Product Details

• Actors: John Malkovich, Veronica Ferres, Saffron Burrows, Stephen Dillane
• Directors: Raoul Ruiz
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, French, German
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Koch Lorber Films
• DVD Release Date: January 8, 2008
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000WZAE7W
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,126 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Klimt" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

John Malkovich inhabits the role of dissolute artist Gustav Klimt so completely one almost expects to see his wild-eyed features reflected in Klimt's well-known painting The Kiss. The story is a (very) loose biopic about the tortured life of the Austrian artist, whose deathbed ruminations begin the film and the flashbacks that begin to paint the portrait of his incredible, hedonistic life. Even in the relative freeness and sophistication of fin de siècle Europe, Klimt and his fascination with the overtly erotic were bound to become lightning rods for high society, not to mention the self-protective Western art world. Yet Klimt declares (over and over), "I don't give a [bleep] what the critics think," and he begins to build his signature sensual paintings--and a growing grudging respect in his home country as well.

Malkovich is well matched by Saffron Burrows, who plays a witchy French dancer as committed to the idea, and expression, of free love as is the maestro. The film is especially noteworthy for its lush cinematography, which does remarkable justice especially to Klimt's famed "gold" paintings (of which The Kiss is still one of the most recognizable). The city of Vienna itself appears to be lit from within by a million golden candles. --A.T. Hurley

Product Description

Gustav Klimt lived his life like he painted it – full of intensity, sensuality and passion. In this biographical fantasy by acclaimed director Raúl Ruiz (Time Regained), Klimt (John Malkovich) recalls the decadence of his past in feverish visions from his deathbed. Reflecting on his many torrid affairs and his struggles for artistic freedom, he travels back to the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. There, Klimt is introduced to a mysterious dancer, Lea de Castro (Saffron Burrows), who emerges as his muse and the personification of his own erotic ideals and carnal desires.

DVD Extras:
Making-of Featurette, Original Theatrical Trailer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Decadence of Expressionism?, April 27, 2008

By 

Luca Graziuso (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Klimt (DVD)

The motion picture "Klimt" by the vangardist director Raul Ruiz is a nonchalantly descriptive allegory of the art of Klimt more so than a purist's biopic. The resonant lyricism of the cinematography has an appeal of its own, but the movie suffers from a neurosis of sober surrealism rather than the decadent Viennese indomitable foray of which Klimt is a patriarch. We see Egon Schiele as a flaky genius who revered Gustav Klimt while swirled within a psychotic dispondancy outlined by art critics and a clinical practice where Klimt was receiving treatment for Syphilis. The movie is staged well and creatively portrayed but the artistic intentions of the director become entangled in a state of overindulgence where the fictive recreation of Klimt's last and most productive years are saturated by a prosthetic expressionism that overwhelms the designs of the creators. The farrago of jaded models and Jewish paramours stands to make of the eroticism of the painter into a detached grandiloquence he carelessly stands ceremony upon while critics insinuate and frame to their liking and in consonance with a theoretical/moral decrepitude well on its way. John Malkovich overcompensated for the duldrums of an era and the unaffected delirium that he chances to become a spectator of instead of a victim to. The importunity of such a representation are deserving merit but fail to characterize the passion and zeal of a master who changed the art scene. No reference to influences are made and no epiphanies are ever sallied through the movie. The rhythm is decadent and the mood ominous, but of such talents and expertise we were well aware and even used to when it comes to Ruiz. If Klimt was a precursor to surrealism is a topic for art historians and critics which the movie does its best to undress, but to depict a representative time capsule of an artist and his times in such a fashion neither entertains nor proves insightful. "Klimt" is devoid of both the hypnotism and the opulence of the expressive decadence that is a trademark of the painter's style. The promising pronouncements of this piece are debilitated by a bouquet of inadequate metaphors where decay and derangement seem to speak the same language but cannot communicate with adequacy.

34 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pretentious, Annoying, Inaccurate Garbage, January 11, 2008

By 

B. Stockwell (San Francisco, California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Klimt (DVD)

This is a very VERY bad film and Dee J. probably didn't even watch it. Klimt was Austrian, not German, okay? He lived in Vienna, Austria. To paraphrase from a review from the Columbus Dispatch, the film sheds little light on the artist. It's the kind of film that gives Art House films a bad name. There isn't much of a plot, just a series of generally bizarre incidents in which Klimt meets potential models, patrons, family and others. He treats them with indifference and contempt, just as they do him. The real Klimt was famous for his reticence and generosity. The film shows him in situations that never happened and with people he never met. Klimt is depicted dying of syphilis. In reality, Klimt suffered a stroke and succumbed to influenza. Malkovich looks good but doesn't do much. He lacks much expression or emotion, but he does LOOK a little like Klimt. So what? He's actually pretty annoying and vapid. Much like the film. If you're wondering why this film went straight to video, read any online reviews. Steer clear of this one. It's gold-leafed pseudo-Artistic drivel.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oy! When Will I Ever Learn ..., November 12, 2010

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Klimt (DVD)

... that films about painters are nearly always pretentious, precious, pompous soft porn? In just the past few years, I've set myself up to groan through a film about Goya, fret through Frida, and pout through Pollock. This film by the daring director Raul Ruiz, billed as an allegorical interpretation of the art of Gustav Klimt rather than a mere mundane biographical documentary, might well be the worst of the lot. Actually, I can't be sure how bad it was, since the music track was so loud that it covered half the script, and there were no subtitles. If I turned the volume high enough to catch most of the mumbled dialogue, the sudden blats of thoroughly unrelated music threatened to damage my eardrums. Several of the actors/actresses, whatever their nationalities, seemed to be trying to affect a slight Austrian accent -- who knows why -- while John Malkovich, starring as Klimt, made no effort not to sound 100% American. Malkovich IS 100% American, not just his voice but his posture, facial expressions, emotional affect. He was either sadly miscast in this role, or else the director intended some coy cognitive dissonance.

The whole film is -- big surprise! -- framed as a collage of flashbacks from Klimt's death bed in a hospital, where he's given some sort of weird subliminal Last Unction by the epicene Egon Schiele. The retro-narrative is all about submissive/seductive nude models and mysterious voyeurs and Klimt's boorish refusal to play any part in his own life agreeably. I warn you, even the fleeting glimpses of those lovely naked ladies won't be enough to keep you from wishing the whole film over.