Mahler. Ken Russell, 1974.
😿
Edition screened: Image DVD, released 1998. English language. Runtime approximately 111 minutes.
Summary: Depiction of a severed pig’s head
Details: At 1:26:45 Mahler emerges from a cave holding a pig’s head by one ear. At 1:27:25 he sits at a table and takes a large bite from the pig’s snout. At 1:27:37 we see a rather silly old bleached skull on the table, suggesting that has eaten the entire thing. The prop head throughout is not especially gory and the entire scene is lightly comedic.
This brief scene is part of a larger comedic set piece depicting Mahler’s conversion from Judaism to Catholicism. In Grand Opera style, he goes to Valhalla to see Cosima Wagner depicted as Hilda cum Nazi dominatrix. Cosima/Hilda dresses Mahler as Sigurd and sends him to “Destroy the Dragon of the Old Gods.” Mahler returns victorious, not with Fafnir’s head but with that of a pig, which he eats with a glass of milk in nonkosher fashion.