Usually, when I sit down to write a review, I've already decided what overall rating I plan to give the film. For this film, however, there is so much that can be said about it, positive and negative, that I'm having difficulty, at the moment, deciding how much priority to give to the film's many strengths and how much to deduct for its smaller number of weaknesses. I'll just hope that my own feelings will come into sharper focus by the process of writing the review.

Historical Background: Luchino Visconti was a creature of paradoxes. Born a count in one of the most influential aristocratic families in Italy, he became a lifelong Marxist ideologue. Once a womanizer, he became an out-of-the-closet homosexual. Visconti's first work, Ossessione (1942), an unauthorized variant on the James Cain novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, was a harbinger of Neo-realism and his first film after the war, La Terra Trema (1947), a full-fledged example of Neo-realism. As time went on, however, Visconti's interest turned to period films designed as grandiose spectacles, often with thin and flagrantly melodramatic plots. By the time he made Death in Venice in 1971, Visconti had mastered his craft, having already directed such highly regarded films as Senso (1954), White Nights (1957), Rocco and His Brothers (1960), Boccaccio '70 (1962), The Leopard (1963), The Stranger (1967), and The Damned (1969).

Death in Venice was an adaptation of sorts of a novelette by Thomas Mann about Count Aschenbach, a German writer, who travels to Venice for renewal and recuperation at a grand hotel and who becomes obsessed with a beautiful young boy who is there with his family from Poland. Aschenbach's observation of the boy challenges his long held notions about the nature of beauty. Visconti was convinced that Mann's protagonist was modeled after the great German composer, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and decided to highlight that association by building his film around music from Mahler's third and fifth symphonies and changing the profession of his film protagonist to composer. Mahler was indeed a man of inner torments but, from what I've read, those torments had to do with professional stature, uncompromising artistic standards, and insolvency, rather than sexual repression. Mahler was Artistic Director at the Vienna Opera house from 1897-1907, during which time he revolutionized their opera productions, staging one triumph after another, but alienating his fellow musicians by his tyrannical approach, engaging and dismissing performers at will. He was uncompromising in his extravagance and was ultimately fired. He then took a position in New York at the Metropolitan Opera House as well as conducting the New York Philharmonic Society Orchestra. During this time, he also composed the masterful Das Lied von der Erde and his Ninth Symphony. He had married the famous Alma Maria Schindler in 1902 (after Mahler's death, she successively married two other famous men) and she had borne him a daughter. Mahler virtually worked himself to death trying to gain some much needed financial security. Mahler was very superstitious and since Beethoven, Dvorak, Bruckner, and some others had all died after completing exactly nine symphonies, Mahler's plan was to publish what we now know as his Nine Symphony as number ten and then rename Das Lied von der Erde the ninth, but his publisher failed to follow Mahler's instructions. When Mahler discovered the error he frantically began a tenth symphony, hoping to beat the curse, but died before he could complete it.

The Story: There's not much to relate by way of plot. The composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) is convalescing, after the death of his child, at the Venice Hotel des Bains on the Lido, which was one of the premiere resort hotels of its time, catering to the European aristocracy. His mood, never better than humorless and pensive, is further depressed by the poor reception of his last composition at its debut. He spies a lovely young narcissus of a lad, Tadzio (Bjorn Andresen), in the hotel lobby and, later, playing on the beach and becomes preoccupied with observing the beautiful boy. Gradually interest turns to infatuation and, then, infatuation to love. Tadzio seems vaguely to notice Aschenbach's interest in him and to encourage it with glances and subtle smiles. Occasional flashbacks reveal vignettes from Aschenbach's life as well as a debate with a colleague about the nature of beauty. Meanwhile, rumors abound in Venice of a cholera epidemic, which has already made its way across Asia and Asia Minor to some nearby cities in Italy. The locals are hush-hush about the risk because it is the peak tourist season and their livelihoods depend on the tourist trade. Lured into staying in Venice by his obsession with watching Tadzio, Aschenbach is stricken by the deadly vibrios, which blow in on the winds (called the sirocco) off the Mediterranean.

