In the life of Ludwig II, the "mad king" of Bavaria, Luchino Visconti found a fit subject for his own transcendent sense of spectacle. Ludwig was a tragic figure who made an art out of life itself: born into extreme wealth, he chose to pursue happiness in the realm of the sublime-in art and matters of the heart-but he never achieved anything close to happiness. Nor did his soul "fly free" of his body. Crowned in 1864 at the age of twenty, Ludwig was to retreat from the callousness and greed of court politics to court, instead, the Romantic preoccupations of his youth. He built magnificent fairytale castles in the Bavarian sky and patronized a series of artists, including Richard Wagner, all of whom used him cynically. Increasingly disillusioned, the passions of the "Swan King" grew dissolute, sealing his doom. Visconti places Ludwig, portrayed by Helmut Berger, in context, seducing us with opulent visuals, holding us at bay with the passion play that was in fact Ludwig's life. Romy Schneider is a figure of compassion amid scoundrels as Ludwig's cousin, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and Trevor Howard lends his own dark passion to his portrayal of Richard Wagner. One of the director's most ambitious productions, Ludwig was mercilessly cut for theatrical release. In 1980 the film was restored to the original full-length Italian language version due to the persistence of Visconti's close collaborators, Suso Cecchi d'Amico and Ruggero Mastroianni. This is the first PFA screening of the complete 257-minute version.