© 2024 Pavel Konyukhov

Death in Venice by Luchino Visconti

Some time ago I saw the film “Death in Venice” by L. Visconti.  Again our TV channel, “Culture” has given us a treat.  I haven’t read the famous novella by Thomas Mann on which the film is based, so it was interesting to get impressions only from the film.

The film takes place in Italy at the beginning of the 20th century.  Professor Gustav von Aschenbach, an older German composer, comes to Venice to have some rest, without his wife and daughter.  But in the environment of idle high-class society, he encounters HIS beauty – a boy of 13 to 15 years of age, with regular facial features, a mop of brown hair, and a thin figure with long slender legs.  His name is Tadzio; but another name is better – an angel.  (BTW, I found some parallels with another good movie, “American Beauty”, which has the same situation of an older man who adores young flesh (but, more traditionally, with a female), but which has an ending untypical for Hollywood movies.)

The composer Aschenbach considers himself an artist who creates beauty through painstaking detailed work which is the result of his spirit.  Reality can only distract and spoil us.  The creation of beauty and clearness are the only spiritual acts.  Gustav denies the importance of feelings.  Achievement of wisdom and trust is possible only by denying one’s feelings.  Art is the highest source of edification. These ideas are expressed through dialogues between Gustav and his friend and opponent, Alfred.

However, what happens in reality?  Gustav feels something about HIS beauty:  more and more he feels torment and pain, and he decides to leave this chaotic situation.  He is afraid of honest and direct contact with anything.  Because of his strict moral principles, he is afraid to make mistakes, even in his music.

And so Mr. Aschenbach leaves the Grand Hotel and HIS beauty, but circumstances force him to return to that place very soon.  He is glad of that and confesses to himself that he loves the boy Tadzio.  He sees the thin angel, his erotic object, on the beach.  Later he hears the boy playing a theme from “Für Elise” and is reminded of his visit to a prostitute who also played this piece by Beethoven.

The man is filled with desire, but cholera is running through Venice, although nobody acknowledges this as it will hurt business.  But the man is filled with desire and he decides to improve his appearance by putting black color on his hair and moustache.  Should he redden his lips and cheeks?  Why not?  It will bring him closer to HIS beauty.  But soon he realizes that his age will make a relationship impossible with HIS beauty.

The public doesn’t accept his music (as his friend says, it is still-born and without feeling).  He can touch the hair of HIS beauty only in dreams.  He lives out the last hours of his life.  He sits on a bench, listens to a sad Russian song, watches HIS beauty playing vivaciously and… yes, he dies.  Death in Venice.

 

Was there more than one cause of his death?  What was the real reason for it? Cholera?  The inner conflict between his latent desires and the strict moral principles of a respectable German?  His inability to achieve HIS beauty?  Or maybe the hint of the feelings which he was afraid of?

 

Pavel Konyukhov