In director Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann novella, composer Gustave von Aschenbach (loosely based on Gustav Mahler) travels from Munich for a rest cure in Venice in 1911. He is suffering from a heart condition. In the lounge of the Lido hotel he spots a Polish family, headed by Mrs. Moore (Silvana Mangano) and finds himself attracted to her beautiful 14-year-old son Tadzio (Bjorn Andresen). Gradually his obsession increases while a cholera epidemic threatens the city. The pestilence represents the corruption that compromises and threatens his ideals. There are long periods without dialogue, and much of the story is told visually, with Gustave's lingering looks at Tadzio, crowds at the beach, and hotel dining rooms.
The film is elegant, sumptuous, lush, moody, and slow-paced, with little emotional center. Mahler's music is used in this film, although he was not homosexual as far as we know. Thomas Mann is alleged to have been gay or bi, and much of the storyline is supposedly based on Mann's own experiences. Dirk Bogarde portrays Gustave as an aging homosexual voyeur rather than Mann's disturbed artist struggling with an attraction to a boy that he does not understand. Not all of the dialogue is in English. Tadzio's family speak in Polish, and some of the minor characters speak in Italian. Subtitles are provided in ten languages. Luchino Visconti and Nicola Badalucco wrote the screenplay derived from the novella by Thomas Mann. Luchino Visconti directed. The English title is "Death in Venice".
