Original subtitles

"In search of Tadzio"

Directed by

Written by

These are the images of a director's journey in search of a character.

The images of Luchino Visconti's long journey to look for a face.

The face of Tadzio, a young boy who, in "Death in Venice"...

...appears to August Von Aschenbach as the symbol of Beauty.

Budapest was a stop full of events but with no results.

When he set off, Visconti already had a face in mind...

...a physical presence, as described by Thomas Mann in "Death in Venice",

...the novel chosen by Visconti to be reinvented on screen.

The plot of the novel can be summarized in a few words.

The story of Aschenbach, a famous German writer...

...who at 50 starts to be obsessed with his biological decline,

and the lack of joy in his work. Driven by a sudden desire of change...

...and to escape, he leaves his house in Munich and goes to Venice's Lido.

In the same hotel in Venice is staying a 12 years old Polish boy, Tadzio.

The writer is smitten by the incredible beauty of the young boy...

...a gift he think it's much easier and more pleasant to possess...

...than his stylistic perfection, which he might attain, or not,

...and always comes after a great creative effort.

Tadzio is described by Thomas Mann as a boy with blond hair and light eyes.

But in Budapest Visconti only found boys with dark hair and dark eyes.

- Yes, for "Death in Venice", yes.

- You're renewing an old thing... - A very old project, yes.

- An old idea... but why? - Heh, why? - I'm interested.

- Because I've wanted to do this for so long...

...and finally I found a collaboration... - With whom?

- I'm producing the film, and Warner Bros will distribute it.

- And Dirk Bogarde will be the protagonist. - Oh, yes, like...

- And the kid... I'm looking for the kid, for Tadzio.

- Did you like the boy yesterday?

- Yes, but no, I need a 12 years old kid...

- The themes of your films are various, for example...

...you shot "Rocco and his brothers", or "White Nights" by Dostoyewsky.

Every film you make is a cornerstone in your art.

- Yes, my films are very different, because there are many themes...

...and one must confront them all. I don't have a single theme.

- There are directors who develop only one theme...

...throughout their whole career, with some small variations.

I prefer to pick different themes, to get to the same conclusions...

...and ultimately to express the same concepts.

The ice-skating in Budapest, one of the most crowded...

...gathering places for young people, could not provide a face for Tadzio,

...just like schools, gyms and sports grounds.

In Visconti's travel footage, instead of the images of young people,

...what will remain is rather the image of this"not-so-young" lady.

How else can we define the ice-skater in love with herself?

How did exactly Thomas Mann describe Tadzio?

"With astonishment, Aschenbach noticed...

...that the boy was perfectly beautiful. "

"His countenance�pale and gracefully reserved,

...surrounded by honey-colored locks, with its evenly sloped nose,"

...the lovely mouth, the expression of alluring and divine earnestness,"

...was reminiscent of Greek statues from the most noble period. "

"With all its perfection of form, it had such a personal appeal...

...that the onlooker thought he had never encountered... "

...anything similar either in Nature or in Art. "

Did the 12 years old Swedish Bjorn Andersen fit this description of Tadzio?

In fact, Visconti found his Tadzio in Sweden.

It was the 6th or 7th boy who appeared at the tryout in the little room...

...rented by Visconti in a hotel in Stockholm.

The director was instantly interested by the boy, but decided...

...to first see other boys in Sweden and in other coutries,

...to make sure he would be as close as possible...

...to Tadzio's description in the novel.

- Yes, Margareta.

- Hello [in German]. Take a seat.

- He's a young actor. - Oh, he's an actor.

[in French] - 12 years old. - 12 years old? - Yes.

[in French] -Tell him to march very slowly.

[in French] - Look into the camera. Smile. Stop there. Et-voila.

[in French] - Smile a bit, smile. Thanks, picture.

- To understand that these boys are from Stockholm, what do you do?

- You put a mark?

- Yes, in my list... - Ah, in the list.

- Either we restart the numbering... - Yes, how can we do this?

- Well, I know that at that number... - No, if we start from 1,2,3,4...

- Let's add an "S", a "H", a "V", a "B"... according to the city, maybe.

- But these are already gone, though.

- Number? What is the number?

- 40 years old. - 40? He's 40 years old? [40 and 14 are similar in italian]

- No, it can't be 40. - What? - You mean 14. - Oh, 14 yes!

- If he were 40, that would be phenomenal!

[in French] - Slowly, very slowly.

[in French] - Look into the camera. Yes.

[in French] - Smile. Ha ha, just smile calmly. [in Italian] He's funny.

[in German] - Thank you, good-bye.

[in French] - Move the head a bit.

[in French] - How old is he? He's really young.

