Liebestraum ( "dream of love") is a 1991 American mystery film written and directed by Mike Figgis, and starring Kevin Anderson, Pamela Gidley, Bill Pullman, Zach Grenier, Alicia Witt, Taina Elg, and Kim Novak in her final film role. Set in a small Illinois town, it follows an architect professor who begins an affair with his college friend's photographer wife while visiting his dying birthmother. The film is set against the backdrop of the demolition of an abandoned historic building where a murder–suicide occurred decades prior. It takes its name from Franz Liszt's piano nocturnes Liebesträume (1850).
Plot
In 1953 Elderstown, Illinois, as the Ralston department stores closes for the night, an unseen man and woman engage in an illicit affair as a silhouetted man closes in on them. Both appear to be shot dead before the man presumably commits suicide. A vinyl record of Franz Liszt's Liebesträume piano nocturnes playing on the phonograph is destroyed in the shootout.
Thirty years later, Nick, a professor of architecture in upstate New York arrives in Elderstown to be with his birth mother, Lillian, in the final days of her illness; he was adopted and never met her before. That night, he becomes intrigued with the building across from his hotel. On the first day, he runs into Paul, a college friend, whose construction company is demolishing the old Ralston department store where a murder-suicide happened thirty years before. The building is an ornate cast-iron construction, so Nick wants to study it before the demolition. Nick saves Paul's life when a piece of the building's façade crumbles and Nick pushes him to safety. To say thanks, Nick is invited to a birthday party for Paul's wife, Jane.
At the party, Paul introduces Nick to his wife, Jane, a photographer who wants to portray the same building. He also meets Dr. Parker, the physician in charge of Lillian's care, as well as his provocative wife Mary, a nurse at the hospital who makes Nick uncomfortable.
Nick laments the department store building's demolition, regarding it an important architectural landmark, but Paul heatedly insists on its demolition and redevelopment of the land. While Paul leaves for Chicago on a business trip, Nick and Jane explore the building together and spend several days together. Nick begins investigating the history of the Ralston building: In 1953, its owner, Barnett, learned of his wife's affair with an employee named Munson. While confronting the lovers in the store, he allegedly shot them before killing himself. Mrs. Ralston, however survived the shooting but suffered permanent brain damage.
Nick gleans from Lillian's medical records that her married name was Munssen, and upon obtaining crime scene photographs from a city clerk, is disturbed to find he bears a striking resemblance to the murdered Munssen. Later, Jane arrives at Nick's hotel, but their sexual tryst is interrupted by a phone call notifying Nick that Lillian's condition is grave. Jane accompanies Nick to the hospital. While Nick comforts Lillian, Jane attempts to comfort a wheelchair-bound elderly woman who orderlies have left alone in the hallway, but is frightened by the woman's face, bearing the scar of a bullet wound; the woman is revealed to be Mrs. Ralston. When Jane enters Lillian's room, Lillian begins screaming obscene accusations at her, and Jane flees.
That evening, Paul arrives back in Elderstown looking for Jane. Paul and Jane meet at the abandoned building and have sex. Meanwhile, Lillian, in the throes of death, recounts the 1953 murder–suicide: It is revealed that it was in fact her who, while pregnant with Nick, shot her husband and Mrs. Ralston after finding them having an affair in the department store. She proceeded to also murder Barnett Ralston, who witnessed the crime. While Lillian dies, Paul enters the department store and finds Jane and Nick lying in each other's arms, and tearfully walks away.
Cast
Production
Principal photography of Liebestraum took place in Binghamton, New York, with filming beginning on June 27, 1990.
Release
Liebestraum premiered at the Boston Film Festival on August 16, 1991.
Cinématographe, a subsidiary label of Vinegar Syndrome, released Liebestraum on Blu-ray on May 26, 2026.