Death in Venice

Starring:Dirk Bogarde, Romolo Valli, Mark Burns, Nora Ricci, Marisa Berenson, Carole AndrÃ©, BjÃ¸rn Andresen, Silvana Mangano, Leslie French, Franco Fabrizi, Antonio Appicella, Sergio Garfagnoli, Ciro Cristofoletti, Luigi Battaglia, Dominique Darel, Masha Predit, Mirella Pamphili, Marco Tulli, Nicoletta Elmi, Marcello Bonini Olas
Director: Luchino Visconti
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel is the very definition of sumptuous: the costumes and sets, the special geography of Venice, and the breathtaking cinematography combine to form a heady experience. At the center of this gorgeousness is Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde in a meticulous performance), a controlled intellectual who unexpectedly finds himself obsessed by the vision of a 14-year-old boy while on a convalescent vacation in 1911. Visconti has turned Aschenbach into a composer, which accounts for the lush excerpts from Mahler on the soundtrack (Bogarde is meant to look like Mahler, too). Even if it tends to hit the nail on the head a little too forcefully, and even if Visconti can test one's patience with lingering looks at crowds at the beach and hotel dining rooms, Death in Venice creates a lushness rare in movies. For some viewers, that will be enough. --Robert Horton

Description

Abroad on a rest holiday, composer Gustav Aschenbach (Dick Bogarde) is to all the world reserved and civilized. But when he glimpses someone who inspires him to give way to a secret passion, it foreshadows his doom. Director Luchino Visconti (Rocco and His Brothers, The Damned) transforms Thomas Mann's classic novel into "a masterwork of power and beauty" (William Wolf, Cue). Like Aschenbach, Visconti is an artist obsessed: his movies are awash in mood, period detail and seething emotions beneath placid surfaces. Earning its maker a Cannes Film Festival Special 25th Anniversary Prize, Death in Venice - with a soundtrack feast of Gustav Mahler music and a haunting Bogarde performance-is Visconti at his best.

Customer Reviews:

Death in Venice.......2007-07-03

Luchino's resplendent adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella is a sumptuous feast for the eyes, with its meticulous period detail, lavish costumes, and decorative sets. Yet the themes of death and decay are ever-present, manifested in a mysterious plague sweeping the ancient city that hotel staff attempt to hush up. Bogarde was never better playing the obsessive, uptight Aschenbach, closely modeled after Gustav Mahler, whose lilting music suffuses every frame. A heady meditation on art and passion, "Death in Venice" is a trip well worth taking.

Death In Venice.......2007-02-14

A very unique movie -- Dirk Bogarde was an extraordinary actor. Visconti was a very unusual director -- the movie was visually magnificent, but I did find the pace a little too slow even though I know that was the idea. It's an amazing story. Silvana Mangano was so beautiful and a wonderful actress.

Beautiful, but boring.......2007-02-13

This is a beautifully shot yet slowing-moving movie based on the much better Thomas Mann novella. The best part of the film is the cinematography and settings in Venice. The actors are fine--despite occasional overwrought yelling and screaming--but aren't given much to do. The plot concerns a composer who falls in love with the adolescent Tadzio, who looks like a cross between a Greek god and David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust years. The film's major fault is its extreme slow pace. The camera moves about lazily and long stretches pass when no one speaks. From time to time, we are given flashbacks of Aushenbach's life in Germany, but they are mere flickers of memory and not fleshed out at all. What we see mostly are shots of Aushenbach walking around Venice in a feverish daze. Again and again we see him look longingly at Tadzio, and we can, to some extent, feel his pain: for, despite the obvious homoerotic context, his is the universal problem of unrequited love. That Aushenbach never even speaks with Tadzio is all part of the tragedy. Still, the director doesn't give the film any energy in the way others have when confronted with similar material (i.e., Kubrick's or Lynne's Lolita adaptations). Death in Venice is like a gorgeous oil painting visually, but when it comes to its drama, it is disappointing.

Superb!.......2007-01-10

A classic! Not only is the cinematography superb, the acting and the dramatisation of the Thomas Mann novel---wonderful.

