Women
who stand behind men throughout history have not been recognized
for their contributions and their sacrifices. Bruce Beresford,
a director who has given proper recognition to illustrious
but unacknowledged women in many of his films, has now surpassed
his Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and Paradise
Road (1997) with Bride of the Wind in
providing an autobiographical sketch of Alma Schindler, the
spouse of Gustav Mahler (played by Sarah Wynter). The film
begins in 1902 and progresses to 1919, with scenes of Vienna
that are magnificent video postcards, similar to Beresford’s
Double Jeopardy
(1999). Alma, who does not particularly care for Mahler’s
music, says so at a dinner party attended by the great composer
(played by Jonathan Pryce). When she excuses herself for her
indiscretion, Mahler goes to talk to her, genuinely impressed
that a woman would be so independent and outspoken. (Perfectionist
Mahler, who exasperated orchestras by changing his own compositions
repeatedly during rehearsals, obviously thrived on honest
criticism.) Soon they wed. However, Mahler asks Alma to give
up her hobby of composing music to manage his business affairs,
which are in disarray. They have two daughters, one of which
dies, provoking Mahler to compose the Kindertotenlieder, while
Alma goes to a resort spa to recuperate. At the spa she meets
Walter Gropius (played by Simon Verhoeven), an architect who
is so enamored of her that after they leave the spa he writes
a desperately romantic love letter. The letter, however, is
addressed to "Mr. Mahler," so he opens the contents and discovers
that Alma has a fervent admirer. Although Mahler pleads that
he could not live and compose without her, she indicates that
she is tired of being stifled as a mere caregiver. After some
off-screen consultation with Sigmund Freud, Mahler summons
Gropius to his house, urging the two to decide to mate or
to split up so that the uncertainty will end as soon as possible.
Alma, realizing that her role is indispensable for a rare
creative genius, then disappoints Gropius. (Indeed, in contrast
with the surreal 1974 film Mahler, in Bride
of the Wind Mahler is a melancholy lover consumed
by his iconoclastic music describing himself as an outcast--a
Czech living among Austrians and a Jew living among Germans.)
Soon, however, Alma agrees to have her portrait drawn by Oskar
Kokoschka (played by Vincent Perez), and another love affair
blooms, but she returns to the spa when Mahler dies in 1911.
While away, Kokoschka paints "Bride of the Wind," an oil portrait
of the two making love surrounded by a world of turmoil. But
upon her return she decides not to marry Kokoschka, again
because his possessiveness makes her feel stifled. Kokoschka
then joins the Austrian army in World War I, is shot and bayoneted,
but miraculously survives. Meanwhile, Alma marries Gropius
until his self-centered personality drives Alma away, and
he goes on to teach at Harvard and becomes one of the most
renowned modern architects of the twentieth century. Finally,
Alma meets novelist Franz Werfel (played by Gregor Seberg),
who is full of a joy that was missing in all her previous
egomaniacal suitors. He encourages her to compose, and they
marry and live happily. The last frames of the film provide
titles with biographies of all the men in her life, followed
by the first public performance of one of her compositions
at Vienna in 1919, at the conclusion of which she stands to
take a bow, and titles tell us of her subsequent move to Hollywood
and return to Europe, where she died in 1964. Bride
of the Wind tells us that Alma seduced and inspired
four of Austria’s greatest creative artists, but sacrificed
her own identity in doing so until her marriage with Werfel,
but oddly the film stops before the forty-five years of her
life when we are led to believe that her own musical compositions
might have blossomed, material perhaps for another film. MH
I
want to comment on this film
