MOVIES THAT MATTER
Because they don't make 'em like they used to...
Warner Home Video
Death in Venice
Director
Luchino Visconti
Classification
PG
Genres
Drama
DVD Relese Date
1971
Description
Abroad on a rest holiday, composer Gustav Aschenbach (Dick Bogarde) is to all the world reserved and civilized. But when he glimpses someone who inspires him to give way to a secret passion, it foreshadows his doom. Director Luchino Visconti (Rocco and His Brothers, The Damned) transforms Thomas Mann's classic novel into "a masterwork of power and beauty" (William Wolf, Cue). Like Aschenbach, Visconti is an artist obsessed: his movies are awash in mood, period detail and seething emotions beneath placid surfaces. Earning its maker a Cannes Film Festival Special 25th Anniversary Prize, Death in Venice - with a soundtrack feast of Gustav Mahler music and a haunting Bogarde performance-is Visconti at his best.
Cast
Dirk Bogarde, Bjorn Andreesen
Quotes
Gustav von Aschenbach: You know sometimes I think that artists are rather like hunters aiming in the dark. They don't know what their target is, and they don't know if they've hit it. But you can't expect life to illuminate the target and steady your aim. The creation of beauty and purity is a spiritual act. Alfred: Non Gustav, no. Beauty belongs to the senses. Only to the senses. Alfred: Do you know what lies at the bottom of the mainstream? Mediocrity.