Raul Ruiz's Klimt uses an amorphous, a-chronological narrative to cinematize events from the life of one of the 20th century's most profound artists: the Austrian Gustav Klimt (here portrayed by John Malkovich). Ruiz begins with Klimt's painful death from syphilis, and spends the remainder of the film transitioning, loosely and freely, between episodes that befell the painter. The film pays particularly strong attention to the artist's proclivity for scandalizing the European upper-crust with overtly erotic subject matter and presentation, and his many affairs - notably a lengthy one with his perpetual inspiration, Lea de Castro (Saffron Burrows). Throughout Klimt's life, a figure known as the Secretary (Stephen Dillane) comes and goes, who is actually a product of his fevered imagination - and with whom the painter debates continually about the function of art in contemporary western civilization, and the relevance of the artist. This enables Ruiz to create both a biographical sketch and a philosophical trea