Beauty Found and Lost in Venice: Mann + Mahler +Visconti = a Masterpiece.......2006-12-18

I first saw "Death in Venice" (1971) about 15 years ago, found it profoundly moving and often thought about it. Watching it again few days ago, I realized that it is close to the top of the great works of cinema. With hardly any dialog it captivates a viewer with the beautiful cinematography, the fine acting, and, above all, the Mahler's music without which the movie simply could not exist.

"Death in Venice" is a stunning Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann novella about a famous composer (in the novella he was a writer but making him a composer in a movie was a great idea that works admirably) Gustav von Aschenbach (loosely based on Gustav Mahler) who travels to Venice in the summer of 1911 to recover from personal losses and professional failures. His search for beauty and perfection seems to be completed when he sees a boy of incredible divine beauty. Ashenbach (Dirk Bogard) follows the boy everywhere never trying to approach him. The boy, Tadzio, belonged to very rare creatures that own an enigmatic and inconceivable power which captivates you, enchants you, conquers you and makes you its prisoner. Ashenbach became one of the prisoners of Tadzio spellbinding charms. He became addicted to him; he fell in love with him. Was it bless or curse for him? I think both. He died from unreachable, impossible yet beautiful love which object was perfection itself. The last image Ashenbach's eyes captured was that of the boy's silhouette surrounded by the sea and golden sun light. Nothing could compare to the beauty and charm of the scene and to take it with you to the grave is the death one can only dream about. If he could, Ashenbach probably would've said, "I was able to witness one of the faces of perfection, I could not bear it but I was chosen to learn that it exists here, in this world and I can die in peace now because it did happen to me."

Unforgettable music, Gustav Mahler's haunting adagietto of his Fifth Symphony found perfect use in a perfect movie. It reflects every emotion of a main character - it sobs, it longs, it begs for hope, and it summarizes the idea that once you are blessed to encounter beauty you are condemned to die. I may come up with hundreds movies that use classical music to perfection but nothing will ever compare to "Death in Venice". I dare say that Mahler's music IS its main character - it would change and sound differently depending on what was happening on the screen. It sounded triumphantly when Ashenbach returned back to Venice, to what he thought would be his happiness but turned to be his death. It sounded gloomy when he first entered Venice from the sea. You can hear so many different feelings in it - tenderness and adoration, confusion and self-loathing, worship and melancholy, but always - LOVE that gives the purest happiness and breaks the hearts (literally). The movie for a viewer is similar to what the boy was for the aging composer/writer/Artist. We are enchanted and captivated by its power and beauty as much as Achenbach was by the boy's mysterious charm.

Britten - Death in Venice / Tony Palmer, Robert Gard

Average customer rating:

Tadzio Too Robust

Britten - Death in Venice / Tony Palmer, Robert Gard
Starring: Britten , and Bedford
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Death in Venice
Benjamin Britten - Owen Wingrave / Margaret Williams, Gerald Finley, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin
Britten - Death in Venice / Jenkins, Tear, Opie, Glyndebourne Opera
Britten - A Midsummer Night's Dream / Daniels, Sala, Gietz, Dazeley, Meek, Hahn, Waddington, Rigby, Vas, Bicket, Barcelona Opera
Britten - Peter Grimes / Davis, Vickers, Harper, Bailey, Royal Opera Covent Garden

ASIN: B00006FMCI
Release Date: 2002-09-17

Amazon.com

This is a musically and visually superb treatment of a 20th-century masterpiece. Based on Thomas Mann's novella, Benjamin Britten's last opera is not only a story of hopeless, idealistic, vaguely homoerotic love; it touches on deep philosophical questions: the nature of beauty, the agony of creativity and the greater agony of its loss; the ravages of time, the conventions and rituals we devise to mask life's horrible vacuums; ultimately, the mysterious meaning of life and death.

