Death in Venice
by Luchino Visconti
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dirk Bogarde, Marisa Berenson, Mark Burns, Nora Ricci, Romolo ValliDirector: Luchino Visconti
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Pasqualino De Santis
Producer: Luchino Visconti
Writer: Luchino Visconti
Producer: Mario Gallo
Producer: Robert Gordon Edwards
Writer: Nicola Badalucco
Writer: Thomas Mann
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 130 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-02-17
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Death in Venice
Movie Review: Sometimes you don't need a Plot
Summary: 5 Stars
Eightteen years ago I read "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann. It was one of those books that lost me early on and I found myself turning the pages hoping that something would eventually make sense. I got to the end but no, there wasn't anything that made any sense; just an old man with a fixation on a boy and I wasn't the least bit interested in knowing any more about that. I had noted that the movie version of the book was pretty highly acclaimed so I thought maybe that could help me understand what I didn't understand 18 years ago. I'm glad I decided to rent the movie.
What impressed me from the start was the cinematography, the sets, the costumes, the location, the focus, and so many other visual aspects of the movie (including the endless varieties of women's gigantic hats). There is a main character who, frankly, is not a very endearing focal point. He is short-tempered, anti-social, argumentative, impulsive, demanding and generally uninteresting. He's also in a physically weakened state which we note from a multitude of cinematic suggestions. He goes through this movie with little purpose. We are aware that he is supposed to be recouping in Venice but he isn't cooperating with himself. Early on, he notices a boy of roughly the age of 14 or 15. The boy and his family are staying at the same luxurous hotel so the old man and young boy visually encounter each other frequently. If this sounds rather uninteresting it's because it IS uninteresting. What compelled me in the film was the outstanding manner in which it is all presented. It's as though we, too, were present during all that transpires. The acting is outstanding and "Death in Venice" comes across to me as an example of how excellent supporting actors can elevate a film. Essentially, the lack of any meaningful plot enables us to just lounge around with the other vacationers and take in the surroundings. Serously, there IS no plot to this film; merely a suggestion, if you're the least bit interested, of a dying man stumbling through his final days immersed in solitary emptiness. One light flickers intermittently but all the other bulbs have long ago burnt out. It is sad to see and the magnificent splendor that surrounds all this serves to illuminate this emptiness all the more.
I did not get any more meaning out of the film version of "Death in Venice" than I did out of the book. I'm sure some would say that Mann created a literary picture the equal to Viconti's visual picture but I would disagree. I have never given a movie a "5 Star" rating without it telling me a story that drew me in and stayed with me for days and weeks thereafter. Luchino Visconti's "Death in Venice", for me, is an example of making an outstanding movie out of a meaningless story by bringing all the cinematic arts to a level of excellence. Halfway through the film it occurred to me that I should activate the English subtitles so as to pick up the Italian dialogue that is interspersed with the primarily English dialogue. It added somewhat to the film but I didn't need to go back over what I had already seen; the film spoke to me in its' own language. Indeed, the limited dialoue in "Death in Venice" merely served to clarify what we were already hearing. What a performance by Dirk Bogarde!
Summary of Death in Venice
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.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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