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Sex and swastikas! — that combo shows up in both trash cinema and high art. Luchino Visconti’s searing look at Nazi corruption sees an industrialist family torn apart by murderous greed and ambition worthy of the Borgias. The fiendish Countess Ingrid Thulin has raised a twisted son (Helmut Berger) to serve her deadly schemes; her path to power involves framing one heir for a killing while another rival is sacrificed in an SS massacre for the good of the Reich. The chilling treachery plays out at family dinner tables, in the offices of a steel mill, and in various bedrooms; Nazi fervor is equated with sex perversion. The uncut original version, remastered, also stars Dirk Bogarde, Helmut Griem, Renaud Verley, Umberto Orsini, René Koldehoff, Charlotte Rampling and Florinda Bolkan.

The Damned

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1098

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 157 min. / La caduta degli dei, Götterdämmerung / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 28, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Dirk Bogarde,...

Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Björn Andrésen, Marisa Berenson, Mark Burns, Silvana Mangano | Written by Nicola Badalucco, Luchino Visconti | Directed by Luchino Visconti

Thomas Mann’s 1912 novella Der Tod in Venedig focused on a German writer named Gustav von Aschenbach, who decides to take a holiday to Venice, where he falls in love. The greatest change in Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film adaptation, Death in Venice, is the fact that Gustav (Dirk Bogarde) is instead a composer. The troubling scenario concerning the main character’s paedophilic intentions remains, and is perhaps intensified in this, the best-regarded screen adaptation.

Through flashbacks we learn that Gustav has come to Venice to recover from an illness, possibly brought about by the death of his young daughter. His wife (Marisa Berenson) will not be joining him. Gustav enters a world of aged, crumbling architecture, bathed in a light that always seems to be dwindling – a reflection of...

High class Italo filmmaking slips into the ’70s with Luchino Visconti still on top. This handsomely appointed period drama recreates Venice of 1910. Make that a highly stylized recreated Venice. As curiously enacted by Dirk Bogarde, Thomas Mann’s story of a composer’s inner turmoil over a maddeningly attractive teenaged boy becomes a one-man ordeal.

Death in Venice

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 962

1971 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 131 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 25, 2019 / 39.95

Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Romolo Valli, Mark Burns, Nora Ricci, Marisa Berenson,

Carole André, Björn Andrésen, Silvana Mangano.

Cinematography: Pasquale De Santis

Costume Designer: Piero Tosi

Art Direction: Ferdinando Scarfiotti

Music selections: Gustav Mahler, Beethoven, Mussorgsky

Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni

Written by Luchino Visconti, Nicola Badalucco from the novel by Thomas Mann

Produced by Robert Gordon Edwards, Mario Gallo, Luchino Visconti

Directed by Luchino Visconti

See Venice and die… or isn’t it supposed to be ‘see Rome and die?...

After all the debates, controversies, and stereotype accusations have cleared, looking back on Blaxploitation cinema today it’s easy to see healthy portions of the crime and action genres. Using these genres and the struggles of the black community, these films were created for those that wanted to see African American characters on the big screen not taking shit from the man, “getting over”, and–above all else—being the heroes in movies. In the documentary Baad Asssss Cinema, Samuel L. Jackson gives his take on the heroes of Blaxploitation: “We were tired of seeing the righteous black man. And all of a sudden we had guys who were…us. Or guys who did the things we wanted those guys to do.”

The unsung supporting players in these films that backed Fred Williamson and Pam Grier and many other stars were people acting and making a living off of it.