Death in Venice
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Movie Reviews of Death in Venice
Movie Review: They got it.
Summary: 5 Stars
I wasn't too hopeful when I screened this film for 15 students immediately after reading Mann's masterpiece. In fact, I considered going instead with Von Sternberg's/Emil Jannings' "The Blue Angel" as a comparable narrative and proven cinematic success. But Visconti crafts a hypnotic and compelling film while Bogarde turns in the performance of his life. The lush cinematography and rich Mahler score are no mere "window dressing" but the very heart of the narrative, making the Dionysian currents that lap the Venice shores as irresistible to the attentive viewer as to the character of Aschenbach himself. I've never felt quite the same about a screen character--at once a pitiful caricature, his make-up melting under the hot Venice sun, and a noble figure who chooses his destiny.
This isn't a film for everyone. But as the final Mahler note was being sounded, one spectator excitedly whispered to me, "They got it." That's good enough for me.
Movie Review: a forgotten masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
If you want to see what cinema as an art can do, then rent or buy this materpiece. Visconti, an opera director himself who directed the likes of Maria Callas and known for works like la terra trema and The Leopard, combines literature, music, and visual cinema like no other in rendering Thomas Mann's celebrated novella into film. All elements work in harmony, and Mahler's music, from Symphonies #3 and #5 fits into the tragic story of a composer (allusions are made to Mahler himself, whom Dick Bogarde astonishingly resembles)whose homosexual passion for a young boy (no actual sin committed aside from looking) leads him to his own destruction. Unberably tragic, visually stunning, alluring and damning, this is arguably the best adaptation of literature into film ever made. And the words of Nietzsche, O Mensch! Gib Acht! (Oh man, take heed!)are actually sung in the film. Not for every taste, but for those able to appreciate it a celestial treat.Movie Review: A great cinematic jewel now on DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
In this age of putrid mediocrity this film sparkles like the timeless true bijou masterpiece it is. Yes it is slow but that is one of its chief virtues . Watch it and savour every superb frame, every delicate nuance,the astonishing painstaking art direction ,the exquisite lighting of a Venice that no longer exists and especially the flawless and tragically visceral performance by Dirk Bogarde, a master actor who was the equal of De Niro,Hoffman and Pacino put together in terms of subtlety and spareness. His conviction in the role permeates every frame and squeezes the heart long after the film has finished. Silvana Mangano need do nothing but allow the camera to caress her to make us gasp and the boy who plays Tadzio is the most arresting vision of androgynous beauty imaginable. Visconti the master created a true masterpiece with this film.A rare experience and a very beautiful one.
Movie Review: Just wait a year
Summary: 5 Stars
I won't give away plot or character... you can get this info from other reviewers. I will tell you something else.
I've seen this film once, a year ago. I hated it then. (Maybe my hetero-ness got in the way and I momentarily forgot that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... ) But from time to time images from the film crop into my head. They leave... eventually they come back. They always come back.
How many works of art can say THAT?
This is a haunting film, a tragic one. You will be touched... although maybe not right away. Give it a chance and it will be like one of those dreams you had twenty years ago and every now and then an image from that dream will pop into your head.
I've been to Venice. The city is like no other. And this film, perhaps, also, ... like no other.
Movie Review: Stunning.
Summary: 5 Stars
Death in Venice, is a visually alluring portrait of obsession, decay, beauty, and mortality. The dialogue is scarce, but I believe the film would not have worked out, if otherwise.
You may or not like it, I can not say you will, like others have said, it is not for everyone, but I must say it is, for me, one of the most beautiful, touching films I have ever seen, if not the most. I found myself, entranced in a strange everlasting spell. I somehow, felt, Bogarde's emotions, and like him, I followed Andresen through the degenerated streets of Venice. I adored, idolized, the feeling of contrast, the imagery, between the decayed, horrific characters Bogarde/Gustav found in Venice, and the exquisiteness of a fifteen-year old boy.
And you can never, ever go wrong with Mahler.