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Death in Venice

Death in Venice (1971)

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Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 2
Fresh: 0 | Rotten: 2

audience

82

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 6,103

My Rating

Movie Info

Based on a novel by Thomas Mann, Death in Venice stars Dirk Bogarde as a German composer who is terrified that he has lost all vestiges of humanity. While visiting Venice, Bogarde falls in love with a beautiful young boy (Bjorn Andresen). The relationship is ruined by Bogarde's obsession with the boy's youth and physical perfection; the composer realizes that the child represents an ideal that he can never match. The character played by Dirk Bogarde is evidently intended to be Gustav Mahler,

PG,

Drama

Luchino Visconti, Nicola Badalucco

Feb 17, 2004

WARNER BROTHERS PICTURES

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Critic Reviews for Death in Venice

All Critics (22) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (15) | Rotten (4) | DVD (4)

Visconti's mastery of visual style almost succeeds in creating the very ideas and feelings that his heavy-handed narrative entirely misses.

October 23, 2004 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Instead of bringing the story to life, Visconti has, I'm afraid, embalmed it.

May 20, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comments (2)
Vincent Canby
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Even critics who didn't like Visconti's version of Mann's novella praised Dirk Bogarde in the lead and the film's production values, especially costume design, which was Oscar nominated.

April 12, 2012 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

Can never get to the literary heart of the novel without stumbling along on a curiously suffocating course.

September 22, 2008 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

This disc has one important extra of note, a featurette called 'Visconti's Venice,'

July 21, 2004 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide
Dan Jardine
Apollo Guide

A sumptuous visual feast, a well-told tale of a tortured artist's sturm und drung.

July 21, 2004 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide
Dan Jardine
Apollo Guide

Visconti's self-conscious and self-reflexive artistry can be off-putting, but with Death in Venice, he's crafted a sumptuous feast for the senses.

June 23, 2004 Full Review Source: Cinemania
Dan Jardine
Cinemania Source: Cinemania

Almost absurdly soporific

March 2, 2004 Full Review Source: Film Freak Central
Bill Chambers
Film Freak Central

Bogarde plays Gustav with a hamfist, practically drooling over the kid he's stalking

January 31, 2004 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com
Christopher Null
Filmcritic.com

Despite the omissions from Mann's text, dependence on flashbacks, and overwrought arguments about art and music between Aschenbach and a colleague, it remains a film of great beauty.

July 30, 2003 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide
TV Guide's Movie Guide
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Audience Reviews for Death in Venice

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Moments of perfection.
January 26, 2007
smith44
Jeremy Smith

Super Reviewer

Like the sand in the hourglass, there is no stopping the passage of time. This cinematic achievement is unmatched in its visual eloquence, but remains an emotionally unsatisfying experience. Long shots, slow pans, and silence, only punctuated by Mahlerâ??s symphonies, create emotional distance. On first appearance, Aschenbach is a man already in decline: His cultured facade doesnâ??t mask an underlying vulgarity. Alienated from his artistic and spiritual impulses, he recognizes an idealized and pure beauty in the form of a pre-pubescent boy, which does nothing to create a more sympathetic character. His realization is much too late, just as the population in Venice is dying from pestilence, and a way of life is dying at the turn of the century. As we follow the boy, it is hard to tell if Tadzioâ??s glances, poses, and posturing are real or just Aschenbachâ??s fantasy. During the final scene, we view the sea and sun, the promising horizon formed in the initial scene, but now glittering and hazy. Aschenbach, appearing clown-like with his whitewash and greasepaint, silently observes Tadzio pointing at the sun, and he also reaches out, as if grasping for communion, and dies. Posited on the beach, there is a symbolic, unmanned camera, ready to frame Tadzio in a snapshot. Hauntingly, the final shots rest on Aschenbachâ??s dripping and smudged death mask, before he is toted off like the sands like garbage. There is a statement about art, beauty, sexuality, and spirituality, residing in this film, but to me it was quite dead.
April 7, 2008
bookmunki
Stefanie C

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Der tod in Venedig (DE)
  • Death In Venice (UK)
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