Klimt

Raúl Ruiz directed this 2006 drama about the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, whose ornate and erotic pictures became a defining expression of Art Nouveau around the turn of the twentieth century. Structured largely around the artist's recollections, the film follows Klimt through a life lived as freely as he painted, with his models serving as muses and his passionate affairs feeding both his work and his search for love and perfection. Celebrated abroad, including in Paris in 1900, he was meanwhile treated as a provocateur in Vienna, and the controversy around his allegorical paintings grows when he takes them back rather than let them be shown.

John Malkovich plays Klimt, heading a cast that includes Veronica Ferres, Saffron Burrows, Sandra Ceccarelli and Nikolai Kinski as the younger painter Egon Schiele, alongside a large supporting ensemble. The screenplay was written by Gilbert Adair, Herbert Vesely and the director, and the production was mounted across Germany, Austria, Britain and France.

The film arrived more than three decades into Ruiz's career, between Chapter 66 and his contribution to To Each His Own Cinema. On TMDB it holds a rating of 5.2 out of 10 from 78 votes, placing it among the more modestly received entries in a long and varied filmography.