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DVD Death in Venice
Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel is the very definition of sumptuous: the costumes and sets, the special geography of Venice, and the breathtaking cinematography combine to form a heady experience. At the center of this gorgeousness is Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde in a meticulous performance), a controlled intellectual who unexpectedly finds himself obsessed by the vision of a 14-year-old boy while on a convalescent vacation in 1911. Visconti has turned Aschenbach into a composer, which accounts for the lush excerpts from Mahler on the soundtrack (Bogarde is meant to look like Mahler, too). Even if it tends to hit the nail on the head a little too forcefully, and even if Visconti can test one's patience with lingering looks at crowds at the beach and hotel dining rooms, Death in Venice creates a lushness rare in movies. For some viewers, that will be enough. --Robert Horton
Make no mistake - Many would find this film difficult to watch; impossible to watch right through for most. As an friend said once, watching 'Death In Venice' is to be exquisitely bored.
Most people today, especially those younger people born after 1980 and the age of "MTV" would think the idea of spending 2 hours watching an old, closted gay guy stalking a pretty young boy all over Venice ridiculous, even insane.
I remember watching this film when I was in my mid-20's and hating it. But now that I am in my mid-40's, I know what its all about, and feel the tragedy of von Aschenbach. At last I understand it, and I find it a masterpiece.
Von Aschenbach is getting old, and feels old. He is conservative to the point of being pathetic. While he watches the beautiful Tadzio, desiring him, it is the desire to be young and free that he also desires, not just the love of and desire for beauty. To be able to covort in the ocean and roll around in the mud in the hugging grasp of a loved friend is probably what von Aschenbach wants to do. But society and convention demand that he sits in a deck chair on the beach eating strawberries. When we watch this film, the stifling boredom of high society jumps out of the screen at us. Von Aschenbach desparetly wants to escape this suffocating society, but can't. His only escape is by proxy; through watching the beautiful boy, Tadzio.
But this is not all. Tadzio is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, and as von Aschenbach has striven for beauty all his life, he becomes obsessed by Tadzio. He becomes a tragic, old queen stalking a beautiful 14 year old boy. Finally this tragic episode in his life comes to a conclusion when he is talked into having a 'makeover' by a barber, having his grey hair painted over with black paint, his face covered in white make-up, mascara applyed to his eyes and red lipstick put on. As he leaves the barber shop with a new confidence that he looks 20 years younger, we can see he looks pathetic - so pathetic it brings tears to the eyes. We cring in horror as we watch the lipstick being applyed to his lips; we shout out loud "NO!!" as he walks out into the street wearing make-up that gives him the appearance of a tragic old clown.
Yes folks, this is one of the saddest films ever. Sad because as we get older, we can identify with von Aschenbach and his desire to be young, and his desire for young beauty. We feel his pain as he desires that young beauty that we know he can't have. All this happening in the most beautiful city in the world, looking absolutely exquisite.
An ambient masterpiece
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).
A Beautiful Film
I first viewed this film with a friend, in my home. He and I are both lovers of beautiful music and art. This film satisfies both categories. The score is absolutely magnificent and the views of Venice, beautiful. The acting (by main character Dirk Bogard)is subtle but effective. We found this film to be a totally soul-satisfying experience.
This brooding, operatic movie about Nazism makes Cabaret look like wholesome family fare. The family in The Damned is a symbol of German society circa 1934. The Krupp-like steel magnate Baron von Essenbeck represents the spineless establishment. The Nazis kill the baron, then frame one heir apparent, a socialist (married to the stunning Charlotte Rampling). A bearish, boorish Essenbeck representing the SA, the Nazis' early goon squad, takes the reins. But Hitler murdered the SA in the 1934 "Night of the Long Knives," providing The Damned with its bravura action scene, a Nazi massacre at a gay SA orgy. The winning Essenbeck is the murderous, pedophilic, transvestite, mother-rapist Martin (sharp-featured Helmut Berger), who represents Nazism. Though he's better in... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Dirk Bogarde - Ingrid Thulin - Helmut Griem - Helmut Berger Director(s): Luchino Visconti DVD Release Date: Released the 17 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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At three brief hours, La Dolce Vita, a piece of cynical, engrossing social commentary, stands as Federico Fellini's timeless masterpiece. A rich, detailed panorama of Rome's modern decadence and sophisticated immorality, the film is episodic in structure but held tightly in focus by the wandering protagonist through whom we witness the sordid action. Marcello Rubini (extraordinarily played by Marcello Mastroianni) is a tabloid reporter trapped in a shallow high-society existence. A man of paradoxical emotional juxtapositions (cool but tortured, sexy but impotent), he dreams about writing something important but remains seduced by the money and prestige that accompany his shallow position. He romanticizes finding true love but acts unfazed upon finding that his girlfriend has taken... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Marcello Mastroianni - Anita Ekberg Director(s): Federico Fellini DVD Release Date: Released the 21 September 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This 1966 masterpiece by Michelangelo Antonioni (The Passenger) is set in the heady atmosphere of Swinging London, and stars David Hemmings as an unsmiling fashion photographer hooked on ephemeral meaning attached to anything: art, sex, work, relationships, drugs, events. When a real mystery falls into his lap, he probes the evidence for some reliable truth, but finds it hard to reckon with. Vanessa Redgrave plays an enigmatic woman whose desperation to cover something up only seems like one more phenomenon in Hemmings's disinterested purview. This is one of the key films of the decade, and still an unsettling and lasting experience. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Vanessa Redgrave - David Hemmings Director(s): Michelangelo Antonioni DVD Release Date: Released the 17 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Writer/director Pedro Almodóvar's dark, sexy Hitchcock homage is his best work since his Oscar-winning All About My Mother, and deepened by a sun-dappled sadness. Handsome, enigmatic Ángel (Gael García Bernal) arrives at the Spanish movie offices of director Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez) and happily proclaims that he's actually Enrique's long-lost school chum Ignacio--an announcement that is both less than convincing and more than it seems. A novice actor, Ángel pitches a semi-autobiographical screenplay in which he's determined to star, a revenge-laden reflection of the doomed love he and Enrique shared as boys before a pedophile priest cruelly intervened. The script, and the lost days it recalls, carefully unfurls into a series of brooding movies-within-movies... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gael García Bernal - Fele Martínez - Javier Cámara Director(s): Pedro Almodóvar DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Vittorio De Sica's remarkable 1947 drama of desperation and survival in Italy's devastating post-war depression earned a special Oscar for its affecting power. Shot in the streets and alleys of Rome, De Sica uses the real-life environment of contemporary life to frame his moving drama of a desperate father whose new job delivering cinema posters is threatened when a street thief steals his bicycle. Too poor to buy another, he and his son take to the streets in an impossible search for his bike. Cast with nonactors and filled with the real street life of Rome, this landmark film helped define the Italian neorealist approach with its mix of real life details, poetic imagery, and warm sentimentality. De Sica uses the wandering pair to witness the lives of everyday folks, but ultimately he... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lamberto Maggiorani - Enzo Staiola Director(s): Vittorio De Sica DVD Release Date: Released the 24 November 1998 Usually ships in 24 hours
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