"Death in Venice": Wet Love and Warm Death

Heath 2022-11-23 20:27:24

Even if you do not understand the complicated and obscure musical forms, counterpoints and fugues, it will not prevent any ordinary person from enjoying the charm of Mahler's Fifth Symphony. This is perhaps one of his most strikingly opposed themes, from the solitary funeral march to the hysterical defiance of the strings, to the deep and broad dawn of the soft harp, to the triumphant chorus at the end The intertwining of contradictions, struggles, repression and progress and passion seems to herald a turning point in Mahler's creative career. Since then, the theme of his works has shifted from literature and religion to deeper philosophical propositions, and his gentle and bright style has also Started getting heavier. As the contradictions of the capitalist society in the early 20th century became increasingly acute, the composer himself was also mired in career setbacks, bereavement of daughters, illnesses and other torments. The once fresh and simple, high-spirited and naive tunes were finally stained with traces of the desolation of the years. Mahler left us not only a piece of magnificent symphonic music, but also in literature and movies, we can also get clues about his life. A novella "Soulbroken in Venice" by Thomas Mann, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was created based on Mahler's prototype, and even the protagonist's name Gustav von Aschenbach is the same as Mahler's Christian name, but Changed character occupation to writer. The book was published the year after Mahler's death, and half a century later, Visconti's adaptation of the film of the same name made this story widely known. The famous fourth movement Adagio in Mahler's Fifth Symphony is used as the theme song, and the soulful melody and beautiful images complement each other. This is a story about unspoken and unspoken love. While traveling in Venice, the composer encounters a Polish teenager who is on vacation with his family. He is deeply attracted by his beauty and graceful demeanor. , he could not bear to leave, and eventually died of a heart attack on the seaside of Venice in a sweltering and harsh environment. This emotion cannot even be called platonic love, in the one-way staring and following of wishful thinking, the doomed fate is more similar to the tragedy of Greek drama. In the adapted film, on the basis of the original novel, Visconti added a number of memory passages, such as the funeral of the composer's daughter, discussing the true meaning of art with friends and other plots, which deepened the deep and profound sense of life and death. It enriches the theme of the film. The Adagio sequence is played four times in the film, the first time it is played on the piano by Aschenbach while he is talking to a friend; the second time when he leaves the restaurant, passing Tacchio; the third time And the fourth time appeared at the funeral of his daughter and the end of the composer's own life, respectively. These paragraphs correspond to the Art, love, life and death are also inseparable themes in the film. The three debates between the composer and his friends on artistic creation and beauty cover the main philosophies of the film and enrich the characters. For the first time their discussion was about the creation of beauty, Aschenbach believed that beauty arises from the artist's labor, while friends believed that beauty, like nature, preceded the artist's presumed existence. The second time the two mentioned the normative nature of art, the composer believed that the artist was the highest source of education and must be a model of balance and strength, while the friend believed that art was ambiguous and could be interpreted from various angles. The third time was his friend's rebuke of his lifeless pursuit of the so-called perfect balance in his music after the failure of the performance, and the composer who woke up from the dream also suddenly experienced a kind of awakening that was close to despair when he had a premonition that his life was approaching. . These memoirs establish Aschenbach's three-dimensional character image, and also explain his sudden panic in the face of teenagers. Although music is an extremely abstract and ambiguous art form, Aschenbach is still obsessed with defending order and reason, but when the young man appeared, the creed he had always adhered to was fundamentally questioned and shaken. The young man has pure natural beauty, and the composer is attracted by this beauty, which just confirms what a friend said, "beauty does not need to rise to the spirit, beauty is just a feeling", and his own model and sense of morality finally made him feel good about it. The juvenile's admiration induces potential shame and fear, and with anticipation and yearning comes a bewildered daze. The composer's emotion towards the teenager is not so much the same-sex love, but rather the appreciation and pursuit of beauty. His search for and following Tacchio does not carry any physical desire. From the first surprise, it is always a gaze that is close to infatuation. The identity of a teenager is always just a symbol of beauty, and the pursuit of the composer seems to be It symbolizes the sigh of all the beautiful things in youth and youth that cannot be recovered. On the boat to Venice, Aschenbach made no secret of his distaste for an old man with make-up like a clown, but near the end of his encounter with Tacchio, he mysteriously allowed the barber to dye his hair and paint Put on a thick foundation and lipstick. Before the shadow of aging and death, a youth with pure and flawless youth made him break his conservative norms and standards for many years, and fought against the cruel fate for the last time. "It was a death more complete than the death of the individual: a betrayal of all human reproduction and life as a whole." ("Towards the Temple of Cinema") In this sense, the composer's admiration for the same sex has a kind of In a more decisive and desolate sense, juvenile identity is further abstracted as a symbol of beauty, without any utilitarianism and demands, and people have no interest in this kind of purity. The fascination and pursuit of beauty will end. Art was originally produced from the most practical activities for the purpose of survival and reproduction, and when people recognized the sense of beauty and liberated it from the shackles of birth, old age, sickness, death, and inheritance, the individual also stood out and awakened from the group, and acquired an independent name. Humans are always powerless in the face of nature, but there are always some longings that are enough to fight against biological instincts. Perhaps because of this, when the composer stared at the young man with fascination, as if he were admiring a beautiful work of art, he carried a sense of compassion from the very beginning. The novel describes that Tacchio in Aschenbach's eyes was pale and morbid when they met for the first time, "he must not live long." Fragile, "fragile" and "exquisite" are the same word. Perhaps from the beginning of human aesthetic awakening, they have realized that spring is fleeting, and good dreams are hard to stay. It is in this way that people can experience tragedy. of beauty. Venice under Visconti's lens is not a beautiful and romantic city, rainy days, sweltering heat, mingled with the smell of disinfectant and the shadow of disease, just a flawless work of art and an awake appreciator strayed into Among them, the yearning that has nowhere to hide is like a diffused vapor, witnessing a wet love and a warm death.

Public account / tone radio

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Death in Venice quotes

  • Gustav von Aschenbach: I remember we had one of these in my father's house. The aperture through which the sand runs is so tiny that... that first it seems as if the level in the upper glass never changes. To our eyes it appears that the sand runs out only... only at the end... and until it does, it's not worth thinking about... 'til the last moment... when there's no more time left to think about it.

  • Gustav von Aschenbach: You know sometimes I think that artists are rather like hunters aiming in the dark. They don't know what their target is, and they don't know if they've hit it. But you can't expect life to illuminate the target and steady your aim. The creation of beauty and purity is a spiritual act.

    Alfred: No Gustav, no. Beauty belongs to the senses. Only to the senses.