Death In Venice

Set in atmospheric Venice in the early 1900's, Visconti's adaptation of Mann's masterpiece is a revelation in the weakness of the main charracter, played brilliantly by Dirk Bogarde.

I watched this first when i was about 20 years old and as i saw the opening shot of the ship coming out of the mist, and i heard the Mahler music, i was convinced that this was evidence that there was art in the movies! It turned out i was wrong, this was Art with a capital A, the real art of filmmaking lay elsewhere for me to discover later on. Death In Venice is a hugely overrated film.
On the outside it's all very shiny and pretty, it has the great moving music, the lens filters, the rich and lavish sets, and a fabulous city which all serve to make the film seem important. But this is all superfluous and decorative, hiding a hollow core, the cinematography is actually a bit of a bore in its slowness and self-importance. In one scene at a restaurant the camera pans and moves around the set aimlessly again and again for seemingly no reason whatsoever apart from for its own sake, without saying anything or adding anything to the film. Which makes me think this is a director who hasnt a clue what he's doing. It's almost all establishing shots and very little emotional involvement.
The one reason to watch the film is Dirk Bogarde. He plays a homosexual who seems to like young men. I'm not sure if the film celebrates that, to these eyes it seems to. But in Bogarde's performance there is the promise of much more interesting things - how we cope with death, ageing, repressed sexuality, survival - yet these themes never get a chance, stifled under a thick layer of makeup.
I think that somewhere in here is a better film, 1/2 an hour shorter, possibly directed by some like Douglas Sirk if he were alive, who could bring out the melodrama of the situation.