Death in Venice [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Luchino Visconti Luchino Visconti

Overview

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.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/19/2019
UPC:	0715515226516
Original Release:	1971
Rating:	PG
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Language:	English
Time:	2:11:00
Sales rank:	11,231

Special Features

New 4k digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; Luchino Visconti: Life as in a Novel, a 2008 documentary about the director, featuring Visconti, actors Burt Lancaster, Silvana Mangano, and Marcello Mastroianni; filmmakers Francesco Rosi and Franco Zeffirelli; Alla ricerca di Tadzio, a 1970 short film by Visconti about his efforts to cast the role of Tadzio; New program featuring literature and cinema scholar Stefano Albertini; Interview from 2006 with Costume Designer Piero Tosi; Excerpt from a 1990 program about the music in Visconti's films, featuring Bogardo and actor Marisa Berenson; Interview with Visconti from 1971; Visconti's Venice, a short 1970 behind-the-scenes documentary featuring Visconti and Bogarde; Trailer; Plus: An essay by critic Dennis Lim

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Dirk Bogarde	Gustav Von Aschenbach
Björn Andresen	Tadzio,Actor
Silvana Mangano	Tadzio's Mother
Marisa Berenson	Frau Von Aschenbach
Mark Burns	Alfred
Romolo Valli	Hotel Manager
Carole Andre	Esmeralda
Nora Ricci	Governess
Masha Predit	Singer
Leslie French	Travel Agent
Franco Fabrizi	Barber
Sergio Garfagnoli	Polish Youth
Luigi Battaglia	Scapegrace
Ciro Cristofoletti	Hotel Clerk
Dominique Darel	English Tourist
Bruno Baschetti	Railway Worker
Mireilla Pompili	Hotel Guest
Björn Andrésen	Actor
Nicoletta Elmi	la petite fille
Bruno Boschetti	un employé de la gare
John Fordyce	un client de l'hôtel
Mirella Pamphili	Hotel guest
Sergio Garafanolo	Polish Young Man
Gustav Mahler	Composer
Franco Mannino	Composer

Technical Credits

Luchino Visconti

Nicola Badalucco

Thomas Mann

Luchino Visconti	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Nicola Badalucco	Screenwriter,Screenwriter
Thomas Mann	Screenwriter
Mario Gallo	Executive Producer
Robert Gordon Edwards	Producer,Executive Producer
Giuseppe Muratori	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Vittorio Trentino	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

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.

All Movie Guide - Wheeler Winston Dixon