Death in Venice

hey, wanna see a gay book getting fucked in the ass by long lenses and repeated nauseating zooms? Sure, but hey - nice symbolic motifs, though! In fact, making Aschenbach a composer instead of a poet(like the book), and let the music(along with close-ups) serve as emotional cues is pretty clever. Some of the more understated themes come across brilliantly - oh, if hadn't been for those damn lenses..

A film about a sick music proffesor going to rest in Venice. This man is unlikeable, uninteresting, snobbish, arrogant and pretentious. Or in short - boring and annoying. Oh, and also a pedophile. Also there's no story. Watching this is basically waiting two hours for the bastard to die, which seems to be the only thing that could end our mutual suffering. A great performance from Bogarde and the music from Mahler saves it from a complete disaster.

This is not easy to adapt, but I couldn't imagine anyone doing a more competent job than Visconti does here. The novel is very internalized, so to overcome that hurdle, Visconti switched Gustav's art from writing to composition, since music is more externalized, and adds a few conversations that help to communicate the novel's themes. It all works very nicely. This is excellent in other regards as well; Visconti's eye for period detail is unsurpassed, and this is a gorgeously shot film.

Hard to get past the obvious storyline of an older man following a teenage boy throughout Venice. Along the way, there's some great background shots and symphonic music to show his struggle with having found beauty in an unexpected place.

On a symbolic level, it's masterful: an artist (a brilliant Bogarde) torn between stillborn balance and sinful beauty ultimately fades uncherished and frustrated. Visconti, however, seems to be undecided himself: he alternates alienating pomposity with more passionate and subversive filmmaking -as a result, the film becomes immersed in Gustave's perspective and drags. Ultimately, it's fitting that its merits are mostly cerebral but one is left thirsty for more hot-blooded storytelling.

There are no particular flaws nagging at me, I could even make a case for its greatness. But I didn't connect with it on any level and the whole thing just kind of washed over me. The only thing I wanted to note was that there seemed to be an inordinate amount of zooming going on. Otherwise, I've got nothing much to say. It was poignant and well-executed, and the theme of an artist failing to acheive beauty was a little bit interesting, but I also have to say I was kinda bored most of the time.

Absolutely gorgeous film. The parts I saw when I wasn't nodding off, anyway.

This adaptation of a novella is exemplary in that it doesn't pretend to be a carbon copy of the book. It's a Visconti, not a Mann. Not only does Visconti replace the writer protagonist with a composer based on Europe-period Mahler (whose music adorns the soundtrack), but the film is so very cinematic, a gripping audio-visual experience in adagio tempo. Despite the sparsity of the dialog, the film is full of ambiguous meaning; psychological, social, historical, philosophical and otherwise.

A film less than the sum of its striking parts. Beautiful cinematography, an excellent performance by Bogarde, stunning set and costume design, stirring music, at the service of what exactly? Visconti both relies too much on knowledge of the source material while also deviating enough from it as to render the adaptation nearly indecipherable. All this sensuousness must serve something. There must be balance. That was one of Mann's points. This point was missed by an overindulgent Visconti here.

Here, in the course of one film, you can measure the shift from one man intent on making a masterpiece to something like a monstrous parody created by the Monty Python boys. So be careful when you set out with a masterpiece in mind. You need only go back to Visconti's Senso, done in Venice in 1954, to see the loss of emotional reality and the sacrifice of storytelling to lassitudinous self-regard. Death in Venice is a very bad film.

Visconti's films are always a visual joy, and this is no exception. Not as lush as The Leopard, DiV offers a grittier, claustrophobic vision of Venice that never fails to engage the eye. That said, the film's beauty remains distant and cool, akin to the role of a quiet observer rather than a participant in the action. I suspect that was exactly what Visconti was going for, but the approach, in turn, leaves me a bit distant toward the film in the final analysis.

Despite being almost surreal in its creepiness throughout the duration, I found this rather intoxicating. One of the best music videos I’ve ever seen.

_Boring? _Yes, at times. _Homossexual, pedo? _Maybe. _Beautiful??? _Certainly! The human neverending pursuit of "The beauty". Outstanding.

Heartsick and masterful. I do concur with an annoyance in Visconti's love of the zoom, and (much less so) a few slightly tiresome sequences.