The cast is small and excellent: Robert Gard is the aging writer, Christoph von Aschenbach, whose genius has dried up but seems about to revive in the contemplation of an aristocratic boy he encounters in Venice. John Shirley-Quirk contributes equally to the effect in a half-dozen cameo roles that he pioneered in the first production under Britten's supervision. Steuart Bedford conducted that premiere, working closely with the composer. Director Palmer takes full advantage of the film medium's freedom to make Venice a character--monumental and crumbling buildings, seascapes, canals, bridges, and gondolas; the visuals are often breathtaking. --Joe McLellan

Description

This extraordinary operatic adaptation of Thomas Mann's haunting novella powerfully conveys the book's dramatic impact. Robert Gard stars as Gustav von Aschenbach, an aging writer who visits Venice and sees a handsome boy whose beauty obsesses him. Completely bewitched and agonized, Gustav struggles with his desire to please the boy, but his blind passion leads to his humiliation and eventual downfall. Filmed in Venice, this production heightens the novella's strong sense of tortuous passion straining against the 19th century city's stifling atmosphere of unbearable oppression. Composer Benjamin Britten, who worked closely with conductor Steuart Bedford, meets the challenge of adapting this intriguing story with music that is a constant surprise and revelation.

Customer Reviews:

Tadzio Too Robust.......2002-10-19

Well, we now have two performances of this opera on DVD: the one by the Glyndebourne opera, and this film from Tony Palmer. It's a film rather than a recording of a stage performance, and, perhaps necessarily, reminiscent of the Visconti film. Some of the lines are so similar that, if I didn't know otherwise, I'd think one artist was stealing from another. It's more visually interesting than the austere Glyndebourne performance, but I kept expecting to hear Mahler rather than Britten. Hallelujah, thank God and Image Entertainment that this DVD has subtitles in the original languages. That is when English is being sung, the subtitles are in English; when Italian, then Italian; and when German, in German. One aspect of both performances that I don't care for is that the actors playing Tadzio are not the delicate fourteen-year-old of Mann's novella, but robust dancers in their late teens.

Britten - Death in Venice / Jenkins, Tear, Opie, Glyndebourne Opera

Average customer rating:

a voice teacher and early music fan
Some OK features, but not the best production
Excellent production but problem with story

Britten - Death in Venice / Jenkins, Tear, Opie, Glyndebourne Opera
Starring: Robert Tear , Alan Opie , Michael Chance (II) , Peter Snipp , and Gerald Finley
Director: Robin Lough
Manufacturer: Kultur Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

Britten - Death in Venice / Tony Palmer, Robert Gard
Britten - A Midsummer Night's Dream / Bowman, Cotrubas, Lott, Buchanan, Davies, Duesing, Haitink, Glyndebourne Opera
Benjamin Britten - Owen Wingrave / Margaret Williams, Gerald Finley, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin
Britten - Albert Herring / Graham-Hall, Rigby, Opie, Kern, Palmer, Johnson, Gale, Van Allan, Hammond-Stroud, Haitink, Glyndebourne Opera
Britten - The Rape of Lucretia / Rigby, Rolfe-Johnson, Harries, Smythe, Van Allan, Opie, Owens, Pope, Friend, English National Opera

ASIN: B0000640T4
Release Date: 2002-03-26

Amazon.com

Benjamin Britten was one of the 20th century's greatest opera composers and one of the most productive, with more than a dozen operas to his credit. Death in Venice, his last, is based on a moody, introspective novella by Thomas Mann about a German writer in a dry spell who takes a vacation in Venice hoping to revive his inspiration but instead plunges into a terminal identity crisis. The enigmatic plot is a series of confrontations--with his sense of failure, with intimations of mortality (a plague that terrifies the city), with the creative and destructive powers of love, and with tantalizing glimpses of unattainable, alien beauty, embodied in a vacationing boy whom the writer admires timidly from a distance.

Death in Venice distills themes found throughout Britten's work: the loss of innocence; the relation between illusion and reality; tensions between society and the alienated individual; mysterious encounters that defy rational explanation. This carefully organized production offers virtuoso performances by Robert Tear as the writer and Alan Opie as a sort of doppelganger in a half-dozen cameo roles. It will delight hard-core Britten enthusiasts, but is not the most suitable way to begin an acquaintance. Those approaching Britten's operas for the first time are advised to start with the witty Albert Herring, the spooky Turn of the Screw or the tragic Peter Grimes, all of which exist in good video recordings. --Joe McLellan

Description

Death in Venice was Britten's final opera an extraordinarily atmospheric and haunting adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella, evoking the grandeur and shabbiness of a Venice in the grip of disease. He eloquently and evocatively describes the moral and physical degeneration of Aschenbach, the writer whose obsessive and self-devouring pursuit of beauty, in the form of a boy, Tadzio, leads him into humiliation and death. Robert Tear takes the central and demanding role of Aschenbach opposite Alan Opie, who sings the various baritone parts. To portray the beauty and fascination of the Polish family and Tadzio, Britten made prominent the use of dance, by turning these characters into dancers, choreographed in this production by Martha Clarke.This new production for Glyndebourne is directed by Stephen Lawless and conducted by Graeme Jenkins.

