For this viewer at any rate Luchino Visconti reached his peak as a director with 'Il Gattopardo' and while it is only natural for creative artistes to change their style with the passing years one cannot help but feel that his later films do not represent a change for the better.
What is most apparent in the first of his so-called 'German trilogy' is its sheer vulgarity and irredeemable tastelessness. Some might say that he has succeeded in showing the narcissistic and homo-erotic elements of Nazism but he has indulged himself to such an extent that the depiction of the Night of the Long Knives has simply become an excuse for displaying good looking young hunks in their birthday suits. In fact the film contains so much camp homosexual iconography that one critic has suggested an alternative title of 'Boys in the Bund.' This could be seen as the film that finally enabled its director to emerge from the closet. His 'protégé' Helmut Berger chillingly portrays one of the most sickeningly degenerate characters ever committed to celluloid but of course to a dedicated Marxist such as Visconti only a Fascist could be capable of such depravity.
Although Dirk Bogarde's role was severely cut so as to accommodate Visconti's obsession with Herr Berger, he still registers strongly and there is a mesmerising performance by the superlative Ingrid Thulin. This film also marks the final appearance of veteran Albrecht Schoenhals, an extremely interesting individual who bravely refused the title role in the infamous 'Jew Suss', the playing of which was to prove a poisoned chalice for Ferdinand Marian.
By all accounts Visconti's opus was greatly admired by Rainer Werner Fassbinder which comes as no surprise.
What is most apparent in the first of his so-called 'German trilogy' is its sheer vulgarity and irredeemable tastelessness. Some might say that he has succeeded in showing the narcissistic and homo-erotic elements of Nazism but he has indulged himself to such an extent that the depiction of the Night of the Long Knives has simply become an excuse for displaying good looking young hunks in their birthday suits. In fact the film contains so much camp homosexual iconography that one critic has suggested an alternative title of 'Boys in the Bund.' This could be seen as the film that finally enabled its director to emerge from the closet. His 'protégé' Helmut Berger chillingly portrays one of the most sickeningly degenerate characters ever committed to celluloid but of course to a dedicated Marxist such as Visconti only a Fascist could be capable of such depravity.
Although Dirk Bogarde's role was severely cut so as to accommodate Visconti's obsession with Herr Berger, he still registers strongly and there is a mesmerising performance by the superlative Ingrid Thulin. This film also marks the final appearance of veteran Albrecht Schoenhals, an extremely interesting individual who bravely refused the title role in the infamous 'Jew Suss', the playing of which was to prove a poisoned chalice for Ferdinand Marian.
By all accounts Visconti's opus was greatly admired by Rainer Werner Fassbinder which comes as no surprise.