INTERTEXTUALITY AND THE LEADING ROLE OF MUSIC IN VISCONTI'S FILM DEATH IN VENICE

Abstract

Italian film director Luchino Visconti and his anthropomorphic films took into account the passionate and consuming nature of humans and mostly chose defeated heros as their main characters. In his film Death in Venice (1971) adapted from Thomas Mann's short novel of the same name (1912) he tells the story of the death of an artist and its relation to the closure of an era at the fin de siecle. The film constructs a web of intertextual relations and quotations from cultural history literature and music. Visconti's choice of non-diegetic music for the film is Mahler's third and fifth symphonies. This is no coincidence that Mahler and the main character Gustav von Aschenbach have many things in common. Mahler's music represents the life spiritual state and inner voice of Aschenbach hence playing a leading role in the film. The dichotomies and ambiguities in the film can also be traced in Mahler's music adding to the power and effect of the narration. This study examines intertextuality in Visconti's masterpiece and aims to provide a different perspective on the use of music in film.