Death in Venice (1971)

Death in Venice (1971, It.) (aka Morte a Venezia)

In director Luchino Visconti's stylistically lavish adaptation of Thomas Mann's novel - a tale of sexual obsession by a visiting composer in Venice (plagued by cholera):

• the beautifully shot, quiet and lonely death scene of aging, avant-garde German composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) slumped feverishly on a solitary deck chair on a Venice beach (accompanied by the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony) dying of heart failure (other causes could be cholera, or suicide); he was reclining close to the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido where he was staying
• recently-applied dark hair dye dripped from his sweaty, chalk-white face (from under his straw hat) and down his cheeks, while he lovingly watched an angelic-looking teenaged Polish boy named Tadzio (Bjorn Andresen) (also on vacation) and on the beach wrestling with an Italian youth; he then observed Tadzio who waded out into the water and pointed out toward the horizon of the pink-tinged ocean - Gustav's expression mixed contentment, pain, and acceptance as he reached out his hand toward the unattainable boy before his death
• the last image was an extreme long-shot of his beach chair on the large deserted stretch of sand when his body was found by other hotel guests and carried away by workers