The Criterion collection #962

Special features: Luchino Visconti: life as in a novel (2008 documentary); Showing the story (new program featuring literature and cinema scholar Stefano Albertini); Alla ricerca di Tadzio (a 1970 short film about Visconti's efforts to cast the role of Tadzio); Talking about Venice (interview from 2006 with costume designer Piero Tosi ); Musiques au cœur (excerpt from a 1990 program about the music in Visconti's films, featuring Bogarde and actor Marisa Berenson); Visconti à propos de Morte à Venise (segement from the June 2, 1972 episode of the news program Midi magazine with an interview of Visconti); Visconti's Venice (a behind-the-scenes documentary); trailer; booklet essay by critic Dennis Lim

A fastidious composer reeling from a disastrous concert, Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) travels to Venice to recover. There, he is struck by a vision of pure beauty in the form of a young boy named Tadzio (Björn Andrésen), his infatuation developing into an obsession even as rumors of a plague spread through the city. Based on the novella by Thomas Mann, this late masterpiece from Luchino Visconti is a meditation on the nature of art, the allure of beauty, and the inescapability of death. Setting Mann's story of queer desire and bodily decay against the music of Gustav Mahler, it is one of cinema's most exalted literary adaptations

Originally released as a motion picture in 1971

Based on novella by Thomas Mann

Widescreen (2.35:1 aspect ratio)

Includes Speical features

Bjorn Andresen, Dirk Bogarde

Rating: PG

Blu-ray; Widescreen (2.35:1 aspect ratio) presentation; requires Blu-ray player; Monaural

Subtitled for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH)