Roger Ebert Home

Mayerling

Attain peace of mind before seeing "Mayerling." Compose yourself. This is a very long, slow, passive film, and it's going to be difficult to sit through. I guess it's worth it, though, for traditional kinds of reasons.

It tells a tale out of history. It's about beautiful doomed people. It is played by actors with grace and style: Catherine Deneuve (yes!), Ava Gardner, James Mason -- even Omar Sharif has style for a change. It has magnificent location settings, great scenery and costumes, spellbinding photography and, in short, everything except a story.

"Mayerling" is about the final days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. All movies about the final days of empires have got to be filled with brooding irony; it's the custom. "Mayerling" broods overmuch. Its characters wander listlessly about Vienna, sighing and reciting bitter epigrams. "Be quiet," Ava Gardner says, "and after a while you will hear a noise. Perhaps a door closing or a spoon dropping. We are never entirely alone." Alas.

The situation is this. Franz-Joseph (James Mason) rules the empire with little thought for the future. His son (Sharif) complains he has no power and is a stuffed puppet. He falls in love with Catherine Deneuve. But the marriage cannot be because he's already married, for one thing. A royal scandal results. Emissaries in the night tempt Sharif with the idea of revolution.

He agrees: He will join in revolt against his father and renounce the throne. "Would you do anything for me?" he asks Catherine. "Yes, why?" she says. "Because I just have -- for you," he replies with brooding irony. No one with an undeveloped appreciation for brooding irony had better see "Mayerling" at all.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Now playing

Film Credits

Mayerling movie poster

Mayerling (1969)

Cast

Omar Sharif as Prince RudoIf

Catherine Deneuve as Baroness Vetsera

James Mason as Emperor Franz-Joseph

Ava Gardner as Empress Elizabeth

Directed by

Photographed by

Latest blog posts

Comments

comments powered by Disqus