Death in Venice
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Movie Reviews of Death in Venice
Movie Review: Technically exquisite, but tedious and pretentious.
Summary: 3 Stars
I found this movie to be beautifully photographed but, overall, annoyingly slow and pretentious.
Toward the end of the movie, there's a scene where a woman is singing what I believe is a Polish song. And she goes on and on and on and on and on and on. ... She gave me a freakin' headache! (And I rarely get headaches. So thank you very much, you musically-challenged [...])
It's interesting that many of the reviewers here who gave the film 5 stars freely admit that it's
... "slow moving"
... "not an easy film to watch"
... "lacking in action."
Yeah, right! So then why give it such high praise?
It's not that a movie has to be "easy" to watch, but it does have to have enough form and substance that the audience cares, one way or another, pro or con, about the central character, especially when the central character is empathetically presented.
I didn't care very much what happened to the Dirk Bogarde character. He was introspective but without the payoff an introspective character should have. "What's on this boy's mind?" I kept asking myself.
Why should we care or empathize with the Dirk Bogarde/Gustav Mahler character? We know very little about him. Yes, Mahler was a great artist, but this isn't a great movie.
The flashback scenes where Mahler is arguing with a colleague about the meaning of art and truth were, for me, forced and overbearing.
That the Mahler character wanted to stay in Venice just to be around the young boy he fancied -- sorry, but that isn't enough for me as far as a "plot" is concerned. Even great directors have trouble with plots and endings and in that regard this movie, as beautifully photgraphed and as cinematically evocative as it is, copped out. Put another way: sometimes less *isn't* more; sometimes less is just less.
When you have a movie with human beings in it, then you need to have them doing things that human beings do. What they do can be absurd, illogical, antisocial. But fer crissakes, HAVE THEM DO SOMETHING!
There seemed to be very little going on inside or outside the Mahler character's mind. Why, for example was he fascinated by the young boy? The film suggests that perhaps he was drawn to the boy because he was obsessed with beauty; or perhaps because he's a homosexual; or perhaps because as a great artist he inevitably has feelings too large, too sensitive for the world of the mundane. Or a combination of all three possibilities. Ok, but where did the story go from those suggested possibilities?
Those are threads, it seems to me, that are relatively "easy" to establish in a movie -- the real art comes in taking those threads and fashioning something meaningful from them. ... And here's where Visconti's work, ambitious and technical masterful as it is, falls short.
The threads in great movies may not explain all there is to know or even all there is to contemplate in the human condition, but when the final scene is over, the audience should feel as though some insights have been offered -- insight beyond exquisite technical proficiency and/or "outstanding acting."
The only thing I really cared about was Dirk Bogarde's luggage. God forbid he should lose such beautiful, well-photographed luggage.
I'm not saying thsi was a bad movie or a failure; just a great disappointment and (chacon a son gout) a bore.
Movie Review: An ambient masterpiece
Summary: 3 Stars
Visconti's Death in Venice: a short story expanded to a feature film of over two hours by the repetition of one scene - Tadzio and Gustav pass each other, both half smile, Tadzio lingers and looks back, Gustav hesitates and moves away. The point is well made, but its repetition more than a dozen times eventually makes it ludicrous, as it may well have been in life, but here it succeeds in ruining the integrity of the film.
Expertly made, beautifully photographed, brilliantly acted by Bogade (it is virtually a one man show by him, and sustained throughout in a magnificent performance) the film loses its way with Tadzio (not the actor, but the role). The opening sequence of the boat arriving is masterly, establishing character, setting and a mood with impeccable artistry. Character, setting and mood are Visconti's strong points, and he succeeds in these areas almost entirely through the length of the film.
But content, exposition of ideas, development of these through character interaction: here the film falls short. Clumsy flashback sequences show (or rather, tell) about Gustav's ideals and his obstinacy in pursuing them. We learn about the public hostility to his music, the tragic death of his child, his own ill health, all through flashback. The sequences of debate with his colleagues are dreadful: all abstract nouns, and both ridiculous and unintelligible. However, we are told what Tadzio means to him, so that we can watch his helplessness at the prospect, for over two hours.
