The damned /
The most savagely subversive film by the iconoclastic auteur Luchino Visconti employs the mechanics of deliriously stylized melodrama to portray Nazism's total corruption of the soul. In the wake of Hitler's ascent to power, the wealthy industrialist von Essenbeck family and their associat...
| Other Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Video Blu-ray Disc |
| Language: | English German |
| Language Notes: | English or German dialogue; English subtitles; subtitled for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH). |
| Published: |
[New York] :
Criterion Collection,
[2021]
|
| Series: | Criterion collection ;
1098. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | The most savagely subversive film by the iconoclastic auteur Luchino Visconti employs the mechanics of deliriously stylized melodrama to portray Nazism's total corruption of the soul. In the wake of Hitler's ascent to power, the wealthy industrialist von Essenbeck family and their associates--including the scheming social climber Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde), the conniving matriarch Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), and the cruelly deviant heir Martin (Helmut Berger, memorably donning Marlene Dietrich-like drag in his breakthrough role)--descend into a self-destructive spiral of decadence, greed, perversion, and all-consuming hatred as they vie for power, over the family business and over one another. The heightened performances and Visconti's luridly expressionistic use of Technicolor conjure a garish world of decaying opulence in which one family's downfall comes to stand for the moral rot of a nation. |
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| Item Description: | Title from sell sheet. Originally released as a motion picture in 1969. Wide screen. New 2K digital restoration by the Cineteca di Bologna and Institut Lumiere ; alternate Italian-language soundtrack ; interview from 1970 with director Luchino Visconti about the film ; archival interviews with actors Helmut Berger, Ingrid Thulin and Charlotte Rampling ; Visconti On Set, a 1969 behind-the-scenes documentary ; new interview with scholar Stefano Albertini about the sexual politics of the film ; trailer ; new English subtitles translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. |
| Physical Description: | 1 videodisc (157 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet. |
| Format: | Blu-ray, wide screen (1.85:1) aspect ratio ; region A; monaural ; requires Blu-ray player. |
| Audience: | Rating: R; for violence, nudity and aberrant sexuality. |
| Production Credits: | Director of photography, Armando Nannuzzi and Pasqualino De Santis; editor, Ruggiero Mastroianni ; original music, Maurice Jarre. |
| ISBN: | 9781681438795 1681438798 |