Death in Venice on TCM

Dirk Bogarde‘s best role

Bjorn Andresen is the most beautiful boy??

Hardly.

He looks like a lesbian vampire.

My favorite film. Changing von Aschenbach from a writer to a composer and using Mahler's music was a brilliant stroke. I never thought that boy was particularly pretty but the rest of it is wonderful.

Let's try that again at R2.

I found the "Most Beautiful Boy" thread.

It seems to discuss Bjorn Andresen at length.

141 posts so far.

It's a film about obsession but often mislabeled as a film about pedophilia. It's not. It's a film about obsession, like Sondheim's awful Passion.

It's starting now!

The Mahler music is going to put me to sleep.

Ah, Dirk Bogarde ❤️

[quote] It's a film about obsession but often mislabeled as a film about pedophilia.

I can see why.

The older guy obsessing over the young kid looks like a total creep.

And he acts like one too.

The fact that he's perving over a teen boy, basically makes him a letch.

My goodness, this movie is boring.

For the older DLers, was Bjorn Andresen considered good looking? Because nowadays..

Audition in Sweden 1970

^ Very 👍🏻

[quote]It's a film about obsession but often mislabeled as a film about pedophilia.

Perhaps, but I couldn't get past my disgust at the pathetic nature of his obsession.

That teen is totally cruising the older guy, after he catches him staring.

I wonder if this was the inspiration for Elio and Oliver?

"To Forget Venice" is even better, if obscure. One of Bergman's Swedes Erland Josephson (sp?) speaking Italian. Not one but two gay couples - the female pair in a naked shower love scene. An old opera singing aunt dying and the family meeting to say goodbye, replete with memories from her childhood. Fab-u-lous!

Were the two teen boys supposed to be lovers?

They were awfully touchy with each other.

[Quote]The fact that he's perving over a teen boy, basically makes him a letch.

The character is reflecting on the beauty of youth as he prepares for death. But by all means indulge you perverse thoughts.

Dirk's character is NOT a pedophile. I know a lot of you modern gays have no appreciation for art, but his entrancement with the boy is because of his beauty. He has an aesthetic response to him, not a carnal one.

I'm not buying that for one second, R19.

They are clearly flirting with each other.

I'm watching the movie as we speak, and the "Dr." is wracked with guilt about his "immoral" feelings towards Tadzio.

Which is why we keep seeing the flashbacks of his wife and daughter.

Every time he lusts after Tadzio, he goes back to affirming his heterosexuality (represented by his wife and daughter).

And right now he's visiting a prostitute, immediately after spying on Tadzio. Meaning, he wanted to have sex with Tadzio, and had to go get his rocks off with a female (which he was unable to perform).

He is a CLOSET CASE, and the movie is making that abundantly clear.

Wasn’t Thomas Mann attracted to his own young son?

r22 he's not lusting after Tadzio. He's entranced by his beauty like somebody would be by a painting. Does that mean they want to fuck the painting? You're just not very intelligent.

You're really invested in trying to "prove" that this movie isn't about a pervert lusting after a teen boy.

Why is that, R24?

Oh, never mind.

If it was purely platonic, why did he dye his hair black to look younger - and then in the last scene, the black dye is running down his face?

Anyone who says Death in Venice is "about pedophilia" is an uncultured lout. It's a beautiful, sad movie. Yes, Dirk Bogard is attracted to the beauty of the kid. But that doesn't make the movie "about pedophilia."

I love when the main character tries to make himself look young, he winds up looking like a clown. Take note, fellow DLers.

It's a brilliant film. Not boring in the least.

We all become Rudy Giuliani in the end.

r25 as a gay man, it's clear that your only sensibility is sex and nothing else. You can't perceive that some attractions can be based on something more transcendental, aesthetic or spiritual.

[quote]. the black dye is running down his face?

Rudy - is that you?

Go peddle your bullshit somewhere else, R29.

You're speaking to Datalounge. We know bullshit when we hear it.

PS, what's the significance of the musicians? The whole thing was creepy. Especially the red haired man with the white painted face.

I understand what you're saying, R29. When I saw this movie I had the more basic interpretation of things, but I see it differently now.

There are many beautiful young people. Why he latches on to a beautiful young man is another thing. He couldn’t find any teenaged girls to be obsessed with?

So far, I’m focusing on the sickness vs. health theme. He’s quite obsessed with the conspiracy of the disinfecting.

r31 you are such a philistine. This is why the gay community is in such wreckage because of shallow, uncultured morons such as yourself.

