Death in Venice Movie

Death in Venice
Rating:
Run Time: 130 min
MPAA Rating:
Released: 1971
Directors: Luchino Visconti
Genre/Type: Drama
Gay & Lesbian Films
Period Film
Psychological Drama
Producers: Luchino Visconti
Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Based on a novel by Thomas Mann, Death in Venice stars Dirk Bogarde as a German composer who is terrified that he has lost all vestiges of humanity. While visiting Venice, Bogarde falls in love with a beautiful young boy (Bjorn Andresen). The relationship is ruined by Bogarde's obsession with the boy's youth and physical perfection; the composer realizes that the child represents an ideal that he can never match. The character played by Dirk Bogarde is evidently intended to be Gustav Mahler, whose haunting music is featured on the film's soundtrack.

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Cast

Actors Character Born
Dirk Bogarde Gustav Von Aschenbach Mar 28, 1921 in London, England, UK
Bjorn Andresen Tadzio Jan 26, 1955 in Stockholm, Sweden
Silvana Mangano Tadzio's Mother Apr 21, 1930 in Rome, Italy
Marisa Berenson Frau Von Aschenbach Feb 15, 1947 in New York City, NY
Mark Burns Alfred
Masha Predit Singer
Romolo Valli Hotel manager
Leslie French Travel Agent Apr 23, 1904 in Bromley, Kent, England, UK
Dominique Darel English Tourist
Ciro Cristofoletti Hotel clerk
Sergio Garafanolo Polish Young Man
Luigi Battaglia Scapegrace
Nora Ricci Governess
Franco Fabrizi Barber Feb 15, 1926 in Cortemaggiore, Italy
Carole Andre Esmeralda

Back to the topReview

Review by Wheeler Winston Dixon
Toward the middle of his life, after having worked in a series of thankless comedies for Rank, which nevertheless made him a household name in England, Dirk Bogarde struck out on his own to make a stunning series of films with American expatriate Joseph Losey, most especially The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967). While much of his earlier work had been inconsequential, these films established Bogarde at a stroke as one of England's most serious actors, and led him on a path of self-discovery that eventually wound its way to director Luchino Visconti's door. In Visconti's intensely operatic The Damned (La Caduta degli dei, 1969), Bogarde played the scion of a German munitions manufacturer in Nazi Germany to brutal effect; in 1971, he and Visconti collaborated on one of the director's most disturbing films, Death in Venice (Morte a Venezia). Loosely based on the novel by Thomas Mann, Death in Venice follows composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Bogarde) as he travels to Venice for a vacation, unaware that a mysterious plague is busily claiming the holiday makers one by one, as the management of the luxury hotel where von Aschenbach is staying stage a quiet cover-up, so that people simply "disappear" without explanation. In the midst of this unsettling situation, von Aschenbach develops an obsession with a young boy staying at the resort, Tadzio (Bjorn Andresen). Aging and well aware that the young man could have no possible interest in him other than to manipulate him for money, von Aschenbach nevertheless finds himself in the grip of a passion he cannot escape or explain, and even resorts to cosmetic measures to alter his aging countenance. But all is to no avail, and the film ends in one of the most nihilistic and hopeless final sequences in the history of cinema. Bogarde's performance is heroic and deeply sympathetic; Visconti's direction is methodical and coiled, gradually springing the trap in the film's final half-hour. A remarkable effort on all accounts, this is one of Visconti's finest films, and one of Bogarde's greatest accomplishments.
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