drowning. At the time we saw this, my husband refused to believe it was really water but must be an illusion. Not so. The Making Of video showed the actor swimming away from the stage lake under water. I haven't been able to find a DVD recording of the show, a great shame, as it would make a fine duo with this superb movie.