Customer Reviews:

a voice teacher and early music fan.......2007-04-15

'Death in Venice' was Britten's final opera, and it is really not the best way to become acquainted with it, for the filming is 'drab'and lackluster, but I'm wondering if it COULD actually be portrayed any differently. After all, the story centers around one character: Aschenbach (sung very well indeed by Robert Tear). I found myself following the libretto that came with the Chandos WONDERFUL 2005 recording directed by Richard Hickox with the BBC singers and Philip Langridge as Aschenbach. There are times when it is difficult to understand the words of some of the songs. Of course, if one is familiar with Mann's story, it's not that hard to 'keep up', but I want to know specifically what the singer is singing.
Alan Opie (playing several parts) does an outstanding performance as he does on the Chandos disc. Michael Chance, who we see and hear too briefly in the role of Apollo, sings the part with great gusto and is really rather intimidating (as a 'god' should be)!!!!
I personally would much rather listen to it on the Chandos disc than see it on stage.

Some OK features, but not the best production.......2005-05-22

I broke down and bought this video because I had seen the original Metropolitan Opera production of this work back in 1974 and was mesmerized by the integral use of stage space, acting, dance and miming that made up the production. I had been warned that this production was on a smaller scale because the Glyndebourne stage is not very large, but I was unprepared for the very amateurish sets, costumes and direction, especially in the opening scenes.

Director Stephen Lawless did not use his space particularly well. The sets and costumes (by Tobias Hoheisel) are amateurish and unimaginative. In many ways, it looks like a Red Mill Dinner Theater production of Britten's opera, which is not a compliment. Robert Tear is a good actor, though visually not as good as Peter Pears and vocally not as fine as Philip Langridge on the new Chandos recording of the opera (a five-star production, to be sure). Indeed, other factors contributing to my dissatisfaction are the boxy sonics which do not convey any feeling of atmosphere and the underdone conducting of Graeme Jenkins. I was also not terribly pleased by the costumes worn by baritone Alan Opie in his various guises as Aschenbach's amaneuensis: as the Traveler, he looks like a '40s Nazi villain; as the Elderly Fop, he's dressed exactly like Truman Capote; and as the Hotel Manager, he looks like Erich von Stroheim. I'm sure that there are some viewers who would enjoy this kind of thing, but I found it annoying and distracting.

The production gets better, however, once Aschenbach is on the beach in Venice. The dancers, choreographed by Martha Clarke, are all superb, and their movements blend in beautifully with the surrounding space. I was also intrigued by the way the end of Act 1 was staged: Tadzio glances in Aschenbach direction but NOT directly at him--he is looking at his mother and sister--and Aschenbach does not blurt out "I love you" loudly and insistently, as Pears did, but softly and with embarrassment.

Generally speaking, Aschenbach is a latter-day Faust, an academic so totally involved in his own little world that he has paid scant attention to the world around him until it is too late. The beauty that he finds, and falls in love with, in the form of the teenaged Tadzio, does mirror Thomas Mann's own latent bisexuality, but that's not the point. The point is that Aschenbach is embarrassed by his own attraction, realizing that for whatever reasons there could never be any physical contact between them, and certainly not wanting to be like the Elderly Fop, who he describes as a "young-old horror." Thus he fights his inner self, eventually realizing that he cannot deny his deep attraction for the boy yet also cannot act on it. The dilemma sends him reeling into a deep depression which leads to his decision to stay in cholera-ridden Venice and die there, having nothing much to live for. It is a very deep psychological work that parallels Britten's own feelings about his attraction to the love of his life, tenor Pears. Britten could not deny his love for Pears, yet never felt comfortable defining himself as a "homosexual" because he thoroughly detested that lifestyle.

