Visconti’s Death in Venice
“Venice Looking East from the Guidecca, Sunrise“ (1819)
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“Death in Venice“ is perhaps the most
beautiful film I’ve ever seen, just click
Visconti suffuses his masterpiece with
all the colours and textures of Monet,
Renoir, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and
a host of other Impressionists, and
settles them all upon, nearly inevitably,
the splendours of a Canaletto Venice
Dirk Bogarde has never been better,
his von Aschenbach is definitive,
Silvana Mangano is every single inch
an aristocrat, the epitome of poise,
elegance and propriety, Tadzio is
throughout the very incarnation of a
Botticelli
all is given stately motion by the art
of film and made thereby into another
equal and haunting form of poetry
enjoy, marvel
Richard
psst: Visconti even makes Mahler sound
profound
as does Leonard Bernstein, incidentally,
in the accompanying clip, who is
manifestly transported throughout his
evidently otherworldly experience,
just as you might even be, just click
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