The Vincent
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Produced by Paramount Classics, filming began May 15, 2000 in Vienna. The film stars Jonathan Pryce (Evita, Carrington, Ronin) as the famed opera director-composer, Gustav Mahler, Sarah Wynter (The Sixth Day, Lost Souls) as his wife Alma, a talented musician and composer, and Vincent Perez as Alma's lover Oskar Kokoschka.

Scripted by Marilyn Levy, Bride will concentrate on Alma Mahler's life in Vienna during the early 1900s and leading up to World War I. She lived from 1879-1964 and was considered a muse to some of the great minds of the 20th century. In 1902 she married Mahler, but ten years later, had a passionate affair with Kokoschka that lasted three years. In the cultural environment of Vienna at that time, he aroused a furious sensation both through his painting and as the author of two theatre plays about sex and violence. The two lived and travelled together, and when they were not making love, Kokoschka painted her.

In 1913, he created an allegorical representation of their love affair called "The Bride of the Wind", a vivid image in which the two lovers are whirling around the space. Even on Alma's 70th birthday, Oskar referred to his immortal loved one as a "wild creature" and was convinced that they were "united in the 'Bride of the Wind' forever."

This film was discussed in an article by the Orlando Sentinel entitled, "Artworks frame way filmmakers set the scene" - In recent years, filmmakers have been increasingly setting their stage with artworks. A smashing canvas or a provocative sculpture can be used to distinguish characters and scenes with a quick stroke. "Sometimes it's just wallpaper," says Lawrence Levy, producer of Bride of the Wind, a film about Alma Mahler, the wife of composer Gustav Mahler who had an tempestuous affair with the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka. "But other times it can amplify meaning," Levy said. In Bride, for example, a Kokoschka painting, from which the film takes its name, reflects the film's mood and idea, while also amplifying a culminating and passionate scene, Levy said. In that scene, Kokoschka unveils a painting for Alma Mahler. The painting, a portrait of the two lovers, has an "embrace that is melting out into the wind," said Karen Williams, of Troubetzkoy Paintings Ltd. of New York, the studio that reproduced the work.

The $10 million-plus budgeted project will be headed by Australian director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Tender Mercies) and is expected to be released in June 2001. The film will use some of Alma's music for the soundtrack. Shooting locations will include Vienna, Prague and possibly Germany.

Allocine published the following article: "Vincent Perez is an astonishing actor. The variety of his roles forces respect and admiration. Nothing indeed seems to quench his thirst to play and to invest in all projects that are different from one another. Thus, he has just been allotted one of the principal roles in Bruce Beresford's new movie, Bride of the Wind. The film recalls the life of Alma Schindler, a talented composer and musician, who gives up her dreams to marry Gustav Mahler. Finally, Vincent will manage to open out sexually and artistically. He will interpret the Austrian-born expressionnist painter, Oskar Kokoschka, once again pressing the ground of US cinema."