Ludwig (Visconti, 1972)

[Dan8700]

Ludwig Blu-ray

This incredible masterpiece is going to get released in Germany, on Jan 22...

[filmmusic]

I guess with no subs!

[Lutz]

But the native language for the movie is English right?

[Bruce Morrison]

Originally Posted by Lutz

But the native language for the movie is English right?

No, it's in Italian (even though the characters are actually German and the actors are of multiple nationalities!). In fact, as was standard in Italian films back then, the actors probably spoke their own language during filming and were then dubbed by Italian actors in the post-production.

There might have been an English language dubbed version of the film as well, but I doubt whether that's the version on this BD.

Another point to check will be the running time. The full version of the film is just short of 4 hours, but there were various shorter cuts in circulation before the full version eventually came out on DVD.

[sjt]

It's the uncut, all-but 4 hour version. Alas, it's not an English friendly release, a fine irony considering that, if you look closely, they are in fact virtually all - Helmut Berger included - speaking English, though as far as I recall there never was an English dub, despite the prominence of Trevor Howard's portrayal of Wagner in the film. In the Italian audio version Berger himself is dubbed, far too butchly: you get to hear his lighter, more nasally fey tones in the German dub.

It'd be nice to think someone would pick this up for either UK or US release: but I rather doubt it, unfortunately. There aren't many four-hour films that carry their punishing length this effortlessly.

[ilovenola2]

Originally Posted by Bruce Morrison

No, it's in Italian (even though the characters are actually German and the actors are of multiple nationalities!). In fact, as was standard in Italian films back then, the actors probably spoke their own language during filming and were then dubbed by Italian actors in the post-production.

There might have been an English language dubbed version of the film as well, but I doubt whether that's the version on this BD.

Another point to check will be the running time. The full version of the film is just short of 4 hours, but there were various shorter cuts in circulation before the full version eventually came out on DVD.

I have the DVD (not bad, actually), which is 237 minutes long with Italian dialogue, English subtitles. How right you all are that this one should at LEAST have English subtitles!! Frustrating, as I really would like to replace my DVD with the blu-ray.

[adelmosj]

When I saw Visconti's Ludwig in Paris when it opened in 1973, it was a version longer than 3 hours and it was screened in English with French subtitles. Like Visconti's two previous films, The Damned and Death in Venice, the versions released in Europe back then had English soundtracks - even though many of the actors had accents from various countries yet still did their own dubbing. (Cases in point: in The Damned, all of the characters are German, yet besides Helmut Berger and Helmut Griem having German accents, we get British voices for Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling, a Swedish accent for Ingrid Thulin, and British actors doing Euro-pudding accents for the Italians Mario Adorf and Umberto Orsini.) Hence the presence of English-language soundtracks to The Damned and Death in Venice on all versions of those films that have been released in Europe on DVD.

When I saw Ludwig in Paris in English with French subtitles, a similar multi-accented dubbing job was done - with the multilingual Berger, Griem, and Romy Schneider acting in English along with Brits Trevor Howard and John Moulder-Brown, and, as in Death in Venice, Silvana Mangano speaking her own Italian-accented English. (Okay, so in Death in Venice she spoke all of her lines in Polish.)

The current version of Ludwig that is available on most DVD and blu-ray releases is from an Italian restoration of the film that was done at some time around 1990, with Giancarlo Giannini dubbing the role of the title character. (Giannini is also heard doing Burt Lancaster's voice in the restored Italian version of The Leopard that was done during that period as well.)

Because I would like to have as close as possible a viewing experience to the version of the film that I saw with the original voice cast in 1973, I am highly disappointed that the German-dubbed version, which features Berger, Schneider, Griem, Gert Frobe, and many other German actors matching their own voices to their performances, is not available on any of the English-subtitled DVD or blu-ray prints.

This is especially frustrating, since one can find DVDs that include, say, Catherine Deneuve's own voice synching to her French-language performance in Bunuel's Tristana, as well as voices that match the English-speaking lip-movements of the three lead actors in Fellini-Satyricon. And the English-scripted Fassbinder films Lili Marleen and Querelle, both of which were theatrically released in German-dubbed versions in the U.S.A., have been released on DVDs that include optional English soundtracks with most of the actors doing their own original dubbing (one major exception being Giancaro Giannini, whose own voice work on Lili Marleen may be heard only on the Italian-dubbed DVD).

[sea2000]

Coming March 2017:

http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/shop/ind...product_id=912

Ludwig is presented here in its complete form in accordance with the director’s wishes and features the English-language soundtrack for the first ever on home video.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

4K restoration from the original film negative
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
Two viewing options: the full-length theatrical cut or as five individual parts
Original Italian soundtrack with optional English subtitles
Original English soundtrack available on home video for the first time ever with optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
Brand-new interview with actor Helmut Berger
Luchino Visconti, an hour-long documentary portrait of the director by Carlo Lizzani (Wake Up and Kill, Requiescant) containing interviews with Burt Lancaster, Vittorio Gassman, Francesco Rosi, Claudia Cardinale and others
Speaking with Suso Cecchi d'Amico, an interview with the screenwriter
Silvana Mangano: The Scent Of A Primrose, a half-hour portrait of the actress
Theatrical trailer

[Ebab]

Originally Posted by sjt

It's the uncut, all-but 4 hour version. Alas, it's not an English friendly release, a fine irony considering that, if you look closely, they are in fact virtually all - Helmut Berger included - speaking English, though as far as I recall there never was an English dub, despite the prominence of Trevor Howard's portrayal of Wagner in the film. In the Italian audio version Berger himself is dubbed, far too butchly: you get to hear his lighter, more nasally fey tones in the German dub.

Originally Posted by adelmosj

Because I would like to have as close as possible a viewing experience to the version of the film that I saw with the original voice cast in 1973, I am highly disappointed that the German-dubbed version, which features Berger, Schneider, Griem, Gert Frobe, and many other German actors matching their own voices to their performances, is not available on any of the English-subtitled DVD or blu-ray prints.

A note just for the record: Helmut Berger didn't do the German dub, the voice is Jürgen Clausen's.