[in French] - He's really handsome. Turn your head.

- Do you have any pictures here?

- Wow, he's so tall. Beautiful.

[in French] -Tell him to take his sweater off.

[in French] - And also look into the camera.

[in Italian] - He's really handsome.

- Let's do an extreme close-up. Very close.

- A three-quarter pose please. Turn a bit.

[in French] -Look at the man over there.

[in French] - No don't move. Smile, into the camera.

[in French] -Yes, ok. Thank you. Let's do some pictures. Mario!

- Take some close-ups, too.

- Right, left, the face, full-figured, and bare-breasted, too.

- So far, have you seen someone that you like?

- Not yet. Some are cute, but no epiphany yet.

- But we're on a good path... we'll get there.

- His face is the best. He's a little too tall.

- Do a numbering per page.

The director maintained that he deliberately put himself�

...in Gustav von Aschenbach's shoes,

...that he looked around with Aschebach's eyes,

...in the long journey that took him...

...around in Northern Europe and Eastern Europe.

Visconti had already decided to modify a bit Aschenbach's character,

...played by English actor Dirk Bogarde, and to change his profession

...from writer to musician.

He decided to shape it after a real musician, the composer...

...Gustav Mahler, who inspired Thomas Mann, too.

But for Tadzio's character, he stayed as true to the text as possible.

"Death in Venice", the film that Luchino Visconti...

...decided to direct and produce, after the great success...

...of "The Damned", differed from the Nazi family saga...

...because it seems to focus exclusively on small external facts.

The main events happen inside the protagonist:

Gustav von Aschebach is a self-aware artist, a rational man�

...who knows himself and is rarely taken by suprise.

When he realizes that Tadzio's presence can destroy...

...the rigid customs on which he built his life and his career,

...Aschebach tries to escape and go back to Munich.

But his escape doesn't go any further than a trip from Lido...

...to Venice's train station, and Aschenbach is back at the hotel...

...to spy and admire the miracle of beauty in a creature.

To justify Aschenbach's abdication and that he turns into...

...a fanatic visionary, it was absolutely necessary...

...to be as true to the text as possible, in the choice of Tadzio.

The Swedish boy from Stockholm really looked like Tadzio,

...but before taking a decision, Visconti went to Helsinki.

Helsinki was another fruitless stop. Fruitless?

It still helped the director to clarify the purpose of his research.

Therefore, it was not fruitless.

[in French] - I can't see his eyes. What color? Look here.

[in Italian] - Green eyes.

[in French] - Pretty face. Take some pictures of him.

[in Italian] - Full-figured and closeup?

- Yes. No, if he were dark-haired he could be Jaschu.

- Tell him to write "Jaschu" even if he�s blond.

- That kind of face is a little young, but...

[in French] - He did some theatre and Tv.

[in French] - Ok. Go take some pictures.

- Why do you want Finnish boys in your film?

- I don't want a Finnish necessarily, I want a boy...

...with blond hair and light-colored eyes. And to find a boy like that,

...I went to Stockholm, to Helsinki, and I'm going to Warsaw and Munich.

- I'm looking where people's racial traits are blond hair and blue eyes.

- Of course, I can't find him in Italy.

- Green eyes? - Light-colored eyes.

- How do you select actors? - Well, you see, I call many boys here�

...and then I select, little by little, and I hope to find the right one.

- You will have some problems with language...

- No, the character doesn't speak much.

- He also speaks his own language, which is Polish in the book.

- But it could also be Finnish, Swedish... it doesn't matter,

...as long as he speaks a language incomprehensible...

...for the other characters. Like in Mann's story.

According to Mann, Tadzio was Polish.

Therefore, the visit to Warsaw was necessary,

...even if Visconti probably had already made up his mind.

Warsaw has changed a lot, it's one of the cities that...

...suffered the most from the war. The old and new buildings...

...witness a history of horror and the terrible tragedy.

Just like the city and Poland changed, so did the youth.

It is very difficult to recognize a boy from the 1910s,

...like Tadzio, in today's young Polish boys.

They come from another social class, they're more lively...

...and down-to-earth, less enigmatic.

How did Thomas Mann describe his Tadzio?

"His walk was very graceful, both in his stance...

...and in the movement of the knees,"

"... the way his feet touched the ground, very light,

...at the same time tender and proud... "

"... and made more appealing through the childlike self-consciousness...

A head of Eros, with the yellowish tint of Parisian marble,

...with exquisite and somber brows,"

"... temples and ear covered by the dark and soft curls of his hair. "

A true aristocrat. But Mann didn't speak only about perfection.

His Tadzio was capable of true rage outbursts.

