Death In Venice

Moderator Stephanie Malia Hom joined Professor Joan Roman Resina to discuss Death in Venice and the work of filmmaker Luchino Visconti. Resina contextualized the film within the larger context of Visconti’s German trilogy and his long, storied career. He also discussed the film’s adaptation from the Thomas Mann novella. Resina examined the idea of decadence in the film and the aristocratic Venetian milieus, as well as the film’s larger commentary on art and beauty across the mediums of literature, music, and cinema. Recorded on 04/05/2022. [Show ID: 38038]
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[@stephenvanwoert2447]

Let me be the first to comment. I could listen for hours to what the professor has to say, and also join in a discussion. I have seen DIV dozens of times since July of 2014. I think it is the greatest film ever made. Lucky for me, I first saw it "cold," without any prior knowledge of it or of the novella, or of what others had said about it---the philistine film critics and essayists who poisoned the public's mind about it with their low interpretations.
The film is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so. I have said many times that the viewer interprets what's on the screen according to what's already in the viewer's mind. If it's a low mind, then the action on the screen will be low. If the mind has a desire for what is honorable and beautiful and noble, then that viewer will find it on the screen in this masterpiece film. Visconti knew the meaning, but he apparently left it up to the viewers to find their own. I fault him decades after the fact, that he didn't defend the film's moral reputation better at the outset, since there was a boy involved in the indispensable role, Björn Andrésen as Tadzio, the ideal of Classical Greek young male beauty. I will leave it at that.
I had a breakthrough experience in discovering "Death In Venice" at age 66, for the beauty and poignancy of it, and it has lifted me to a higher realm while I live out my mundane life in these perilous and ominous times. And so, as a response to my experience, in 2017 I started a CZcams channel of 5 videos in honor of the film and of Björn Andrésen, which I cordially invite the professor to look at. Thank you.

[@rosabeale7440]

Profesor Resina was very wonderful!