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DEATH IN VENICE (MORTE A VENEZIA)
Luchino Visconti, Italy/France, 1971
Wednesday 13 August 2003 10.10pm-12.15am
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Dirk Bogarde delivers one of his finest performances in Luchino Visconti's elegiac adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella. He plays Gustav von Aschenbach, an aging composer, compelled to take a convalescent holiday in Venice after a series of tragedies have befallen him. But his escape becomes a silent pursuit after he sees a blonde, beautiful boy with whom he becomes obsessed.
The sorrowful but seductive music of Mahler intensifies the film's emotional charge, enhancing Bogarde's depiction of a man freed from his customary intellectual confinements, but constrained by other, more aesthetic impulses. The veteran actor ranked the role as one of his most accomplished, to the extent that he considered retiring after the movie, believing his career had reached its zenith.
It's generally accepted that Von Aschenbach's passion is sexually driven, although Bogarde denied this, insisting his character's fascination was fueled by a purer, platonic vision of beauty. Ultimately, the matter remains open to interpretation as there's very little dialogue to indicate the precise nature of the tragic obsession. Interviewed on set, Bogarde confirmed, "He [Visconti] doesn't give a damn about words," and the film triumphs as a series of haunting, harrowing images. The look of the work is extraordinary, achieved in part by Visconti's insistence on exactly replicating Mann's vision of turn-of-the-century Venice. When shooting in the Italian piazzas, for example, he would ensure the presence of vermin by cutting up fresh meat to attract indigenous rats.
Visconti's absolute determination to create a work of visual perfection mirrors Aschenbach's obsession. The director travelled across four countries hunting for the boy to play Tadzio, the central image of beauty, and he handpicked over 70 extras and personally chose his entire crew. Death in Venice can therefore be legitimately hailed as quintessential Luchino Visconti: subtle but striking; disturbing, captivating and contentious. A high-point for its star, certainly, and also for Visconti's career-long quest for sublime, sensual cinema.
Gavin Collinson
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In Mann's novella, Gustav von Aschenbach is a writer. Visconti presents him as a composer, believing he was in part based on Gustav Mahler.