The point is that Gustav prefers ideals to the real, and the lush romanticism of Mahler's music underscores this at key moments. The shame is that this lovely film falls back on romantic conventions of the love story instead of simply making its point and finishing. Someone decided that a short film on Death in Venice wouldn't sell, that it needed a little lengthening, a little romance (so that the simple minded audience could follow what was going on).
Movie Review: Bogarde's Only Boring Performance
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm a lifelong Bogarde fan, the kind who will watch anything he's in. He's a marvelously sensitive, intuitive actor, his effects so natural they seem effortless. What's more, he's one of the few actors who, when he's silent on screen, looks as though he's thinking and not as though he forgot his lines. Therefore I was astonished at his bizarre, fidgety performance in *Death In Venice*. In his memoirs, Bogarde has described how Visconti tracked him down and convinced him to play the role. Visconti told Bogarde he had reached the exact degree of preparedness, like a hunting kill hung to the stage of beautiful putrefaction. Well, Bogarde putrifies in this role, but not beautifully. For most of the movie, he's continually full of business, idiosyncratic little quirks and tics that chafe the viewer.All of Bogarde's usual seamless power is lost in this overworked interpretation. Until the last scenes in the film his Aschenbach is too trivial, narcissistic, and dryly self-involved to gain our interest. I think part of the problem is the self-consciousness of his Mahler makeup. (Visconti intended him to look like Mahler.) At this stage in Bogarde's life he had a compelling ruined beauty. This is what his Aschenbach should have looked like.
Having said all this, I have to mention the truly powerful last scenes in which Bogarde, as the dying Aschenbach, regains his stillness and a tragic self-knowledge. He sacrifices his life rather than be separated from an impossible, wildly unseemly love for a person who could never possibly love him back. This is not noble. It's pathetic, ridiculous, repulsive. But Bogarde rises above his Mahler moustache and disastrous obsession to pierce us, in the end, with his pain.
Movie Review: "Death in Venice" is a classic you should watch at least once, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
"Death in Venice" (1971) is Visconti's version of the short story of the same name written by Thomas Mann. There are a few changes, but I think that the film is true to the spirit of the story. Did I love this movie? No, but I'd watch it again, because I was impressed by it.
The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde), an old and famous composer that visits Venice in order to rest, and stays at a splendid hotel. There he sees Tadzio (Bjorn Andresen), a young boy he cannot help but admire. Gustav slowly becomes obsessed with Tadzio, and starts to follow him and his family around the city, admiring him from afar. Has Gustav fallen in love with the boy, or with the fact that he is the personification of beauty and youth, things he doesn't have anymore?
At the same time Gustav discovers his fascination with Tadzio, something is happening in Venice, a beautiful city where decay and illness start to intrude. What is going to transpire? Visconti, with the help of an impressive soundtrack, builds a climate of tension. We know something is going to happen, but we don't know what.
On the whole, I believe that "Death in Venice" is a classic you should watch at least once, but not the kind of movie most of you would like to see much more than that. Provided that you take that observation into account, recommended...
Belen Alcat
Movie Review: Masterpiece or slow, slow awareness of sexual orientation?
Summary: 3 Stars
Some will call Death in Venice an intellectual masterpiece, showing an artist's gradual awareness of his sexual orientation.
Others will call it the most boring, slow, slow, slow two hours of watching an old man sit in a hotel lobby and on the beach, obsessing over an androgenous young boy.
The scenery and costumes will transport you back to Europe of the late nineteenth century. You also get a look at a troubled artist and his difficulty in fitting in with the world. On these aspects, as a beautifully staged, wonderfully costumed and acted film, it's quite enjoyable. The incredibly beautiful music of Gustav Mahler also gives it a warmth and 1890s glow.
I had hoped it might be the story of composer Gustav Mahler. Perhaps it is novelist Thomas Mann's vision of Mahler, but it has almost no basis in fact.
So, I'm afraid final judgment will fall to you. I just wanted to advise you that you may not enjoy this if you're not up to an intense two hour voyage of self-discovery of one man's gayness.