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Beneath the Images. It must be acknowledged that even at his worst, Visconti remains a master of surfaces. The city's astonishing Adriatic streets, its gleaming planes and squares have never been so lovingly rendered. The epoch, with beautiful women haloed by immense hats and men elegantly attired merely for a saunter through the palm court, is flawlessly but tediously recreated. Still, there is no substance beneath the moving images. Adolescent Bjorn Andresen is properly androgenous but no more mysterious than a lump of sugar. Dirk Bogarde is miscast and misdirected—all hurt looks and empty cackle. The prize for most voluble player must, however, go to Mark Burns as the musician's friend. Invented for the film, he shrieks such Viscontian art-and-life lines as "Do you know what lies at the bottom of the mainstream? Mediocrity!"
This film is worse than mediocre; it is corrupt and distorted. It is one thing to change an author's lines or his characters. It is quite another to destroy his soul. Mann's Death in Venice is, in fact, no more about homosexuality than Kafka's The Metamorphosis is about entomology. Visconti's poshlost may aspire to tragedy, but it does not even achieve melancholia; it is irredeemably, unforgivably gay.