#1098: VISCONTI, Luchino: The Damned (1969)

VISCONTI, Luchino (Italy/West Germany)

The Damned (1969)

Spine #1098
Blu-ray

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 incestuous matriarch Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), and the perversely cruel heir Martin (Helmut Berger, memorably donning 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.

157 minutes
Color
Monaural
German and English

1:85:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2021

Director/Writers

Original story and screenplay by Nicola Badalucco, Enrico Medioli and Luchino Visconti.

Visconti was 63 when he directed The Damned.

Other Visconti films in the Collection:

#556: Senso (1954)
#296: Le Notti Bianchi (1957)
#235: The Leopard (1963)

The Film

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Eight-panel foldout poster featuring an essay by scholar D. A. Miller.

Commentary

None.

Alternate Italian-language soundtrack

Interview 1

From 1970 with director Visconti about the film.

Archival interviews

With actors Berger, Thulin, and Rampling.

Visconti on Set

A 1969 behind-the-scenes documentary.

Interview 2

With scholar Stefano Albertini about the sexual politics of the film.

Trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

99

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