Here is, for example, when Tadzio, Polish aristocrat,

...finds himself next to some Russians, whom he loathes.

"He was advancing slowly, but so nimbly and proudly...

...as if he was used to walking without footwear and he surveyed the huts. "

No sooner had he noticed the peaceful Russian family than his face... "

...was clouded by a tempest of scorn and disdain. "

"His brow darkened, his mouth was lifted,

...between the lips and the cheeks an embittered tearing took place,"

...and his eyebrows were so heavily wrinkled that they made... "

...the eyes appear sunken in and let them speak the evil and somber... "

...language of hatred. He averted his glance, beheld them another time,"

"... made a fiercely dismissive gesture with his shoulder...

...and turned his back unto the enemy. "

"A sort of tenderness or terror, something like shame or respect...

...caused Aschenbach to turn away as if he had seen nothing;"

...because the serious observer of a casual passion,"

...refuses to admit his impressions even to himself. "

Not only difficult, it was impossible to imagine Tadzio the aristocrat...

...to be the same age as these contemporary Polish boys.

The long journey of course ended at Venice's Lido.

From the ice, the snow and the rain in the North...

...to the changeable spring of the South.

Visconti examines, re-checks and verifies...

the main points of the story he's going to direct.

This is the Hotel des Bains, where Thomas Mann set his story...

...and where Visconti will shoot his film, too.

The fascination with an era to rebuild and recover,

...by going back to the 1910s...

Another journey to face, but this time back in time.

"So I will stay, Aschenbach thought. Where could it be better?"

"And with his hands folded in his lap he allowed his eyes to wander... "

"... in the vastness of the sea, his gaze slipping,

...becoming blurred, and breaking in the monotonous mist of nothingness. "

He loved the ocean for important reasons: out of the desire... "

...for tranquility, harbored by the hard-working artist,"

...who seeks to conceal himself from the multitude of possibilities... "

...by embracing the simple and immense;

...out of a forbidden proclivity for the unordered, the immeasurable,"

"the eternal, the void, that was made even more attractive...

...by running counter to his work. "

"To find peace in the presence of the faultless is the desire...

...of the one who seeks excellence:"

"and is not nothingness a form of perfection?

While he was dreaming into the deepness of space,"

...he suddenly became aware of a human figure close to the shoreline,"

"... and when he collected his glance from the unlimited,"

"it turned out to be the beautiful boy. "

Beyond Lido, all Venice, in which the threatening sea penetrates;

...but Aschenbach doesn't think of the danger, he challenges it...

...or maybe he simply seeks it.

It almost seems that he wants to contract cholera,

...the illness that will kill him the same day...

...that Tadzio leaves with his family.

"In the afternoon Aschenbach crossed over to Venice,

"... during a calm and under a scorching Sun;

...since the obsession propelled him to follow the Polish siblings. "

He did not find his idol at St Mark�s.

But when he took his tea at his little round iron table... "

...on the shaded portion of the square, he suddenly noticed... "

...a strange aroma in the air, which it seemed he had registered... "

...subconsciously for a few days already; a sickly sweet smell... "

"... reminiscent of distress and wounds and suspicious cleanliness. "

"He probed it and pensively recognized it, finished his snack...

...and exited the square on the side opposite of the church. "

In the cramped streets the odor intensified. "

"At the corners printed notices had been affixed,

...warning the populace of the water in the canals... "

...and of the consumption of oysters and mussels, due to certain gastric... "

"... conditions which had to be expected in this kind of weather. "

"The euphemistic nature of the decree was apparent. "

- Ok? - Ok, thanks. - Where are you from?

- Venice. -Venice?

Visconti�s looking for actors in Venice to interpret the minor characters.

- Ok, you can put him together too... it's better if he cuts his hair.

- Well, can you cut your hair. - Would you cut your hair? - Sure.

- But not completely... just a bit. - Yes, ok.

- This one can be good for the hotel, maybe...

- The child is cute. - Oh, if you need the kid...

...maybe for some hours, I don't know...

- It's good, yes. Thank you.

- The lady is good for the hotel. We will need some young children.

His long journey in search of Tadzio has come to an end.

By now the director is convinced that the Swedish boy from Stockholm,

...Bjorn Andersen, is the perfect Tadzio.

- I'll see you in Rome.

Visconty says bye to his collaborators and arranges an appointment.

Soon they'll meet again to start shooting "Death in Venice",

...a heavy, difficult story, according to Thomas Mann's own definition.

The meeting will be soon: Tadzio will be there, too.

Why call him Bjorn Andersen still?

He's Tadzio, now. Only Tadzio. A real, gorgeous creature,

...as well as an abstract idea, a product of the mind, as Visconti says.