Ludwig II (Helmut Berger) and Sissi (Romy Schneider) in "Ludwig" by Luchino Visconti
The controversial and fascinating figure of Ludwig II of Bavaria it has inspired numerous films, among the most famous of which is certainly “Ludwig ”By Luchino Visconti , film from 1973 in which to lend the face, once beautiful, then swollen and unrecognizable, to the unfortunate ruler, is an amazing Helmut Berger , creator of one of the best interpretations of him.
To make the film more truthful, the choice to shoot it in the real places that had been the background to Ludwig's personal and political events, but also the extreme realism with which the master of Italian cinema was able to grasp the descending parable which had characterized the short existence of the king, symbolically referable to the more general and irreversible one that had involved the entire class of the once flourishing European nobility, but which, in Ludwig's 800, had now lost its original role in society .
And since the figure of Ludwig cannot be disconnected, for various reasons, from that of his beloved cousin Sissi, great prominence is also given to the Empress of Austria, a woman far darker and more enigmatic than the famous cinematographic genre dedicated to her, actually a little sugary, wanted to show; here too, to give face and feelings to the wife of Francesco Giuseppe , is Romy Schneider , the actress who, in some way, came (and felt herself) partly prisoner of a role that remained tenaciously stuck on her throughout her career.
Three hours of great history then, also told through a perfectly reconstructed scenario, whose magnificence remains etched in the eyes and mind of the viewer.
A film to (re) see "> it.wikipedia.org).