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I am delighted that there are so many reviews for this movie, and that a very nice majority are so positive, since like so many other great "foreign" films, there is the fear it is being overlooked.
I first saw the film in the theatre, when it was released in 1971, and was totally captivated, especially by Dirk Bogarde's performance. Possibly the only way his role may have been improved is if his character were turned into an Englishman, especially since all his dialogue is in English, not in either German (the nationality of the principle character) nor Italian. But then, we would not have that undercurrent of the tradition of Germans (exemplified by Goethe's travels in Italy) going south to "recharge their batteries". And, the way Mann wrote the character, the contrast between the stuffy Apollonian German to the Dionysian Italian would not work as well.
The movie is a Bogarde / Visconti tour de force. The principle character, Gustav von Aschenbach is virtually the only speaking role of any importance. Marissa Berenson, playing Aschenbach's wife, speaks not at all and Silvana Mangano speaks only in Polish, with no subtitles. The only other speaking part of any real content is by Mark Burns, who plays Alfred, a colleague of the composer Aschenbach. The second most important character, the Polish boy, Tadzio speaks not at all.
And most of Bogarde's best contribution seems to be not in his speeches, but in his "business". The body language of an important upper middle class German having to deal with this far less well ordered world of Italy. Bogarde sets the stage for these fussy / frustrated mannerisms when he must deal with a Gondolier who is rowing him to the Lido and, for some unknown, quirky reason, Aschenbach prefers to go to the vaporetto station, the small steam launches which travel between the landing and the Lido. As the gondola appears to be travelling farther and farther out into open water (the assumption, confirmed by the novella) is that Aschenbach's request was to be taken to San Marco the central island of Venice, the site of Saint Mark's square to hire a steam launch. Reading the novella confirms my guess about the mystery of why Aschenbach was arriving in Venice by ferry rather than by train. He took the train to Trieste, and from there across the top of the Adriatic by ferry. (There was a train running by causeway, to the islands of Venice when I was there in 1964) The upshot of the whole scene is that to Aschenbach's obvious annoyance, he is thrust into a situation over which he has no control.
That characterization of "unordered" is a bit unfair to the setting in the Grand Hotel des Bains on the Lido (beachfront island just to the east of the main islands of Venice). Part of the attraction of the film is how it recaptures the style of pre WW I European travel and holiday life. The hotel has an overabundance of staff to be sure their guests are well attended. In the days before pre-recorded music, there are also live ensembles providing music in the lounge and dining room.
The travel from well-ordered Germany (Munich) to dissolute (diseased, we will later discover) Italy is an externalization of the backstory, told in flashbacks between Aschenbach and Alfred who seem to represent Nietzsche's two sources of artistic inspiration. It appears this backstory is original to the film, as the character of Alfred does not appear in the Novella. It is part of the conversion of Aschenbach from a novelist to a composer, patterned after Gustav Mahler, whose music is used for most of the soundtrack. The flashbacks also provide the reason for the travel. Northern Europeans often travel to the south "for their health". Aschenback, in flashback, was suffering from both weakness from overwork and a disastrous reception to the performance of one of his compositions. Visconti could have left Mahler's music in, and left out the flashbacks, and the film would have lost not one wit of its impact.
I enter the realm where there is a risk of giving away too much of the story. If I do, my only excuse may be that the charm of the film is not in the plot so much as the evolution of Bogarde's representation of how von Aschenbach reacts to his encountering the dramatically attractive Polish boy, Tadzio. One's first impression of Bjorn Andresen's performance is that it seems to be two dimensional, with only the simplest signs of flirting with Aschenbach through simple expresions and one marvelously choreographed scene on the path from the hotel to the beach. The charm of Tadzio is conveyed primarily through the skills of director Visconti and his cinematographer, whose shots of Tadzio rival the beauty of the shots of Venice and the Adriatic. Tadzio's importance in the final scene, however, is as important as von Aschenbach's role in that scene.
All the minor characters whose main task is to dress the milieu of travelling to Venice and life in the Grand Hotel carry off their roles to perfection. The credit crawl says the film was made in Rome, in a studio, but I have to believe there were a goodly number of shots made in Venice, to capture some of the scenes which one critic has said "are good enough to frame and hang in the Louvre." The film won two European film awards for its cinematography.
My godson, who was seeing it for the first time remarked at how uncommon it is to see scenes drawn out to such lengths, when the same idea may be communicated in less than half the time. Rather than being an extravagantly varied action and dialogue filled story, like a French confection with chocolate, fruit, and lemon curd, it is like a spoonful of perfectly baked and crusted Spanish flan, where the richness is almost exclusively in Bogarde's remarkable performance.
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The sound of silence
The casting, acting, and visual surroundings are superb. One scene in particular stays with me: Aschenbach has seated himself so that he can compose music while looking at the boy (and we hear the Mahler he is composing, and the human singing comes in).What I don't understand is Aschenbach's interior silence. The story (Thomas Mann's) is told by a narrator, but Thomas Mann hardly ever created a principle character who wasn't full of recordable thoughts and feelings, and Aschenbach is not that exception. Aschenbach quotes (and misquotes!) authors in his head, has recorded thoughts, scraps of thoughts, feelings, scraps of feelings, which grow ever more intense, continually. I can only assume that Visconti, working in a visual medium, wanted to substitute Bogarde's face for what we read on the page. Although this is sometimes successful, it also accounts for the few negative reviews this film got--mostly due to not enough going on. Bogarde's face is wonderful, but Thomas Mann is a little more wonderful.But STILL...5 stars. ***"Mr. Bogarde, you have your rings mixed up."(wriggling his fingers) "No, I don't.""A wedding band goes on the fourth finger of your left hand, not right.""Not if you're a German in 1911, it doesn't."" Is that a fact? Well, nobody else wears one there. So switch it."(Bogarde switches the wedding band to the fourth finger of his left hand)"...and with your own ring--the signet--you always wear that one, don't you?""Unless the director doesn't want me to, yes.""Put that one on the little finger of your right hand--it's too much with the wedding ring on the left hand."(Bogarde moves his own ring to his right hand) "I'll be darned. It still fits there.""Let's see."(Bogarde holds his hands out). "Yes, that's fine. This director does not object." ***The three (or four--depending if you want to separate the prositute's name from her appearance and behavior, in a real or imagined flashback [probably real])references, or borrowings, from Doctor Faustus make me a little dizzy. "Death in Venice" was written in 1911-12, and Doctor Faustus in 1943-47, and none of the the borrowings are--of course--in the original "Death in Venice," as are almost all other scenes, and the few words that are spoken.I've never been sure why the Mahler music, in another added flashback scene, is offensive to the audience. ( The whistling in an audience in Germany means---I hate it.) Strauss's "Salome," much more daring, was a smashing success in 1905 (and 6). Nor can I make much of Aschenbach's friend's castigation after the hall has cleared and they are back in Aschenbach's room. Or is the music Aschenbach composes supposed to be different from what we hear on the sound track? Don't think so.But still...five stars. One doesn't easily get bored with looking at Tadzio, either!
Top reviews from other countries
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verseau 51Reviewed in Canada on September 22, 2024
Impressionant jeu de Dirk Bogarde.
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