It's understandable that people would be uncomfortable with the film, especially these days when we're being told daily (yet again) that gays are groomers and pedos. However, the boy is meant to be the aesthetic ideal of beauty, like a model for Michelangelo's David, or Andrea del Verrocchio's David with the Head of Goliath. That's what the contrapposto pose at the end is about.

[quote]Why he latches on to a beautiful young man is another thing. He couldn’t find any teenaged girls to be obsessed with?

Are you lost?

R36, no, I’m arguing for credence to the “gay angle”. Middle aged straight men get fascinated by younger women, not younger men. Especially when they feel old and want to feel young and virile again. And DL is always bragging about married men wanting young dick. Anyway, he is creepy, mooning over that kid.

The actor was 15. EPHEBOPHILIA. It's a word. Learn it. Everything is wall to wall porn talk now, pedo, cuck, blah blah blah. Our society is disgusting.

A Classic erotic but misunderstood film, Dirk Bogarde is great in this, period pieces are exceptional and memorable when done correctly, and DIV gets a gold star.

I can’t believe that Tadzio’s mother/guardians don’t report that creepy old guy to the police or peck at him until he goes away. In real life, a middle-aged guy following a family with kids would be served with a restraining order. And in some places, get his chicken-hawk ass kicked.

Thank you, R40!!!

Even they knew what the fuck was going on. We all do.

[quote] So far, I’m focusing on the sickness vs. health theme. He’s quite obsessed with the conspiracy of the disinfecting.

I see so many parallels between this story and how Covid was handled in 2019.

The denials, etc. It's bizarre.

Two things can be true. 1) Aschenbach - in Mann's novella and in Visconti's vision - is obsessed with this beautiful creature whose aesthetic perfection makes mockery of his arid and failing artistic powers. 2) Visconti, as a horny lech, also used the opportunity to cast eye candy and shot him with long, lingering, seductive shots to titillate himself and other gays, under the guise of "high art".

[quote]He couldn’t find any teenaged girls to be obsessed with?

[quote]I’m arguing for credence to the “gay angle”. Middle aged straight men get fascinated by younger women, not younger men.

[quote]I can’t believe that Tadzio’s mother/guardians don’t report that creepy old guy to the police or peck at him until he goes away. In real life, a middle-aged guy following a family with kids would be served with a restraining order. And in some places, get his chicken-hawk ass kicked.

You seem to be going out of your way to misunderstand the film, in a particularly homophobic way.

The kid with the dark hair clearly wanted to have sex with Tadzio.

And that scene with the hair coloring dripping down the creepy old man's face was just too, too....

What a strange fucking movie.

Wait, so he had cholera the whole time??

Wtf was he doing walking around, and not lying in bed?

SO DUMB.

tbh I wish the movie had been even more pervy.

R2- If looking SCRAWNY, PASTY and ANDROGYNOUS is beautiful than he IS the most beautiful boy 👦 in the world 🌎.

That movie was fucking awful.

Too artsy. Too European.

The violin music gave me a fucking headache. By the end of the movie, my ears were ringing from the screeching violins.

The story was too hard to follow.

The main character's behavior was just bizarre, while everyone else seemed normal.

And the ending made no sense.

I will never recommend this movie to anyone.

It was complete garbage.

To have a "aesthetician and transcendental" response to a person's physical beauty is... ultimately dehumanizing and objectifying, seeing a person as a lovely object rather than a full human being.

It's not an admirable or superior way to go through life, as some here seem to believe, it's an incredibly limited and shallow way to deal with one's fellow humans. And IMHO if the film had dealt how this aesthetic perception of people never leads to happiness it might have been more interesting, but that's the last idea an artsy film director wants to explore.

R48, I find it strange that a governess would be dragging those kids through the slums.

Tadzio looked like Jodie Foster in a sailor suit.

It's beside the point that YOU PERSONALLY didn't find the kid attractive. The main character saw him as an ideal.

What people are saying about him being attracted to the beauty and aesthetic of the boy is true. But he's also sexually attracted to him.

It was something Thomas Mann dealt with his whole life. Tadzio is based on a 10 year old boy Mann encountered at a hotel. Mann admitted sexual attraction to his own young son. But, generally through his life he was attracted to age appropriate men (though on the young side) and one of the many themes of Death in Venice is what one does about a longing that society deems as inappropriate.

R48 are you like 23 years old?

That sailor boy isn’t hawt at all.

Give me an English chav from a sink estate who’s seen some shit!

