Death in Venice Reviews

Luchino Visconti's powerful and controversial screen adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella stars Dirk Bogarde as Gustav von Aschenbach, an aging German composer (modeled after Gustav Mahler) who visits Venice while on the verge of a physical and mental breakdown. Plagued by fears that he can no longer feel emotion because he has been avoiding it for so long, he is unfazed by the boorish and obnoxious behavior of the bourgeois creatures around him. Suddenly, he sees a beautiful blond boy named Tadzio (Bjorn Andresen) who is traveling with his mother and sisters. Gustav becomes obsessed with Tadzio and the ideal of classic beauty he represents. He seeks out the boy, who stirs feelings within him he thought he had lost, but refrains from making contact with him, watching as the lad wanders through the dank, decaying city. Bogarde is superb as the dying composer. The beautiful cinematography combines with Ferdinando Scarfiotti's art direction to produce a powerful remembrance of time and place past. Visconti also makes effective use of Mahler's Third and Fifth symphonies. The music haunts the film, as do the quiet whispers of sound that help create the film's almost surreal environment. The delicacy of the soundtrack evokes the mood of Aschenbach's last days and his obsession with the face of Tadzio. DEATH IN VENICE was met with almost universal disapproval and misunderstanding when it was first released but, despite the omissions from Mann's text, dependence on flashbacks, and overwrought arguments about art and music between Aschenbach and a colleague, it remains a film of great beauty.