DEATH IN VENICE screens this weekend at the Visconti festival at Lincoln Center.
“There is possibly a no more overwhelming death in cinema than the one that ends Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella of homosexual desire. Feted composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde), his face smeared with tragically unbecoming makeup, sits on the beach at Venice Lido watching the object of his affections.
“To the unbearably bittersweet strains of the adagietto from Mahler’s 5th symphony, Aschenbach sees the beautiful Polish boy, Tadzio (Björn Andrésen), get beaten up by an older boy, before he himself is carried off in a Wagnerian liebestod.” — Stuart Jeffries *
Sunday, June 17, at 8 pm, and Thursday, June 21, at 4:15 pm.
Walter Reade Center, 165 West 65th Street, New York City.
See Nick Pinkerton on Visconti.
Dirk Bogarde (left) and Björn Andrésen (left) in Death in Venice. Image credit: Warner Bros.