[R48] are you like 23 years old? —Anonymous

I know 15 year olds who aren't this moronic. Age will not cure stupidity

[quote] That sailor boy isn’t hawt at all.

It is, if you're an old creepy perv like the guy in the movie.

I would much rather have seen a movie about a hot summer at the beach with these two.

[quote]And IMHO if the film had dealt how this aesthetic perception of people never leads to happiness it might have been more interesting

Did you not see the ending?

[quote] This movie wasn't about a pedophile lusting after a young boy.

Sure, Jan.

The movie, the art direction, the casting, the historical setting, the novel, the themes, are all mostly lost to history and this movie cannot really be appreciated by a younger crowd or a provincial crowd trained to be outraged about this or that current political correctness.

This thread seems to be populated with ignoramuses.

And this is at best a less classic of glamorous European art cinema.

There are many many classic films that are completely unknowable and unenjoyable to the youth of today.

It's an irony because young people grew up with access to vast archives of the history of global culture.

But many young people don't have any cultural depth. They often have no "referential" skills - they don't know how to relate components of art and history and culture to each other and through time, as a technique to find "a way in" to appreciate an art work on its terms and also in relation to the viewer's current existence.

As you know, they will often refuse to even look at or watch something, as triggering and pre-judged scandalous because it doesn't confirm their 2022 values and world views.

"a lesser classic" = minor classic. not a major one.

Dirk Bogarde tried hiding his homosexuality but played homosexuals in many movies. Victim, The Servant, Death in Venice and The Night Porter. His partner of close to 40 years was Anthony Forwood who he would say was his secretary.

The kid looks like a young Estelle Winwood. After a night of heavy partying.

Of all these comments, R22 made the best points.

In reference to Bogarde hiding his homosexuality:

In 1952, Dirk Bogarde was 32 years old.

In 1952, this happened:

Homosexual acts were criminal offences in the United Kingdom at that time, and Alan Turing (and a male partner) were charged "gross indecency" - Turing was later convinced by the advice of his brother and his own solicitor, and he entered a plea of guilty.[141] The case, Regina v. Turing and Murray, was brought to trial on 31 March 1952.[142] Turing was convicted and given a choice between imprisonment and probation. His probation would be conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal physical changes designed to reduce libido. He accepted the option of injections of what was then called stilboestrol (now known as diethylstilbestrol or DES), a synthetic oestrogen; this feminization of his body was continued for the course of one year. The treatment rendered Turing impotent and caused breast tissue to form,[143] fulfilling in the literal sense Turing's prediction that "no doubt I shall emerge from it all a different man, but quite who I've not found out"

[quote] Turing was convicted and given a choice between imprisonment and probation. His probation would be conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal physical changes designed to reduce libido. He accepted the option of injections of what was then called stilboestrol (now known as diethylstilbestrol or DES), a synthetic oestrogen; this feminization of his body was continued for the course of one year. The treatment rendered Turing impotent and caused breast tissue to form, fulfilling in the literal sense Turing's prediction that "no doubt I shall emerge from it all a different man, but quite who I've not found out"

HA.

Back then it was a form of punishment.

In 2022, "trans" kids are begging for this.

Well smell you, R61.

Trans Icon Alan Turning

I surely expected to see Karen Black pop up somewhere in this. It has the very dated style of set/costume design and cinematography. Zooming in quickly for a close-up, aggressive absurdity, filmy flashbacks, odd overhead angles.

It was difficult to take seriously. Sorry.

We can't believe any sister would be attracted to something so nellie-looking.

R66 No one said he had to be out of the closet but for someone who was in the closet he played gay characters in many movies.

It was boring.

This movie generally only appeals to Eldergays born before WW 2.

^^ Fey Marvel fanboi.

Toward the end, the fat guy is stalking the family through the slums. Tadzio stops in the alley and strikes a pose, waiting for the fat guy to catch up. The governess comes to gather up the lollygagging boy. She spots the fat man in his white suit and then turns and walks away. Why didn’t she grab Tadzio’s arm and hustle him out of there? (And she leaves the young girls alone in the dark sleazy street?) Was she intending to leave Tadzio alone in the alley? I don’t get that scene.

Instead of protecting his sisters, he’s lingering in an alley, knowing a man is following him.

Come ON.

[quote] Toward the end, the fat guy is stalking the family through the slums. Tadzio stops in the alley and strikes a pose, waiting for the fat guy to catch up. The governess comes to gather up the lollygagging boy. She spots the fat man in his white suit and then turns and walks away. Why didn’t she grab Tadzio’s arm and hustle him out of there? (And she leaves the young girls alone in the dark sleazy street?) Was she intending to leave Tadzio alone in the alley? I don’t get that scene.

