Death in Venice (1971)

75% of critics liked it
(16 reviews)
82% of users liked it
(5,981 ratings)

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… More 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, whose haunting music is featured on the film's soundtrack. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: PG, 2 hr. 10 min.
Directed By: Luchino Visconti
Written By: Luchino Visconti, Nicola Badalucco
Genres: Drama

In Theaters: Mar 1, 1971 Wide
On DVD: Feb 17, 2004

Critic Reviews

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.
Vincent Canby, New York Times
Instead of bringing the story to life, Visconti has, I'm afraid, embalmed it.
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
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.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Can never get to the literary heart of the novel without stumbling along on a curiously suffocating course.
Dan Jardine, Apollo Guide
This disc has one important extra of note, a featurette called 'Visconti's Venice,'
Dan Jardine, Apollo Guide
A sumptuous visual feast, a well-told tale of a tortured artist's sturm und drung.
Dan Jardine, Cinemania
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.
Bill Chambers, Film Freak Central
Almost absurdly soporific
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com
Bogarde plays Gustav with a hamfist, practically drooling over the kid he's stalking
, TV Guide's Movie Guide
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.

Read all 10 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Jeremy S

Moments of perfection.
Stefanie C

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… More
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.
Elvira B

A classic of Italian cinema! It's very slow -VERY- but it's definitely worth it. The art direction and the cinematography are amazingly beautiful as in almost all of Visconti's films. On the other hand, since the plot is so slow and it requires such empathy to… More
A classic of Italian cinema! It's very slow -VERY- but it's definitely worth it. The art direction and the cinematography are amazingly beautiful as in almost all of Visconti's films. On the other hand, since the plot is so slow and it requires such empathy to understand the character's motives and his strange attraction towards the boy, it's a love it or hate it movie, no in-betweens. Sometimes it´s hard to follow because the conflict (the inner conflict) that Bogarde's character has in regards of the concept of beauty as well as the awakening of his nostalgia for his family is occasionally unclear. It's a movie one has to feel and give patience to. Oh and don't be encouraged/discouraged by the alleged homosexual love plot, I personally put down that thesis. I think it's much deeper than that.