Rating: 
Summary: Stunning.
Review: Death in Venice, is a visually alluring portrait of obsession, decay, beauty, and mortality. The dialogue is scarce, but I believe the film would not have worked out, if otherwise.
You may or not like it, I can not say you will, like others have said, it is not for everyone, but I must say it is, for me, one of the most beautiful, touching films I have ever seen, if not the most. I found myself, entranced in a strange everlasting spell. I somehow, felt, Bogarde's emotions, and like him, I followed Andresen through the degenerated streets of Venice. I adored, idolized, the feeling of contrast, the imagery, between the decayed, horrific characters Bogarde/Gustav found in Venice, and the exquisiteness of a fifteen-year old boy.
And you can never, ever go wrong with Mahler.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, beautiful movie!
Review: Elegant classic. A must see for anyone that loves Thomas Mann
Rating:
Summary: Why Visconti Rules
Review: I didn't know it was possible for a black screen with white letters to give one tingles all over his body as a result of the sheer sublimity of the credit sequence. I don't care if you watch anything past the first three minutes of this film--the credit sequence is worth the price of admission.
Rating: 
Summary: A movie that exposes the weakness of the novel
Review: I enjoyed Mann's short novel when I first read it, so I was naturally anxious to watch this film version, which was so widely acclaimed. The movie had the curious effect of reducing my appreciation for the novel. Visconti's film is a respectable work of art, mind you, but if there is a way to film _Death in Venice_ successfully (and there might well not be), this is not quite it. The protagonist is inexplicably metamorphosized into a Mahler-like composer instead of the Mann-like writer of the original, apparently to help justify the turgid Mahlerian soundtrack. The Reason vs. Emotion conflict that was implicit in Mann's work is here rather crudely brought to the fore by the repeated scenes of Aschenbach arguing with a colleague about art. I found the cinematography jarring, and the movie of necessity proceeds with glacial speed. The result was that after watching the movie I realized that Mann's novella was in fact a much more slight piece that I had thought. It depends on its highly elliptical style to create an atmosphere. By making it all explicit, the movie revealed that there was in fact much less to Mann's little story of pederastic infatuation than I had thought.
Rating:
Summary: The most extraordinary film I have ever seen!
Review: I first saw this film a few weeks ago when it was on TV and found it utterly brilliant! Its a thought provoking, visceral and moving tale of a composer (Bogarde) who has all but lost his ability to experience emotion and finds the beauty of a young boy disturbs him enough to re-waken his feelings. There can be no more than 30 conversations or exchanges of words in this tale of smouldering obsession and even less action or movement. Yet incredibly it keeps one riveted and fascinated all throughout its running time. Bogarde gives the performance of his life as his character and the plot develop partly through his increasing obsession of the boy and through the flashbacks of his life as a composer. Director, Visconti films in lavish beauty and style and sensibly intervenes as little as possible as the experience, (rather than plot) unfolds. Mahler's music fits the film perfectly and heightens the emotion throughout. Its a rare gem of a film, of which I have yet to see another like it, where virtually nothing happens, yet everything happens. Marvellous!
Rating:
Summary: Impressive and brave
Review: I have recently re-visited Visconti's Venice after an absence of too many years and I am reminded again of what an impressive - not to mention brave - piece of cinema this was for its time, and continues to be.Adapting this novella to film was never going to be easy, yet Visconti did a superb job, so, too, his actors. There are some changes from the book, with the first sixteen or so pages omitted, and I also found the film Tadzio to be more flirty than his novel counterpart, but these changes do not jar within the film. What I found truly frustrating was that the video I have is not in wide-screen format and I did feel I was missing something happening out of shot - and I hate to miss anything in this wonderful movie. This is not a movie for those with the attention span of a house-brick, but if you're in the market for thought-provoking and have a love for all things beautiful, this is a must-see. While the film runs for just over two-hours, it's not the sort of 2hr movie that has you checking your watch after the first hour. Should the distributors see fit to release a wide-screen version on video - yes please, I'll have a copy of that, too.
Rating: 
Summary: Did I rent the right movie?
Review: I saw all these glorious FIVE STAR reviews below... one right after the other... and so I rented the film. All I can say is... did I rent the right movie?
First off, the film is in English. This is surprising because Visconti is Italian and Dirk Bogarde plays a German. I really prefer foreign films but this one somehow was English so maybe it was just a bad parody or something. Secondly, I thought the film was supposed to be about the intoxication of beauty but Mr. Bogarde spends two hours looking at some skinny pasty-faced kid who seems to have the personality of an amoeba. The best scene was at the train station when Bogarde was leaving this wretched waste of time... but they lost his luggage and he didn't leave and then he sat down and then he smiled. Go figure. Probably smiling about that skinny pasty-faced amoeba kid even though he's married to Marisa Berenson. Miss Berenson seems to be bad luck. Ryan O'Neal was married to her in Barry Lyndon and got his leg blown off. She divorced Ryan soon after and married Dirk for this movie. And in this movie, Visconti totally rips off that whole X-FILES bit about that oozing-alien-black stuff that killed a lot of people and borrows some of that stuff for Dirk. That was the best scene... looking out at the ocean and the pasty-faced amoeba kid in the glare of the sun as the oozing-black-alien stuff started leaking from Mr. Dirk's head.
All I can figure is maybe the pasty-faced amoeba kid was David Bowie's little alien brother from THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH and the amoeba kid somehow ran into Krycek and got a hold of that oozing black stuff because he didn't like Mr. Dirk staring at him all the time.
All I know is Jean Luc Godard would have had Anna Karina blow the kid away in the first scene and then plan a hotel robbery or something.
Rating:
Summary: An artist's search for beauty
Review: I saw this movie in a theater when it was released. One could hear laughter and boos from the audience. They thought the movie was boring as it had no plot and the main character was pathetic in his pursuit of a 12-year-old boy. Obviously, they could not see beyond the superficial. Actually, it is a very deep and moving metaphor about an artist (director Visconti himself?) who has been looking for beauty in an ugly world (note the plague all around him) all his life. He finally finds beauty (the boy) just before his death and can die satisfied. There is a hint in the last scene that the whole movie is an autobiographical metaphor: a lone movie camera on a tripod stands near the dying man on the beach.
Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly beautiful in the truest sense....
Review: I saw this movie when it first appeared in theatres in 1971, and I haven't seen it since, but it was the event that changed my life then. I'll never forget wandering in the movie theatre and seeing it. It haunted me for months; perhaps years. Masterfully played by the actor and a chilling ending and my recent visit to Venice brought it all together.I have yet to see a film like it since. A masterpiece. Period.
Rating:
Summary: They got it.
Review: I wasn't too hopeful when I screened this film for 15 students immediately after reading Mann's masterpiece. In fact, I considered going instead with Von Sternberg's/Emil Jannings' "The Blue Angel" as a comparable narrative and proven cinematic success. But Visconti crafts a hypnotic and compelling film while Bogarde turns in the performance of his life. The lush cinematography and rich Mahler score are no mere "window dressing" but the very heart of the narrative, making the Dionysian currents that lap the Venice shores as irresistible to the attentive viewer as to the character of Aschenbach himself. I've never felt quite the same about a screen character--at once a pitiful caricature, his make-up melting under the hot Venice sun, and a noble figure who chooses his destiny.
This isn't a film for everyone. But as the final Mahler note was being sounded, one spectator excitedly whispered to me, "They got it." That's good enough for me.
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