The Damned
The most savagely subversive film by the iconoclastic auteur Luchino Visconti employs the mechanics of deliriously stylized melodrama to portray Nazism’s total corruption of the soul. In the wake of Hitler’s ascent to power, the wealthy industrialist von Essenbeck family and their associates—including the scheming social climber Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde), the conniving matriarch Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), and the cruelly deviant heir Martin (Helmut Berger, memorably donning Marlene Dietrich–like drag in his breakthrough role)—descend into a self-destructive spiral of decadence, greed, perversion, and all-consuming hatred as they vie for power, over the family business and over one another. The heightened performances and Visconti’s luridly expressionistic use of Technicolor conjure a garish world of decaying opulence in which one family’s downfall comes to stand for the moral rot of a nation.
Special Features
- New 2K digital restoration by the Cineteca di Bologna and Institut Lumière, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Alternate Italian-language soundtrack
- Interview from 1970 with director Luchino Visconti about the film
- Archival interviews with actors Helmut Berger, Ingrid Thulin, and Charlotte Rampling
- Visconti On Set, a 1969 behind-the-scenes documentary
- New interview with scholar Stefano Albertini about the sexual politics of the film
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by scholar D. A. Miller
New cover by George Pratt
Special Features
- New 2K digital restoration by the Cineteca di Bologna and Institut Lumière, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Alternate Italian-language soundtrack
- Interview from 1970 with director Luchino Visconti about the film
- Archival interviews with actors Helmut Berger, Ingrid Thulin, and Charlotte Rampling
- Visconti On Set, a 1969 behind-the-scenes documentary
- New interview with scholar Stefano Albertini about the sexual politics of the film
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by scholar D. A. Miller
New cover by George Pratt
Cast
- Dirk Bogarde
- Frederick Bruckmann
- Ingrid Thulin
- Sophie von Essenbeck
- Helmut Griem
- Wolf von Aschenbach
- Helmut Berger
- Martin von Essenbeck
- Renaud Verley
- Gunther von Essenbeck
- Umberto Orsini
- Herbert Thallman
- René Koldehoff
- Konstantin von Essenbeck
- Albrecht Schoenhals
- Joachim von Essenbeck
- Nora Ricci
- Governess
- Charlotte Rampling
- Elisabeth Thallman
- Florinda Bolkan
- Olga
- Irina Wanka
- Lisa
Credits
- Director
- Luchino Visconti
- Produced by
- Ever Haggiag
- Alfred Levy
- Original story and screenplay by
- Nicola Badalucco
- Enrico Medioli
- Luchino Visconti
- Directors of photography
- Armando Nannuzzi
- Pasqualino De Santis
- Art direction
- Pasquale Romano
- Enzo del Prato
- Costumes
- Piero Tosi
- Music
- Maurice Jarre
- Editor
- Ruggiero Mastroianni
- Executive producer
- Pietro Notarianni
Trailer for The Damned
