Saturday, August 27, 2011

Great Movies of Summer: Death in Venice [1971]

Would that we could wear clothes like these at the height of summer (and travel with them with steamer trunks and leather duffels and strapped hatboxes”. I don't know anyone who wouldn't enjoy the shade of a (dedicated beachfront) striped canvas cabana. Another slow, plodding, cyclical, piece - Mahler's Adagietto from the Symphony No 5, churning over and over with lonely longing - is just what to hum as you wander alone along the canals, sticking to the shallow shadows midday. On Beauty: The tactile and unceasing decay in the stones of the city, and the wistfully elusive visage of the boy Tadzio. 
 







































And Tadzio (16 year old Björn Andresen)....