Whether or not you like "Death in Venice" will, of course, depend on your own values, but to ignore these kind of deep issues because you don't like or agree with them will not make them go away. They are an integral part of human nature, and will exist as long as the human race exists. "Death in Venice" is, at the very least, a mature, adult response to feelings and attractions that one may experience yet never be able to explain. I only hope that, someday, we have a video production that better conveys the overall dream-feeling of this work.

One final note. The video does NOT date from 1973; that is merely the copyright date of Britten's score. If you look at the bottom of the video box, you will see that it is clearly marked (c) BBC TV 1990.

Excellent production but problem with story.......2002-09-13

Other viewers may respond more positively than me to Britten's "Death in Venice." The searching and inward qualities of the writer Aschenbach are certainly noble, but, while I am far from a prude, there is a repulsive quality here which loses me. Nonetheless, Britten is a terrific opera composer, his last opera has magnificent music and the performance is superb. Robert Tear is very moving as Aschenbach. He is in excellent voice and his superb, plangent tenor is matched by eloquent acting. Alan Opie, too, is quite fine, in very good voice and offering a wide variety of acting skills in his numerous roles. The staging, video and sound are first rate.

Description

A Very Long Engagement: The filmmaker and star of Amelie! Jean-Pierre Jeunet directs Audrey Tautou (The Da Vinci Code) in a spellbinding and widely honored tale of lovers separated by WWI. Day for Night: Anything that can go wrong on the set does in Francois Truffaut's giddy, glorious valentine to movies. "The best movie ever made about the movies" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times). The Damned: Luchino Visconti brings flamboyant style to a tale of a corrupt German industrialist family giving way to greater corruption: the rise of the Nazis. With Dirk Bogard, Charlotte Rampling and more. Gloomy Sunday: The art-house favorite about entangled romance, the Holocaust and a song that swept the world is "a stirring and provocative affirmation of the power and resilience of love" (Philip Wuntch, The Dallas Morning News). Death in Venice: Thomas Mann's meditation on beauty, age and obsession is "splendidly brought to the screen" (Leaonard Maltin's Movie Guide) by Luchino Visconti, Dirk Bogard stars.

Average customer rating:

a voice teacher and early music fan
Some OK features, but not the best production
Excellent production but problem with story

Death in Venice
Starring: Robert Tear , Alan Opie , Michael Chance (II) , Peter Snipp , and Gerald Finley
Director: Robin Lough
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( D ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Britten - Death in Venice / Tony Palmer, Robert Gard
Britten - A Midsummer Night's Dream / Bowman, Cotrubas, Lott, Buchanan, Davies, Duesing, Haitink, Glyndebourne Opera
Benjamin Britten - Owen Wingrave / Margaret Williams, Gerald Finley, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin
Britten - Albert Herring / Graham-Hall, Rigby, Opie, Kern, Palmer, Johnson, Gale, Van Allan, Hammond-Stroud, Haitink, Glyndebourne Opera
Britten - The Rape of Lucretia / Rigby, Rolfe-Johnson, Harries, Smythe, Van Allan, Opie, Owens, Pope, Friend, English National Opera

ASIN: B00005B0ET

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

a voice teacher and early music fan.......2007-04-15

Some OK features, but not the best production.......2005-05-22

Excellent production but problem with story.......2002-09-13

Product Description

Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann story Death in Venice is the very definition of sumptuous: the costumes and sets, the special geography of Venice, and the breathtaking cinematography combine to form a heady experience. At the centre of this gorgeousness is Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde in a meticulous performance), a controlled intellectual who unexpectedly finds himself obsessed by the vision of a 14-year-old boy while on a convalescent vacation in 1911. Visconti has turned Aschenbach into a composer, which accounts for the lush excerpts from Mahler on the soundtrack (Bogarde is meant to look like Mahler, too). Even if it tends to hit the nail on the head a little too forcefully, and even if Visconti can test one's patience with lingering looks at crowds at the beach and hotel dining rooms, Death in Venice creates a lushness rare in movies. --Robert Horton

Average customer rating:

Death in Venice
Death In Venice
Beautiful, but boring
Superb!
Beauty Found and Lost in Venice: Mann + Mahler +Visconti = a Masterpiece

Death in Venice [Region 2]
Starring: Dirk Bogarde , Romolo Valli , Mark Burns , Nora Ricci , and Marisa Berenson
Director: Luchino Visconti
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video