Death in Venice – a fine adaptation of Mann's novella

It’s the last day of February – and therefore the last day of LGBT+ History Month – so to conclude my thematic viewing on that basis, a repeat watch of Luchino Visconti’s 1971 adaptation of Death in Venice.

Gustav von Aschenbach is a German composer in the early 20^th century. Suffering ill health, grief and a crisis in his work, he journeys to Venice to recover. At his hotel, he sees a beautiful young boy, Tadzio, and becomes utterly besotted. While never making verbal or physical contact, Aschenbach follows the boy and his family around, his own personal crises increasing rapidly, while at the same time, La Serenissima faces an increasing health problem.

The film is an adaptation of Thomas Mann’s 1912 novella, which I first read in 2001. A German friend had introduced me to Mann, recommending Buddenbrooks. Having read – and been captivated by that – I looked for more.

I knew the title of Death in Venice – but nothing more. I bought it, read the short stories that fill out most volumes and then the novella itself – albeit slowly. I was utterly blown away by the novella. Having spent the decades since my very late teens believing that Lord of the Rings was the greatest thing ever written, such a faith was utterly and irrevocably changed.

I have long attempted to write myself and, at that point, was doing so quite regularly. But I was stopped in my tracks by Death in Venice. My gods – you could do something like this in a ‘story’? The words wouldn’t come. It was some considerable time before I could even attempt fiction again.

Indeed, the Late OH and I were visiting friends on the west Irish coast, at the beginning of this century. We were walking by the sea, and I noticed that the wind was sending a fine spray of sand hovering horizontally above the beach itself – as if it were a sandy magic carpet. Desperate to describe to myself – and thereby understand – what I was seeing, suddenly the words started tumbling out of me again.

In 2010, the Late OH and I had done A Very Big Once-in-a-Lifetime Trip for his fifteeth: the Orient Express to Venice. I took a certain book by one Agatha Christie with me. When we visited again, in early 2017, I took the Mann, and sat reading it briefly on the beach in front of the hotel – Grand Hotel des Bains – in the film. It’s also the hotel in the novella, where Mann was staying when he was inspired to write it.

When my own fifteeth approached, it was a question of what I’d do. I decided that I wanted a brief trip abroad on my own, having never done so previously, for all sorts of reasons; fear and lack of money being primary.

I thought of cooking classes in Sicily and art schools in France. And found myself ultimately terrified. And then I reached a conclusion: Lübeck, where Mann himself had hailed from and where Günter Grass, another German literary laureate and personal hero, lived. And also, because the language beyond English that I know best is German, having been studying it in an – often random way – for a couple of decades now.

I recall sitting with a coffee, outside a cafe in old medieval Lübeck, blanket dove my knees (it was 'Baltic' cold!) and listening to a superb violinist play the adagiettio from Mahler's fifth symphony, an iconic piece of music that has becomes the film's theme.

That trip was a rite of passage – better late than never, I guess. But that’s an indicator of what Mann and his work means to me.

On my sixtieth birthday, in December 2022, The Late OH gave me a signed, English-language edition of three short stories by Mann. It meant – and means – so much.

I feel as though I’m going through another explosion of personal growth right now – akin with the language experience in Ireland. Watching Victim a couple of nights ago, and Death in Venice tonight, I seem to be seeing and reading more in films than I did previously. There are words in my head that would not have been in my useable vocabulary previously. Yet they’re there now. And a different way of seeing and reading is also there.

But enough of me. To the film itself. It is beautiful to watch – Pasqualino De Santis’s cinematography is wonderful. It frequently looks like an Impressionist painting. By the way, if you wonder if the green of the lagoon is accurate – yes, it is.

There are issues about how Björn Andrésen, who plays Tadzio, feels in retrospect about the film – to be clear, he has spoken of great discomfort etc, but never of any physical abuse from anyone involved in the making of it.

The film is not as subtle as Mann’s novella, but it is still a thing of great beauty – and a contemplation of beauty, and the debilitating sense of guilt about who you are at your most intrinsic level.

And then there is Dirk Bogarde as von Aschenbach. There is so little dialogue in the film as a whole, but Bogarde does so much with his facial expressions, including on some very, very long shots. It is a superb performance. And it is a superb film.