Death in Venice (film)
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| Death in Venice | |
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 DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Luchino Visconti |
| Produced by | Luchino Visconti |
| Written by | Thomas Mann (novel) Luchino Visconti Nicola Badalucco |
| Starring | Dirk Bogarde Romolo Valli Mark Burns Björn Andresen |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | March 1, 1971 UK release |
| Running time | 130 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
- For other uses, see Death in Venice (disambiguation).
Death in Venice is a 1971 film directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Dirk Bogarde as Gustav von Aschenbach and Björn Andresen as Tadzio. The film is based on the novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann.
[edit] Outline of the film
The story is about Gustav von Achenbach who has travelled to Venice for health reasons, and where he becomes obsessed with the stunning beauty of an adolescent Polish boy named Tadzio who is staying with his family at the same hotel on the Lido as von Achenbach.
While the character von Achenbach in the novella is an author, Visconti changed his profession to that of a composer. "Playing the role" of von Achenbach's music in the film is the music of Gustav Mahler, in particular the Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony, which both opens and closes the film, and sections from his Third Symphony. Mahler could be seen as an appropriate composer to appropriate because of his concern with death, which he transposed to his music. Apart from this change, the film is relatively faithful to the book, but with added scenes where von Achenbach and a musician friend debate the degraded aesthetics of his music - again, this has parallels in the life and works of Mahler.
While von Achenbach attempts to find peace and quiet on the Venice resort island of the Lido, the rest of the city is being gripped by a pestulance, and the city authorities do not inform the holiday-makers of the problem for fear that they will all leave: "Oh it is merely the sirocco" offers one bank clerk as an explanation. As von Achenbach and the other guests make day-trips out into the city centre it eventually dawns on them that something is seriously wrong. Von Achenbach decides to leave, but in a moment of impulse decides to stay. However, he himself is dying. Rejuvenated by the presence of Tadzio - though they never actually converse - he visits the barbers who, in his words, "returns to you merely what has been lost", dying his grey hair black and whitening his face and reddening his lips to try and make him look younger. As he leaves the barber's shop the barber exclaims: "And now Sir is ready to fall in love with whomever he pleases". But the result replays the sickly "mutton dressed as lamb" old man von Achenbach had encountered on the boat approaching Venice at the beginning of the film. Von Achenbach still continues to gaze at Tadzio from afar, the latter more aware that he is being gazed at. The climax comes with von Achenbach witnessing Tadzio being beaten up on the beach by an older boy, and at that very moment - heightened by the crescendo in Mahler's Adaggietto - he has a heart attack and dies. While Tazio and the boy make up they don't even notice von Achenbach dying, and they continue to walk along the beach while the other guests alert the hotel staff of what has happened, and who then carry von Achenbach's body away.
Film historian Lawrence J. Quirk wrote, in his study, The Great Romantic Films (1974), "Some shots of Björn Andresen, the Tadzio of the film, could be extracted from the frame and hung on the walls of the Louvre or the Vatican in Rome. For this is not a pretty youngster who is supposed to represent an object of perverted lust; that was neither novelist Mann's nor director-screen writer Visconti's intention. Rather, this is a symbol of a beauty allied to those which inspired Michelangelo's David and Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and which moved Dante to seek ultimate aesthetic catharsis in the distant figure of Beatrice."
- In his autobiography, A Postilion Struck by Lightening, Dirk Bogarde recounts how the film crew managed to create the deathly white skin which his character displays in the final scenes of the film, just as he dies. Bogarde recalls that the make-up department had tried various face paints and creams, none of which had been satisfactory, as they smeered. When a suitable cream was found and the scenes were being shot, Bogarde recalls that his face began to burn terribly. The tube of cream was found and written on the side was "Do not let this come into contact with the skin": the director had ignored this and had been testing it out, as small patches, on various memebrs of the film crew, before finally having it applied to Bogarde's face.
- Director Visconti was concerned with appearances, so it was natural to change a few medical details. In the novella, Mann makes it clear that the plague in Venice was cholera, which causes severe diarrhea, resulting in death by dehydration. It would be gruesome and even disgusting to show this cinematically. Therefore Visconti has von Aschenbach die of a heart attack, which though painful is not messy. However, he does leave in the detail of copious perspiration causing Aschenbach's hair dye and face paint to run, which was as close as Mann had come to clinical accuracy.