Themes: The changes that Visconti introduced in adapting Mann's novelette to the screen were significant and change the relative importance of various themes. Mann's story was first and foremost about the nature of beauty. That debate is still evident in the film but has been relegated to the back burner. It develops in flashbacks that find Aschenback debating with a colleague about whether beauty is the product of the creative impulse of artists or an inherent property of certain objects of nature. Aschenback has pursued a disciplined and somewhat restrictive life in pursuit of perfect beauty through artistic expression. His encounter with Tadzio shakes his assumptions about beauty and seems to lend credence to his colleague's view. Tadzio is unmistakably beautiful, by any intuitive standard, not only in physical appearance, but also in his youthful purity and serene personality. The flashback scenes, however, are the weakest part of the film, being somewhat shrill in style and delivering only the shallowest kind of philosophical debate. It also doesn't help much that Visconti turned Aschenback into a musician rather than the writer that he was in Mann's novel. One would expect writers or philosophers to be more concerned with theoretical constructs of beauty whereas musicians are generally mainly interested in the application of the concept to musical composition.

On the other hand, Visconti has greatly increased the significance of repressed sexuality as a theme in the story. In Mann's novel, sexual repression was part of the subtext and handled with a great deal of ambiguity. In Visconti's rendition, it becomes the central theme. Visconti added, for example, a scene in the brothel where Aschenback ultimately walks out in despair, leaving behind what looked to be a rather gorgeous little creature, either from impotence or psychological angst. More importantly, the core relationship between Achenback and Tadzio is made far less subtle and chaste – on both sides. Aschenback's behavior sometimes crosses the critical threshold between a rich interior fantasy life and stalking and/or gawking kinds of activities. Tadzio, in Visconti's hands, is almost flirtatious and vaguely aware of the psychosexual undercurrents. The film requires viewers to dredge up their views in relation to pedophilia whereas the novelette remains mainly a treatise on beauty as an abstraction.

Aschenback's psychic crisis is palpable, in Death in Venice, but entirely unnecessary. The solution to his dilemma is simplicity itself. It begins with recognizing that morality applies only to behaviors, not to desires, fantasies, or other internal mental ramblings. You are neither satanic nor perverse for dreaming or daydreaming about sex or romance, peculiar or otherwise, regardless of who or what the object of that desire might be. You might or might not be satanic or perverse for acting on such desires, depending on the degree of relationship, the age, the mental competence, the species, and the animate quality of the object of desire. The distinction between thoughts and actions is critical in both the law and the morality of sexuality. If instead, you adopt the position that morality also requires that your thoughts be pure, you've set yourself an agenda of psychological repression that may very well prove costly to your mental health. One consequence is that you'll never truly know yourself and the other is that you'll expose yourself to the psychological and psychosomatic consequences of guilt and self-reproach.

The trick to healthy living is to loosen up one's psychological life without excessively loosening up one's social behavior. One reviewer of this film states, "Aschenbach hadn't the inner fortitude to go to the next logical step. A German true to his loins would have at least sneaked a peek into Tadzio's beach tent." I strongly disagree unless by "beach tent" one means, metaphorically, the umbrella of one's own fantasy life. As it is, the Aschenbach of Visconti's rendition slightly oversteps the boundary of what I would consider appropriate social behavior. And by the way, it makes absolutely no difference to this point that the instance of attraction in this film was homosexual rather than heterosexual. The key point is Tadzio's age, not his gender. Aschenbach was entitled to discretely observe and fantasize about Tadzio so long as his admiration went unnoticed, by Tadzio or his family or anyone else at the resort. Who among us has never looked surreptitiously at an attractive figure? A major part of the appeal of films, in fact, is that we can stare at and fantasize about beautiful people with no social stigma. Secret admiration is fine, but ogling and gawking are subtle forms of sexual harassment. As it is, some of Aschenbach's interest in Tadzio slipped over the edge of propriety (and morality). A peek into Tadzio's beach tent is certainly not to be encouraged. There is nothing wrong with being an adult who admires the physical beauty of children (especially the most gorgeous among them). To act on that admiration is profoundly wrong because of the very high likelihood that any such action, no matter how well intended, will be detrimental to the psychosocial development of the child.