Rofl!

That's exactly what I saw, too.

He was a major fucking creeper, lusting after the young boy.

Even though the motherfucker was dying!! He was still craving Tadzio.

SAD!

Instead of lusting after Tadzio what if our antihero was lusting after FABIO

I love that eerie bittersweet calm that European movies have - for some reason, for me, it's like a therapy session with a marvelous guru.

Action films - really American films in general - have so much energy, just pow pow pow. And a kind of upbeat perkiness that somehow has the opposite effect on me, make me very sad and unsettled. Give me Bergman, Truffaut, Fellini any day over Spielberg and Howard shit - and whoever else is churning out marvel movies or whatever they are.

And this Visconti one has that feel that feeds my soul.

This movie generally only appeals to Eldergays born before WW 2.

probably because those born after 1980, are so ignorant of history, culture, art. psychology, and have the attention spans of gnats. go back to your video games and blowing up shit movies

I found the book pretty boring, the film somewhat less so because of the cinematography but still slow. Haven't seen the opera yet but it's on my list (and of course there are questions swirling around Britten's own fascination with teenage boys).

Beauty vs decay is a theme Visconti explored in nearly all his films. It's most obvious here, IMO. A beautiful film.

[quote]This movie generally only appeals to Eldergays born before WW 2 ... probably because those born after 1980, are so ignorant

What about the ones born from 1945-1980?

[quote] What about the ones born from 1945-1980?

They're eldergays, too.

In fact, anyone over 40 is dead in the gay world, so they don't even matter.

It's ultimately a film about death, a movie about a man grasping at his last chance to live on his own terms, before the end. Maybe I'll like it more when I'm really old, because even though I'm Eldergay-old I'm not old enough to have any sympathy for an old perv who creeps after kids.

Still, it's more tolerable than a comparable film made by a straight director would be, if a straight man made this film then the young girl would be shown as falling in love with the saggy old protagonist.

I read somewhere that the film was based on a book by a European author, Thomas Mann. Could he have been gay? Was there such a thing back when he was alive, in the 1800s?

30 seconds of googling tells me that Thomas Mann was an anti-Nazi German, who spent much of his life in Switzerland. And that "Mann's diaries reveal his struggles with his homosexuality, which found reflection in his works, most prominently through the obsession of the elderly Aschenbach for the 14-year-old Polish boy Tadzio in the novella Death in Venice",

He sounds like a very interesting person, but he also sounds like the kind of writer who I'll never read.

[quote] It's ultimately a film about death, a movie about a man grasping at his last chance to live on his own terms

Bullshit.

The Dr. went to Venice on a trip.

He didn't even know that there was a cholera epidemic when he arrived there.

His obsession with Tadzio took place before he even got sick.

In fact, the movie didn't even make it clear that the Dr. contracted cholera. Not even upon his death. We were just supposed to guess that he had it, based on his pale face and sweating.

Now that is some terrible writing.

The fact of the matter is that the Dr. was lusting after this teen boy when he first saw him, then became obsessed with him.

The Dr.'s death was incidental. It just happened because there was a cholera outbreak in the city. He didn't know he was going to die.

The Dr. was sexually attracted to Tadzio. He intended to leave, but then returned to the hotel after his trunk was misplaced. And it was only at the train station when he inquired about the epidemic that was gripping the city.

So this was in NO WAY about his impending death. Because he had no idea he was going to die.

Did you notice the Cheshire cat smile on his face, during the boat ride back to the hotel? It's because he knew he would get to see Tadzio again. Which is why he was so happy to return to the hotel.

The guy was sexually attracted to a blond twink. And he wanted to have sex with him, even to the point of trying to relieve his sexual frustration with a prostitute.

Give me a fucking break.

R87 outdoes my parody.

Its true. The writer is not dying he is a widower in his 50s. Not even an old man yet. He catches cholera in Venice. He should have stayed on the Lido in the fresh sea air and clean ocean. Not the dirty canals of Venice. But he was thinking with his dick.

Aschenbach is dying of heart disease, fool and he knows it. He dies from a heart attack, not cholera.

He would have gotten cholera eventually. He wasn’t even vaccinated, wasn’t masking!

[quote] Aschenbach is dying of heart disease, fool and he knows it. He dies from a heart attack, not cholera.

Where did you get that from?