A slow moving period piece, at times it feels like it isn't going anywhere. What it lacks in story it makes up for with an incredible emotional performance by Bogarde who makes us sympathize with a character who could easily be unlikeable. Visconti's beautiful work with the camera helps in this regard as well, using zooms and pans to draw us into the situation and giving us wonderful scenery to look at.

Beautiful, melancholic film.

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Lovely.

Making Aschenbach into 'Mahler' was such a bloody cinematically genius decision that I almost jizzed in my seat.

sometimes things that are beautiful.. are worse

It's very rare to find a film where the picture serves the soundtrack, and not vice versa, but here that's the case, and with Mahler's gorgeous symphonies it's quite appropriate. It's only too bad the script is so weak and it loses some of the emotional punch because there's no real story to be connected to. Still, Dirk Bogarde's strong performance makes up partly for it and he makes us sympathize even with a character we barely know. Sure, it's a limited film, but sort of a flawed masterpiece.

(rewatched on 23/03/19): On death and desire. Visconti does a great job of isolating the 'protagonist' within the crumbling city of Venice, whose weathered facade mirrors his internal distintegration. We sense the melancholy weariness of his plight, combined with the ambiguity of his desire, all effectively communicated by Bogarde. It could have been tightened in the editing room, but it has a lyrical resonance that lingers long after the credits roll, and the use of Mahler is brilliant.

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The middle of this was pretty boring but that end scene is something else. Much better than the other Visconti I've seen.

Mann's slow-moving classic is splendidly brought to the big screen. Music by Gustav Mahler (whom Bogarde is made up to resemble).

I should make a t-shirt that says "I survived Death in Venice"

I love the struggle between beauty and decay (Venice being the perfect setting) and the discomfort of gazing far too much at Tadzio through Aschenbach's eyes but otherwise this is a dull movie.

the third visconti costume drama i've seen, and easily the best. contemplate is the word of the day. the camera slowly zooms and pans across its subjects with meticulous deliberateness, listening to the incessant background chatter in a way remniscent of altman. gustave is equally as abstracted, observant yet deep in thought. the text is rich with art, psychology and a venetian milieu, but the obvious point of contention is a strong pull of homosexual desire. i wonder if NAMBLA likes this movie.

Estreava há 50 anos no Festival de Cannes. Meu primeiro Visconti da vida, assistido nas madrugadas da Globo nos anos 90 e foi paixão instantânea, inclusive é um dos raros casos que acontecem que tanto o livro do Mann e filme baseado nele são ambas obras-primas absolutas. 50 anos depois o modo como o filme lida metaforicamente o morrer pela arte, o gozo do ápice estético e sua lenta deterioração posterior, é ainda um dos momentos mais pujantes do cinema Blu-ray Versátil Essencial Vis

A peculiar yet profound and haunting companion to the novella. Visconti transposes Mann's philosophical musings for long, atmospheric silences, endless gazing that underscores the purgatorial nature of the situation. By removing the interiority of the novel we are left with the sheer absurdity of profane desire in the physical. Not sure I've ever seen a director capture oppressive heat, disease, suffocation in the way that Visconti did -- a beautiful psychological nightmare.

Mann'ın romanındaki atmosferi ve o tuhaf karakteri imgelemdeki kadar güçlü yansıtmış Visconti. Her yönüyle bir sanat eseri ortaya çıkmış.

Disturbing film.

A little too wish washy for my taste -none of the characters in it are endearing or even interesting and it seems to hold no relevance for today.

Possibly the most self-absorbed, narcissistic film ever made.

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Presented an aether of seduction and sexual desire in a way that possibly had never been seen in cinema and will never be seen again: melancholic, extremely discreet, hopelessly enticed.

beautiful but not for me ! It's just matter of taste.

Oddly absorbing. This is a great example of a film where there's really not much to work with story or script-wise, but the right combination of pieces manages to elevate a film that should by all means be bad to a very good one on the strength of perfect direction and a powerhouse performance by Bogarde as a sexually (and otherwise) repressed composer who becomes fixated on the beauty of a teenage boy who is vacationing at the same time as him in Venice. Unique and divisive, but it drew me in.

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