Production Values: There is an interesting statement by Dirk Bogarde (the star of Death in Venice) in the featurette called Visconti's Venice included on the Warner Bros. DVD for this film. He says, bluntly, that Visconti was not one for taking much interest in the script. Visconti's approach to filmmaking was a painterly kind of approach. He had a deep love for the imagery of cinema and he had the skill to put magnificent images on the screen. His scripts, by contrast, are often suspect. How much difference does that make to the worth of his films? It pretty much depends on viewer priorities.

The script for Death in Venice has minimal plot and even minimal dialog. On the other hand, we're dealing mainly with the issue of the interplay between psychological repression and sexual obsession, which is inherently interior subject matter. The story is mainly told through Bogarde's fine performance – his mannerisms, body posture, countenance, and sighs. There's really quite a bit of tense and poignant activity going on, but it is invisible and has to be inferred by the viewer from Bogarde's demeanor. This film is really a period psychodrama. If you're not into psychodrama, you should probably bypass this film.

The philosophical debate about the nature of beauty is the weakest part of the film. The flashback scenes are unconvincing and exceedingly shallow. As a director, Visconti could be said to mirror his protagonist in Death in Venice. Both were obsessed with realizing perfect beauty through art by integrating great intellectual themes with stylistic beauty (musical or visual). Visconti's adaptation of the novella was both faithful to the original and unfaithful. It was faithful in presenting most of the individual scenes from the novel but unfaithful by altering the emphasis of the various thematic elements.

The cinematography for this film is consistently beautiful and a few segments are among the most gorgeous shots I've seen on a screen. The period detail is amazing (always one of Visconti's strengths). The great resort on the Lido has been reproduced right down to the table settings. Venice, as a city, has probably never been so meticulously realized on film, right down to its misty spiritual core.

Mahler is one of my favorite composers and the soundtrack for this film abounds with his music, choral, vocal, and symphonic. Mahler's music is, in fact, such a major part of this film that one could actually make a reasonable case for describing this film as a visual accompaniment for two Mahler symphonies.

It is interesting that all of the reviews that I read for this film, both positive and negative, credited Dirk Bogarde with a brilliant performance. Bogarde was in the unenviable position of providing not only a lead performance but also virtually the entire plot, since the story of the film consists of his character's psychological progression, revealed mainly through Bogarde's physical performance rather than dialog. That is a tall order for any actor, but Bogarde pulls it off. Bogarde's other film work includes Quartet (1949), Doctor in the House (1954), The Servant (1963), King and Country (1964), The Damned (1969), Providence (1977), and A Bridge Too Far (1977). Mann's novel describes the beauty of Tadzio in such effusive terms ("honey-colored hair," "straight sloping nose," "lovely mouth," "godlike seriousness," "complete purity of form") that it might well have seemed impossible to find a young actor who could manifest the required qualities, but the young Bjorn Andresen is all that and then some.

Bottom-Line: So, let's see what we have here. On the plus side, we've got gorgeous visuals, a magnificent lead performance, a beautiful child actor, and a stirring soundtrack featuring music by Mahler. On the negative side, we have a philosophical theme that has been diluted and poorly presented. Then, there's the script, which is barebones for plot and dialog (which will cause some to find the film dull and boring), but which works as psychodrama (for those so attuned). I've talked myself into four-stars for this collage of strengths and weaknesses. Death in Venice is in Italian with English subtitles and has a running time of 131 minutes.


*************************************************************************************************
You might want to check out these other excellent films from Italy:

Amarcord
L’Avventura
The Bicycle Thief
Christ Stopped at Eboli
Cinema Paradiso
The Conformist
Divorce Italian Style
The Dreamers
Eclipse
8 ½
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
General della Rovere
The Last Emperor
The Leopard
Life is Beautiful
Malèna
Mamma Roma
Miracle in Milan
The Night of the Shooting Stars
Nights of Cabiria
La Notte
Padre Padrone
Il Postino
Rocco and His Brothers
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
Shoeshine
The Son’s Room
The Spider's Stratagem
Star Maker
Swept Away
Teorema
The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Umberto D.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age