Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice (1971) — Beautification of an Ugly Death

Death in Venice (1971) [Source: IMDb]

Death in Venice (1971) directed by Luchino Visconti is a film that is highly subjective and impressionistic, and there is often a glaring oppositionality in several of its themes. In the pursuit of beauty, the protagonist Aschenbach searches desperately for it in the “spirit” against the “flesh”, finds a distance between himself and his desired object and is engulfed within the themes of solitude, repression and voyeurism. Discourse around the film is so heavily concentrated in its visual and musical significance that there is often somewhat of a dismissal of the pivotal scene of the conversation between Aschenbach and Albert, deeming the dialogue vain and superficial. However, aligning with the analysis of certain aspects of narrative, cinematography and mise-en-scène, one might explore several of the cinematic nuances this film offers.

Death in Venice (1971) [Source: IMDb]

A few key points for an analysis of the film:

1. The film is an adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novel of the same title. Aschenbach’s narrative could in fact even be paralleled with Mann’s stay in Venice and his numerous experiences there.
2. However, the focus must be to view this film more as a discussion of beauty and desire and a commentary on art moving towards a more abstract means of expression.
3. The adaptation of the text from literary to audiovisual form was actualized through Pasqualino De Santis’ camera work in relation to Visconti’s perspective of the cultural deterioration of Europe.
4. Understanding the relationship between Aschenbach and Albert with that of Mahler and Arnold Schönberg is also pertinent especially considering Visconti’s denial of this idea and his consideration of Albert only as Aschenbach’s alter ego.
5. There are certain sequences that are responsible for the musical domination of the film, where diegetic music tends to be a transitional force from one diegetic level to the next. This is exemplified in the scene where Tadzio plays Beethoven’s Für Elise, providing a segue into Aschenbach’s flashback of the prostitute playing the same piece in a different…