• Director(s):

    SALFATI (PIERRE-HENRY)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE FRANCE, 13 PRODUCTIONS

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2008

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    NON-THEATRICAL, TV, VOD, DVD, INTERNET

"With measured steps" is the tempo indication Mahler wrote on the score at the beginning of the first movement of his Fifth Symphony, a monumental funeral march.

A military parade with measured steps... But Mahler fled the family home, driven away because he could no longer bear to see the terrible beatings his father gave his mother, which finally made her lame. This trauma was so painful that Mahler finally mentioned it to Freud, with whom he had a memorable encounter, a turning point in his life as a man and as a composer. The two took a walk together one day in August 1910, a long stroll... with measured steps.

The psychoanalytic journey lasted four hours. Four hours is both long and short. Yet the miracle took place: Sigmund Freud changed Mahler's life, insofar as both creation and love were concerned. The two men never saw each other again. Freud later said he'd never met a person with greater insight into psychoanalysis than Mahler. As for Mahler, he acknowledged the clarity the encounter with Freud brought to his vision of the world. We will be returning to this event again and again as a reference, a journey in the form of a session between two great minds.