(In partnership with Lisboa 5L Festival)
Visconti makes Thomas Mann’s protagonist, Gustav von Aschenbach, a composer rather than a writer, but the film is a fairly faithful adaptation of the German author’s novella. Aschenbach travels to Venice for health reasons and finds a city struggling with a cholera epidemic. There, he meets Tadzio, a Polish boy, and becomes dazzled by his beauty.
[Based on the novel by Thomas Mann]
Presentation: Claudia Fischer
Visconti worked on the adaptation of Camus’s novel (The Stranger, 1942) seduced by the possibility of drawing a contemporary political fresco centered on the end of French colonization in Algeria, a version that Camus widow made impossible, requiring the book to be scrupulously followed. Visconti remained faithful to the production commitments and filmed Lo straniero but lost his interest in the project, not only due to the pressure of Francine Camus and the producer Dino de Laurentiis, but also because the actor with whom he wanted to work, Alain Delon, gave up and was replaced by Mastroianni, alongside Anna Karina. For many, Lo straniero is a failed Visconti. Others praise the first part, shot under the Algerian sun. (Cinemateca Portuguesa)