Purely Joyful Movie!

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

This film is an excellent (though necessarily slightly different) version of Thomas Mann's novella of the same name. Its effect was so powerful that it drew me to the Venice Lido to stay at the Hotel des Bains, where both film and book are set, and even since that hotel closed, I go back regularly. To me it's about the impossibility of obtaining one's heart's desire, and to read ignorant reviews from 17 year olds makes me cringe To them I say" No, it isn't a film version of a video game..what made you think it would be?" Come back and rewatch it when you're grown up, if that ever happens.

I saw this movie in 1971 when I was very young. All I recall is a very sad story about an artist who was very ill when visiting Venice where he spent time furtively seeking out a boy he was attracted to. It was sad and depressing and a bit creepy. I watched it again 45 years later on TCM and it seemed to be a much more powerful statement about a tragic life and death that reaches its climax in Venice during a sweltering summer in 1911 when the city is overtaken by a cholera epidemic. The main role is played by Dirk Bogarde, a British actor, who is making the best of his last days longing for a love he can never achieve.The background music by Mahler is very sombre and fits the tragic ending. The city is being scrubbed to stop the spread of disease and no one wants to frighten away the tourists, who are the city's economic lifeblood. Again, the symbolic conflict between dreams and reality. The acting is superb. The period costumes are stunning. The photography is powerful and sweeping with seas, sunsets and the skyline of Venice. This movie is not entertainment but a work of art. I couldn't take more than one of these works at a time but it is worth seeing as a unique achievement.

In this adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel, avant-garde composer Gustave Aschenbach (loosely based on Gustav Mahler) travels to a Venetian seaside resort in search of repose after a period of artistic and personal stress. But he finds no peace there, for he soon develops a troubling attraction to an adolescent boy, Tadzio, on vacation with his family.What strikes me about this film is the odd coloration. Some have said it makes the film look like a moving painting. I can see that, but I also think it looks muted. A step up from Technicolor, but a far cry from other methods. I wish I knew more about cinematography so I could express the thought more clearly.There is a bit of a scandalous subplot, as it suggests pedophilia or something similar. Strange how many films (or books) have heroes (or protagonists) afflicted with this. What are we to make of them? Are they evil or just flawed? The cholera epidemic plays a major part in the story, and it is interesting that the film seems to be known less for that than the "romance" angle. Not many films have cholera in them, which seems odd considering its deadliness. Everyone in old movies seems to die from tuberculosis!

Death in Venice comes from an obsession for a perfect beauty ending up in what we can understand as Wagner's conception of liebestod ( erotic (death). The Luchino Visconti version of Thomas Mann's novel is based on an uninspired composer Gustav Von Asenbach. However in the book he is a novelist who is old and resentful, his disposition takes him on a journey through the magnificent historic city of Venice. During his time there he becomes enchanted by Tadzio, a polish boy whom he perceives as the ideal conception of beautifulness. The back drop is of a city that's declining in an atmosphere of uncertainty as a mysterious plague (cholera) carries death to its inhabitants. This bizarre transformation of Venice is contrasted by the beauty of Tadzio.The movie is quite slow, but it appeals for its details that enhance and reward the attention paid to them. Such as the paused attitude of Achenbach interpreted by Dirk Bogarde, who is unobtrusive and formal in his behaviour. An undercurrent of emotions invade him in the presence of Tadzio. Aschenbach is a man of good manners and harsh convictions, but Tadzio makes him question his firmly held principals. Tormented by feelings he needs the attention of the boy, and considers doing something which is for him outrageous. An old man groomed to look younger disgusts him, Tadzio has become Gustavs obsessive desire and he concedes. The movies dialog is constrained but beyond this, emotion is added by what is not said but what is obvious, here it applies greater depth. These contrasts focus on the central point of this work of motion art. The essentials revolve around conflicts in the mind of Von Aschenbach as he perceives perfect beauty in a young man.Having read the book I can say that the director Luchino Visconti, shifts a few things from the context of the novel to a visual adaptation that works in general as the changes are convincing. Therefore we can understand the film in a form creating a perspective of the struggle Von Aschenbach has searching for reasons to liberate his conscience. In the movie he says that beauty comes and is created in the spirit, not from the senses but when he sees Tadzio for the first time a fleeting unelaborated sense is filling him for a finale of sexual passion, his resistive sense of morality is released to the winds.