Death in Venice (film)

Death in Venice (original title: Morte a Venezia) is a 1971 Franco-Italian film directed by Luchino Visconti. It adapts the short novel Death in Venice, by the German writer Thomas Mann.

This film, one of the last works by the director of Rocco and his brothers, Senso and The Leopard, was nominated for an Oscar for best wardrobe. It is an aesthetic-philosophical disquisition about the loss of youth and life, embodied in the character of Tadzio, and the end of an era represented in the figure of the protagonist.

Plot

At the beginning of the 20th century, the middle-aged composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde), who suffers from a Severely depressed due to various family and professional problems, he took refuge in Venice to rest and escape the stress of his life in Munich.

Shortly after settling into a luxurious hotel on the island of Lido, he notices a Polish teenager, Tadzio, a hotel guest with his family. The protagonist's interest in this overwhelmingly beautiful androgynous young man, who embodies an aesthetic ideal, will transform into love and obsession. Visconti selected the young man (Björn Andrésen, Swedish by birth) who embodies the role of Tadzio among hundreds of young candidates.

Aschenbach's days are spent on the Lido beach and on excursions to the center of Venice; but, above all, he is dedicated to following, observing and spying on Tadzio.

At the same time, Aschenbach becomes aware of some strange events in the city (sudden deaths, street disinfection campaigns, evasive explanations from the Venetians, etc.) and manages to discover that Venice is suffering from a cholera epidemic, hidden by the authorities so that tourists do not leave the city. Tormented by the inner conflict caused by his feelings for the young man, Aschenbach makes the decision to leave. However, after a series of unfortunate events apparently prevent his departure from Venice that same day, he changes his mind and stays at the hotel, relieved that he hasn't abandoned Tadzio. A few days later, Aschenbach reveals the information of the epidemic to Tadzio's family and asks them to leave. The next day, Aschenbach, dressed in a suit and made up, witnesses Tadzio and his family leaving the island from afar, then bursts into tears.

Unsurprisingly, Aschenbach, failing in health, ill. He goes out one last time to the beach thinking about Tadzio (to whom he has never spoken) and the vivid memory of Tadzio playing with a friend in the sand on that same beach causes him to have an orgasm before dying moments later on the seashore.. The film ends with the figure of Tadzio walking away from the shores, while some lifeguards come to lift Aschenbach's body. Finally, Von Asenbach, fascinated from the outset with Tadzio, found in him his angel of death.

Implications

Both the original novel and the film constitute, apart from the events that happened to Gustav during his stay in Venice, an illustration, ode, plea and homage to the perfect, pure and full beauty that Plato speaks of in Phaedrus and the Banquet.

Gustav finds himself facing unattainable beauty, beautiful by itself and a reflection of the truth. Tadzio, his object of obsession, does not exchange a word with him since the sense of perfection does not have a mundane character, it goes beyond ("He who has contemplated beauty is doomed to seduce her or die" ).

The German surname "Aschenbach" can be translated as "Arroyo de cenizas".

Following the scheme of "Structural analysis of the story" by Roland Barthes. Describing the functions of theme, sub themes, and supra themes, a supra theme of Death in Venice is Time. From the beginning Von Asenbach refers to it when he describes an hourglass, emphasizing that it is only taken into account when the sand runs out. Here time is almost a hidden protagonist of the entire film.

Scenario

The plot takes place in Venice, a symbol of art and commerce between East and West, in the lavish and decadent hotel on the Venetian Lido (the most popular seaside resort at the end of the century XIX and early XX).

The meticulous and exact description of the aristocratic environment achieved by Visconti (a legendary Milanese aristocrat) is paradigmatic. Even the clothing used is original and was ironed and starched in the fashion of the time.

Legacy

The character is loosely based on the composer Gustav Mahler, the Adagietto of whose Fifth Symphony is present throughout the film, forming an indivisible union between image and sound with great dramatic presence. In fact, Visconti is largely responsible for the immense popularity that later became the music of Mahler, who lost a daughter in circumstances similar to those seen in the film, but was not homosexual.

The popularity of Death in Venice and the work of Gustav Mahler inspired a ballet by choreographer John Neumeier and Benjamin Britten's opera of the same name.

For the role of Tadzio, Visconti chose the unknown Björn Andrésen after a long audition process that was recorded in the documentary Alla ricerca di Tadzio (In Search of Tadzio). The Spanish singer Miguel Bosé, then a teenager, was a candidate for that role, but his father, the bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín, opposed it.

Awards

Cinema Writers Circle Medals