Editorial Review:Amazon.com:Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel is the very definition of sumptuous: the costumes and sets, the special geography of Venice, and the breathtaking cinematography combine to form a heady experience. At the center of this gorgeousness is Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde in a meticulous performance), a controlled intellectual who unexpectedly finds himself obsessed by the vision of a 14-year-old boy while on a convalescent vacation in 1911. Visconti has turned Aschenbach into a composer, which accounts for the lush excerpts from Mahler on the soundtrack (Bogarde is meant to look like Mahler, too). Even if it tends to hit the nail on the head a little too forcefully, and even if Visconti can test one's patience with lingering looks at crowds at the beach and hotel dining rooms,
Death in Venice creates a lushness rare in movies. For some viewers, that will be enough.
--Robert Horton
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A Visual Poem
Luchino Visconti`s Death In Venice (1971)
Alvy Singer: "You're not going to come back to New York?"
Annie Hall: "What's so great about New York? It's a dying city, you read Death in Venice."
(Woody Allen's ANNIE HALL, 1979)
Luchino Visconti's movie is not only a fine adaptation of Thomas Mann's celebrated novel, but it's one of those few films that succeeded in adding another dimension to the literature they stemmed from. Amongst those works I can cite Kubrick's 2001: Space Odyssey, Tarkovski's Solaris (though not necessarily one of the latter finest moments at all)... etc.
The movie opens to a scene centering a sailing boat; the noticeable dark framing of this initial shot gives the feel of a fairy tale emerging out of time and place. More than six minutes will elapse while the gorgeous Mahler's fifth symphony is solely playing, not a single sound from the "real" world. The music is suddenly and loudly interrupted by a horn sound, then a complete contrast with pure mundane noises and distant voices, but still no discerned dialogs... not after ten minutes.
Visconti smartly translated a novel from the written realm into an entity dominated by image and sound. The entire movie is remarkable for those types of scenes based on wordless elements.
It's true that Visconti's scenes and shots are not as complexly designed as Antonioni's, neither as playful and unorthodox as Fellini's; but just from this opening scene you realize you're in the presence of a film maker with something to "say".
The protagonist (Gustav von Aschenbach) is a music composer who just landed in Venice seeking a quiet and peaceful refuge. Instead, he found himself emerged in a tense and gloomy ambiance. Meanwhile, he gradually became obsessed with the stunning beauty of a young boy (Tadzio), the latter becoming more aware of this attention as the plot progresses.
Visconti's success in creating a crescendo tense atmosphere is remarkable for his almost complete absence of any "action". We don't know why the strange odors are spreading in the streets of the city, or why strange chemical solutions are being spilled on the walls, the secretive police attitude... etc
Nothing is actually happening on the screen, but -like Gustav- we're exposed to strange sceneries, murmurs, and tension.
Death in Venice is about the disintegration of an artist, his self-destructive obsession to the limit of narcissism, a futile longing for unreachable beauty.
The disturbing world around Gustav drives him back in memories to unsettled events from his near and distant past. But unlike Isaac Borg (from Bergman's Wild Strawberries) who was positively influenced by it, Gustav is succumbed into more darkness and isolation. Even when he ultimately knew why Venice is being disinfected, Gustav's dark path is already irreversible, and despite final desperate aesthetic measures sought in a beauty salon; his mind and his health are inevitably degrading.
Thomas Mann himself was influenced by Freud and Nietzsche, he wrote his novel in a period he was interested in dreams and death. It's not very surprising why Visconti would show interest in this novel, he was always openly gay, even bisexual. His choice of Mahler (Mahler is not mentioned in the novel) is based of the latter's deep interest in death also. Tadzio's beauty may be -partially- an object to sexual attraction, but most importantly it is a metaphor to a Utopian beauty, an absolute beauty free of any societal or material interpretation; it's the same concept of beauty discussed by Gustav and a fellow friend over a whole scene, a part that didn't exist in Mann's novel, indicating Visconti's own unsettled struggle about it.
Technically speaking, De Santis' camera is frequently mobile, spanning distantly at times and rarely with frank close-ups. Visconti smartly shifts between the past and the present; he uses very smooth transitions (used by Allen later in Another Woman): For example -in a scene that I really liked- Tadzio is amateurishly playing Beethoven's Fur Elise on the piano, Gustav walks in the background from the left of the screen attracted towards the source of the music, the camera zooms on Gustav and Tadzio is now completely out of the frame but we're clearly hearing his music, the camera zooms out revealing Gustav reaching a strange woman (instead of Tadzio) playing the same tune on a piano, a closer look shows a younger Gustav in a completely different milieu. This is how -and with a very clever subtle change in the vocal tone of both pianos- Visconti traveled in time.
The movie shows a unique use of soundtrack music, only present when no dialog or any voice is present, like a shift to another world. Visconti used Mahler's works, his fifth symphony is the film "book cover" (start and end), with the music beautifully and simultaneously climaxing with the drama at the end.
The ending shot certainly inspired Ozon's "Le Temps Qui Reste".
Despite my usual attraction to more complex and experimental films, I liked Death in Venice. It's a horrible nightmare told in a visual and a musical poem of elegance and beauty. It's also a deep contemplation of youth, age, beauty, and death.
Death in Venice won Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Sound Track during the 1972 BAFTA.
The Warner Bros DVD (US format) provides a good-quality transfer, additional materials include a "behind-the-scenes featurette" and a still gallery. It would be nice if it had a commentary though.
Director: Luchino Visconti
Writer: Thomas Mann
Original Music: Gustav Mahler
Cinematography: Pasqualino De Santis
Genre: Drama
Year: 1971
Length: 130 min.
Language: Italian
Country: Italy
Rating: 
-
Technically exquisite, but tedious and pretentious.
