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Death in Venice
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by Warner Home Video
Sales Rank: 16394
Price: $17.99
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Abroad on a rest holiday, composer Gustav Aschenbach (Dick Bogarde) is to all the world reserved and civilized. But when he glimpses someone who inspires him to give way to a secret passion, it foreshadows his doom. Director Luchino Visconti (Rocco and His Brothers, The Damned) transforms Thomas Mann's classic novel into "a masterwork of power and beauty" (William Wolf, Cue). Like Aschenbach, Visconti is an artist obsessed: his movies are awash in mood, period detail and seething emotions beneath placid surfaces. Earning its maker a Cannes Film Festival Special 25th Anniversary Prize, Death in Venice - with a soundtrack feast of Gustav Mahler music and a haunting Bogarde performance-is Visconti at his best.
Viewer Reviews
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
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