I watched the whole movie, and heart disease was never mentioned.

If it were integral to the story, why was it not a larger part of it?

I don't think he arrives ill on his holiday. The symptoms of decay are present before the rotted strawberries. But I don't think they were present before the story starts. And it takes place only over several weeks. Does one suddenly show symptoms of a heart disease for weeks and then have a heart attack? He seems to be suffering from a literary device of moral disease and decline. I suppose it could have been a heart attack - some scholars seems to think so.

He dies of a broken heart because little Tadzio is ignoring him in favor of building sandcastles.

I thought I remembered a scene with Aschenbach and his doctor, towards the beginning?

And this line appears in a wikipedia article on the film:

"At the turn of the century, composer Gustav von Aschenbach travels to Venice for rest, due to serious health concerns....While Aschenbach attempts to find peace and quiet, the rest of the city is gripped by a cholera epidemic. City authorities do not inform the holiday-makers of the problem, for fear that they will abandon Venice and leave; however, Aschenbach himself is dying from heart disease. Aschenbach suddenly decides to depart from Venice, but his trunk has left the train station without him. In a moment of impulse, he decides to stay longer, waiting until his trunk has been returned"

The character in the film (not novella) who stays with me is the shrilly doctrinaire protégé who's constantly unbraiding poor Gustav. I think that's why he went to an early grave, not cholera or heart failure.

In the film, the protagonist starts to shake and sweat, as if starting to show symptoms of cholera. But then he drops dead, instead of spending days constantly shitting and dying of dehydration, which is how people die of cholera.

So I think that in the film he was supposed to have caught cholera, but his heart gave out before the disease could advance far enough to be embarassing. I mean, he was wearing a white suit!

This is a huge flaw in the writing, R98.

The cause of his illness, leading up to his ultimate death, should have been firmly established.

Especially since the assholes on this thread are insisting that the movie is about his dealing with an impending death, rather than his lusting after a teen boy.

If that was the case, then why not make it clear from the outset?

Instead, we are left guessing.

[Quote]Especially since the assholes on this thread are insisting that the movie is about his dealing with an impending death, rather than his lusting after a teen boy.

After reading this thread this is still what your addled mind takes away? As others have said it's a film about beauty vs decay and death (that awaits us all).

There are many, many symbols of death in this film long before the boy enters the picture. But the simple-minded who are not well-read, not familiar with the classics, etc see only PEDO. You unfortunate sod.

R99 needs crystal clear narratives, crossed t's, questions answered, NO GUESSING!!! otherwise a novel or film is trash.

"This is a huge flaw in the writing, [R98]. The cause of his illness, leading up to his ultimate death, should have been firmly established."

Well *I* want a person's medical history firmly established in this sort of film, but then I'm in critical care medicine and always want a solid medical history! But normal filmgoers don't.

But seriously, someone needs to re-watch this mess and tell us whether it's established that the protagonist knows he's dying of heart disease from the beginning, as I believe he did in this book. That does affect the overall meaning and theme of the film, and makes the difference between the story of a dying man grasping at a symbol of life and youth, or the story of an old perv.

If Michael Crichton had written *Death in Venice* we would never be in the dark about the protagonist's pathology and prognosis.

Jackie Collins would have handled this better.

[quote] Zooming in quickly for a close-up

I hated that! William Wyler and I agree that Visconti was hopeless at making films.

He should have become couturier and left the camera alone.

All you people rabbiting on about character motivation need to listen to the scene with Alfred (pictured below).

Visconti made a half dozen very good films and all of them are watchable but the further we are from the 20th century, the fewer people will know how to sit and enjoy that kind of movie. It can even try my patience, whereas when I was teen and young man in the 70s and 80s I had endless tolerance for art cinema. I struggle through Antonioni now as well. My synapses have changed, and I don't know if young people ever developed the brain function required to watch this genre.

This movie sucked donkey balls.

Don't worry. A new Thor will be out any minute.

R107 I heartily agree with you (for three reasons but my shortened attention span is preventing me from listing those three reasons).

Some of you DL posters are true provincials.

"Instead we are left guessing."

It's about Eros AND Thanatos (Sex/Life-force AND Death). And if you don't understand that the plague brought in on the winds of the sirocco is the cause of death (and a moral and literary metaphor as well), well, there's no hope for you.

He didn't die of the "plague" that was in Venice at that time, R111, because he didn't have the symptoms of cholera. He died of heart disease, or "Old Movie Disease", or whatever convenient malady allows a person to die still able to express themselves, and with a lack of embarrassing symptoms.

