Death in Venice (1971)

I watched Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice again recently, maybe for the fourth or fifth time, and was amazed anew at the visual language. When Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) enters the hotel's lounge on his first night in Venice, the camera picks him up almost accidentally, then follows him through the press of people until he finds a seat. The camera roams slowly, languidly, one might say luxuriantly, over the scene, until the boy Tadzio is revealed like a thunderbolt. This wandering eye is used throughout the film, making the viewer a kind of voyeur. It is also worth noting Visconti's effective use of a slow zoom, common in the 1970s but unaccountably gone today. The story itself, based on the Thomas Mann novella, seems to take a higher road than the source material, which I've read twice and in which I can find little more than an old man's lust for a young boy. Here, Tadzio resembles the photo of Aschenbach's young daughter that the composer kisses at the beginning of the film. We later learn she has died. The scenes with Alfred (an overheated Mark Burns) and Aschenbach are perhaps the film's weakest points, although they add some intellectual gloss. The music of Mahler and the photography make this a stunning film.