* I found this movie to be beautifully photographed but very tedious, if not pretentious, if not downright *annoying.*
Toward the end of the movie, there's a scene where a woman is singing what I believe is a Polish song. And she goes on and on and on and on and on and on.
She gave me a freakin' headache!
It's interesting that many of the reviewers here who gave the film 5 stars freely admit that it's
... \"slow moving\"
... \"not an easy film to watch\"
... \"lacking in action.\"
Yeah, right! So then why give it such high praise?
It's not that a movie has to be \"easy\" to watch, but it does have to have enough form and substance that the audience cares, one way or another, pro or con, about the central character, especially when the central character is empathetically presented.
I didn't care very much what happened to the Dirk Bogarde character. He was introspective but without the payoff an introspective character should have. \"What's on this boy's mind?\" I kept asking myself.
Why should we care or empathize with the Dirk Bogarde/Gustav Mahler character? We know very little about him. Yes, Mahler was a great artist, but this isn't a great movie.
The flashback scenes where Mahler is arguing with a colleague about the meaning of art and truth were, for me, forced and overbearing -- throw-ins.
That the Mahler character wanted to stay in Venice just to be around the young boy he fancied -- sorry, but that isn't enough for me as far as a \"plot\" is concerned. Even great directors have trouble with plots and endings and in that regard this movie, as beautifully photgraphed and as evocative as it is, copped out. Put another way: sometimes less *isn't* more; sometimes less is just less.
When you have a movie with human beings in it, then you need to have them doing things that human beings do. What they do can be absurd, illogical, antisocial -- but have them DO SOMETHING -- fer crissakes!
There seemed to be very little going on inside or outside the Mahler character's mind. Why, for example was he fascinated by the young boy? The film suggests that perhaps he was drawn to the boy because he was obsessed with beauty; perhaps because he's a homosexual; perhaps because as a great artist he inevitably has feelings too large, too sensitive for the world of the mundane. Or a combination of all three possibilities. Ok, but where did the story go from those suggested possibilities? Those are threads, it seems to me, that are relatively \"easy\" to establish in a movie -- the real art comes in taking those threads and making something meaningful with them. And here's where Visconti's work, ambitious and as technical masterful as it is, falls short.
The threads in great movies may not explain all there is to know or even all there is to contemplate in the human condition, but when the final scene is over, the audience should feel as though some insight has been offered -- insight beyond exquisite technical proficiency and/or outstanding \"acting.\" How can an actor (Dirk Bogarde) give a great performance when his character lacks greatness within the context of the film. here I'm using the word \"greatness\" to mean a touchstone for an insight into the human condition. That just got by me in this movie.
The only thing I really \"cared about\" was Dirk Bogarde's luggage!
It's impossible to say that this was a bad movie or a failure, just a great disappointment and a bore.
...
Rating: -
Resubmitting review of "Death in Venice"
I already submitted this review last week. What I recall stating was that this was a beautiful VHS copy, am glad to have it, but that neither Amazon nor the seller gave any information that this was dubbed rather than subtitled.
So, as I stated before, this is a terrific product but more information would be much appreciated, especially with films where subtitles are preferred.
Rating: 
-
Film only for those gifted from Muses and Graces
* It is hard to believe that some fellow from Illinois or the Midwest in general may enjoy this Gift from Venus. So, please, go and rent some other piece of junk at Blockbuster, you all farm-minded ignorants.
I'll signore Pecorelli ...
Rating: -
The sound of silence
The casting, acting, and visual surroundings are superb. One scene in particular stays with me: Aschenbach has seated himself so that he can compose music while looking at the boy (and we hear the Mahler he is composing).
What I don't understand is Aschenbach's interior silence. The story (Thomas Mann's) is told by a narrator, but Thomas Mann hardly ever created a principle character who wasn't full of recordable thoughts and feelings, and Aschenbach is not that exception. Aschenbach quotes (and misquotes!) authors in his head, has recorded thoughts, scraps of thoughts, feelings, scraps of feelings, which grow ever more intense, continually. I can only assume that Visconti, working in a visual medium, wanted to substitute Bogarde's face for what we read on the page. Although this is sometimes successful, it also accounts for the few negative reviews this film got--mostly due to not enough going on. Bogarde's face is wonderful, but Thomas Mann is a little more wonderful.
But STILL...5 stars.
***
"Mr. Bogarde, you have your rings mixed up."
(wriggling his fingers) "No, I don't."
"A wedding band goes on the fourth finger of your left hand, not right."
"Not if you're a German in 1911, it doesn't."
" Is that a fact? Well, nobody else wears one there. So switch it."
(Bogarde switches the wedding band to the fourth finger of his left hand)
"...and with your own ring--the onyx--you always wear that one, don't you?"
"Unless the director doesn't want me to, yes."
"Put that one on the little finger of your right hand--it's too much with the wedding ring on the left hand."
(Bogarde moves his own ring to his right hand) "I'll be darned. It fits."
"Let's see."
(Bogarde holds his hands out). "Yes, that's fine. This director does not object."
***
The three (or four--depending if you want to separate the prositute's name from her appearance and behavior, in a real or imagined flashback [probably real])references, or borrowings, from Doctor Faustus make me a little dizzy. "Death in Venice" was written in 1911-12, and Doctor Faustus in 1943-47, and none of the the borrowings are--of course--in the original "Death in Venice," as are almost all other scenes, and the few words that are spoken.
I've never been sure why the Mahler music, in another added flashback scene, is offensive to the audience. Strauss's "Salome," much more daring, was a smashing success in 1905 (and 6). Nor can I make much of Aschenbach's friend's castigation after the hall has cleared and they are back in Aschenbach's room.
But still...five stars.
