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Death in Venice

Morte a Venezia

1971

Luchino Visconti

Dirk Bogarde, Björn Andrésen, Silvana Mangano, Marisa Berenson ...

7.4

22,483

Drama In this adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel, a few years before the outbreak of the Great War, 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. The boy embodies an ideal of beauty ... [+]

	Author	Review
United Kingdom	Derek Malcolm The Guardian	"A slow, precise, and beautiful film (...) the whole remains an immensely formidable achievement"	POS
United States	Vincent Canby The New York Times	"Instead of bringing the story to life, Visconti has, I'm afraid, embalmed it."	NEG
United States	Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times	"Visconti's mastery of visual style almost succeeds in creating the very ideas and feelings that his heavy-handed narrative entirely misses."	NEU
United States	Andrew Karpan Film School Rejects	"A dark and haunting artifact of the last century"	POS
United Kingdom	Jamie Russell BBC	"Not even the classical soundtrack can turn this ponderous portrait of one man's obsession into the cinematic classic it has so often been mistaken for."	NEG
United Kingdom	Justin Bowyer Empire	"The pace is glacial and the atmosphere oppressive, but Bogarde gives one of his finest turns."	NEU
United Kingdom	Gary Arnold Time Out	"Mann's metaphysical musings on art and beauty are jettisoned in favour of pathetic scenes of runny mascara, and the whole thing is so overblown as to become entirely risible."	NEG

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