Fuck literary pretensions, if an author wants to write about love and death and Eros and Thanatos, he should do some fucking research about the realities of death.

It was the lead in his hair dye.

[quote] It's about Eros AND Thanatos

And the sojourner was brought to his death by Esmeralda.

Are Eros and Thanatos handsome greek boys on holiday in Venice, too? Rough trade?

Yes, R115; Hypnos was there too but he was napping.

Italian cities that were on the Grand Tour for 200 years were filled with male prostitutes to serve the visiting grandees.

In Milan and Florence there were sexy stylish androgynous teens who worked on commissions from the luxury trades, fucking the grandees and taking them to all the shops to spend their Northern European wealth.

R117, R118 Personal anecdotes from eldergays

Yes R 11 I agree I saw it so long ago but that was my feeling💤💤💤💤💤💤💤

This film was an important part in my blossoming as an important Aesthetic-Queen!

I adore Hydrangeas!

The orignal book was not intended to be read as gay man’s obsession with a young boy - IMO, At the time, Mann could pretend to just be writing about beauty - and making it a male youth theoretically would strip it of the sexual connotation it would have if it were a young girl. It clearly reads as gay pedophile to modern eyes - but the philosophical Mann was intending to write about beauty, age and death. The 21st century ain’t got no time for that.

Why are people who seem to prefer Marvel Superhero movies carping about this film’s treatment of disease not being entirely realistic?

R109 Death in Venice is a bore, but everything is not either or. I'm sure I would find Thor a bore. As for films of the 70s I prefer The Wild Child, Nashville, All the President's Men, Chinatown, Slaughterhouse 5, Straight Time, Straw Dogs, Chinatown, Dog Day Afternoon to the empty pretentious Death in Venice, Julia, Barry Lyndon.

[quote] At the time, Mann could pretend to just be writing about beauty - and making it a male youth theoretically would strip it of the sexual connotation it would have if it were a young girl.

The early 20th century knew enough (not least from intensive reading in ancient Greek and Roman literature) to see that Mann was writing about erōs, and he was aware of that.

I thought this movie was about Kevin Sessums dying of COVID during another ill-conceived european vacation.

^^ Except his intent was not to act on his still perplexing desire. Neither the book or the film go there. Even Visconti stated this.

In fact Visconti said that with great beauty we are reminded of death in that this beautiful thing whatever it may be will eventually decay and turn to dust.

The Grand Hotel des Bains is a former luxury hotel on the Lido of Venice in northern Italy.[1] Built in 1900 to attract wealthy tourists, it is remembered amongst other things for Thomas Mann's stay there in 1911, which inspired his novella Death in Venice. Luchino Visconti's film of the novella was shot there in 1971.

Sergei Diaghilev died at the hotel in 1929. Over the years, the hotel was used by movie stars during the annual Venice Film Festival.[1] In the 1996 film The English Patient, the location was used to portray Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo.

In 2010, the hotel was closed for a planned conversion into a luxury condominium apartment complex, the Residenze des Bains.[2] As of November 2019, the building is still awaiting renovation. A large fence surrounds it, with a guard employed inside.

Tadzio today at 67

He’s entranced by the kid’s beauty, longing for youth AND perving. Life is complicated.

Another link for Tadzio today (the above one didn't work for me)

Well - mine doesn't work either. You can search or Bjorn Andresen and get there that way.

Tadzio is an OLD TROLL.

Gurl, bye.

Weird that Dirk aged so much better than Tadzio/Bjorn.

But maybe not, in that first meeting, they had so much damned makeup and lipstick on Bjorn that he looked like a store mannequin (a female one).

And Dirk was drop dead gorgeous when he was young.

Tadzio still has a great head of hair for an old guy. And at least he keeps his beard clipped. He probably tried to get as far away as he could from the pretty-boy perv-magnet that he once was, but good grooming will out.

There was a documentary about Björn Andrésen last year. Got a lot of press.

God, the simpletons on this thread telling that Aschenbach sees Tadzio just as an object of art. Rose, you don't paint your hair and do facial not even for David statue. He is taken by the boy's beauty and at first he might not even understand that it is more than admirstion. He starts longing for the boy and becomes infatuated. He becomes obsessed and thinks about nothing else. Yet, he is desperate because it is impossible. He starts to behave silly and goes to beauty treatments. He is an old fool and he is kind of aware, but he can't help himself.

And yes , the poster said well that it is about Eros and Thanatos.