[4] The opening credits begin with a little hut on a pier on an idyllic lake exploding in flames; then a cocooned woman struggles to break free of her white wrappings in an outdoor setting near a rough rock carving of Mahler’s head.

The structure of the film is that Mahler and his wife Alma have returned to Europe from his time conducting in the United States, and are on the train to Vienna.

Alma’s lover Max is also on the train, urging her to leave Mahler and get off with him a couple of stops before Vienna.

The idyllic hut on the pier is seen in the first flashback: Mahler is trying to compose in it, and he gets Alma to go around the whole lake hushing the animals and people who are making noise.

He has a heart attack and a doctor on the train tends and revives him, but he has a vision of being alive in a windowed coffin while Alma and Max ignore his pleas, carry on with each other and cremate him.

Other flashbacks include a visit to the Emperor of Austria Franz Josef about a music director job.

She is depicted goose-stepping around in black-lipped makeup, wearing a Prussian helmet and a bathing suit with a cross on the front and a swastika on the rear.

The music score of the movie consists of recordings by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink.

"[5] David Puttnam's company Goodtimes planned to make a series of six films about composers, all to be directed by Ken Russell.

Subjects were to include Franz Liszt, George Gershwin, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Richard Wagner; they decided to do Mahler first.