Vienna 1900

Opening with shots of the fabulous (and newly restored) Vienna Secession building, with its painted friezes by Gustav Klimt, Vienna 1900 investigates the Jugendstil, or 'young style,' which revived art and craft in the middle of Europe from the late nineteenth century. We see Klimt's development from a style imitative of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling to the sinuous, sensuous, dazzling style which made him famous. Architects mentioned in this film include Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos. Vienna emerges as a city of cultural ferment, a melting-pot of history where Hitler, Lenin, Trotsky and numerous other world-shapers lived, including Sigmund Freud, who developed his revolutionary theories of the unconscious here.