Luchino Visconti - Alla ricerca di Tadzio - In Search of Tadzio [1/3]

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V2PKdXCmp0

Italian documentary on the casting of "Death in Venice" (1970)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• luchino-visconti
• bjorn-andresen
• death-in-venice
• morte-a-venezia
• thomas-mann
• casting

[anniemihn]

@SuperRod88 I agree, Andresen gives a magnetic performance and it's not only because of his staggering beuaty. It's charisma, a natural magnetism that emanates mainly from his sensuous eyes. His performance was completely underrated in the movie because his beauty ecipsed evnything else.

[lomax343]

@SuperRod88 Except, of course, that Andresen was FIFTEEN when the film was shot - turning sixteen just before the film was released. It is possible that Andresen's memory is inaccurate - but if he was taken to a gay club at sixteen it was after the film had wrapped.

Note, however, that Andresen feared "social suicide," not being fired from the picture.

[SuperRod88]

@FuniFrenger So that Bjorn could learn, act like a homosexual. He needed to act like one in order to not give a false acting, live the character in its entirely and getting used to Dirk Bogarde staring at him. He has a great performance in the movie.

[teeshowchesmoob]

Grazie per aver postato questo importantissimo documento.

[FuniFrenger]

Now my question is: why did they take him to a gay club? I'm asking out of curiosity, I mean, what was the point of it? What Bjorn says about being stared at shamelessly makes me think that that's what they wanted him to, I don't know, learn? Maybe? But still...

Anyway, great movie and thanks for uploading the documentary, I don't understand italian though, but it's appreciated.

[Leninvoktatiabre]

"I was only 16 when directed by Luchino Visconti and his team took me in a gay club. Almost all of them were gay. Because of visitors, I felt terribly uncomfortable. They openly stared at me as if I had the delicious meat a delicacy. I knew that I could not respond. That would be social suicide ", - says Andersen. On a wave of hysteria in the press a young man went to homosexual contacts, but realized that it - not for him.

[xkyousukex]

It's amazing to see how Bjorn seemed born to be Tadzio.

[robynsegg]

It's plain to see why Bjorn Andersen was chosen. The other boys are cute & boyish. But Bjorn is striking. Thanks mainly in part to his shoulder-length hair, he looks like he's half & half. The viewers question him, as if to say, "Am I looking @ a beautiful boy who looks like a grown woman or am I looking @ a grown woman who looks like a beautiful boy?" Visconti needed pure androgyny to make a beautiful Tadzio on the printed page, a successful 1 on film. & @ that time, Bjorn had it.

[lyennai]

Thanks a lot, it´s great to see the master at work. A younger Tadzio would have been more accurate to the book, I think. But then again directing children is a little risky.

[catgreen4]

I have been looking for this film forever, thank you!