Press Release Criterion Press Release: The Damned (1969) (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

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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 incestuous matriarch Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), and the perversely cruel heir Martin (Helmut Berger, memorably donning 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.

FILM INFO​

• Italy, West Germany
• 1969
• 157 minutes
• Color
• 1.85:1
• Italian, German
• Spine #1098

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: Man of Two Worlds, a 1969 behind-the-scenes documentary
• New interview with scholar Stefano Albertini about the sexual politics of the film
• 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

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Coming soon, available Sep 28, 2021

 

[Ronald Epstein]

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Liked all of Visconti's films available on disc except The Damned. Roger Ebert gave it one star and i can understand why because the movie is over the top and excessive. The film was initially rated “X” and only got an “R” after numerous cuts which Visconti strongly resisted but in the end Warner Bros. forced Visconti to comply and later restored most of it back for the 2004 DVD release.

 

[lark144]

Liked all of his films available on disc except The Damned. Roger Ebert gave it one star and i can understand why because the movie is over the top and excessive. The film was initially rated “X” and only got an “R” after numerous cuts which Visconti strongly resisted but in the end Warner Bros. forced Visconti to comply and later restored most of it back for the 2004 DVD release.

Roger Ebert also gave "Blue Velvet" one star. That rating has nothing to do with the artistic quality of the films. He completely disapproved of movies that mixed sex and violence in any way--a little strange, considering he wrote the screenplay to "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"--and would automatically give them one star.

"The Damned" is very complex and creative, an extraordinary achievement, though it doesn't completely work, but just when you think you've had enough, something amazing happens. Every time I see it, it's a completely different film. It's too obsessive and operatic for my taste, but then, that's what also makes so much of it so fascinating. There are many things in it that I love. There are also many things in it that I don't especially like, but it doesn't matter, because it's a one of a kind, over the top, beyond good and evil sort of film, much more artistically cohesive and consistent, and visually arresting, then "Salo." It's so beautiful to look at while at the same time trying so hard to push everyone's buttons that it's reason enough for me to own it. I'm looking forward to viewing it the way Visconti intended.

 

[JoeDoakes]

Roger Ebert also gave "Blue Velvet" one star. That rating has nothing to do with the artistic quality of the films. He completely disapproved of movies that mixed sex and violence in any way--a little strange, considering he wrote the screenplay to "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"--and would automatically give them one star.

 

[JoeDoakes]

Nope. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/once-upon-a-time-in-america-1984. Btw: I hate that film

 

[bujaki]

Liked all of Visconti's films available on disc except The Damned. Roger Ebert gave it one star and i can understand why because the movie is over the top and excessive. The film was initially rated “X” and only got an “R” after numerous cuts which Visconti strongly resisted but in the end Warner Bros. forced Visconti to comply and later restored most of it back for the 2004 DVD release.

I saw this when it opened in Puerto Rico. We got the international version (hence X-rated here), and I've never seen the cut version. Yes, it is over the top and excessive, and like all of Visconti's latter films, quite operatic.

 

[david hare]

In essence, I think The Damned is ultimately Gestapo Camp. With the Night of the Long Knives presented as an eccy-fuelled gay daddy underwear party with some cute Munich hustlers. I alwasy enjoy it, if not also for Helmut now nude and having just shot himself up with some drug or other who looms over Ingrid Thulin and minces in best lisp, “I vill DESTROY you Mudda.”

More seriously you might note this “new 2K restoration” is from Bologna which siggests to me the whole thng will be drowned ina sea of piss colored yellow LUT color grading, llike Ritrovata’s totally dreadful FUBAR of Death in Venice. if only these two Visconti titles had been left to Warners to “fix”.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

In essence, I think The Damned is ultimately Gestapo Camp. With the Night of the Long Knives presented as an eccy-fuelled gay daddy underwear party with some cute Munich hustlers. I alwasy enjoy it, if not also for Helmut now nude and having just shot himself up with some drug or other who looms over Ingrid Thulin and minces in best lisp, “I vill DESTROY you Mudda.”

More seriously you might note this “new 2K restoration” is from Bologna which siggests to me the whole thng will be drowned ina sea of piss colored yellow LUT color grading, llike Ritrovata’s totally dreadful FUBAR of Death in Venice. if only these two Visconti titles had been left to Warners to “fix”.

Except the partner this time is Institut Lumiere, not L'Immagine Ritrovata. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[david hare]

Lumiere, if it’s them will be fine. They normally use Hiventy for the final grading and post house wash Up. (
I note both are involved in the resto. Let’s hope Bologna is not handling the grading.)

 

[david hare]

Further to all that, between them the color grading shenanigans of both Ritrovata and French post house Eclair are by now an open dirty secret. It all boils down to probably four people possessed of four titanic egos.

 

[lark144]

I saw this when it opened in Puerto Rico. We got the international version (hence X-rated here), and I've never seen the cut version. Yes, it is over the top and excessive, and like all of Visconti's latter films, quite operatic.

I saw the X-rated version opening day at the Festival in NYC, and it pretty much blew my mind. Then I saw it maybe 10 years later at the Carnegie Hall Cinema and found it operatic and overwrought. It seem to go on forever. I was surprised how different it seemed from my first viewing, but maybe that was the edited version.

 

[lark144]

Nope. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/once-upon-a-time-in-america-1984. Btw: I hate that film

I'll never forget watching Siskel & Ebert when they were reviewing "Blue Velvet". Siskel said the film was a masterpiece, and Ebert became incensed, and started to bang on the table, shouting, "You cannot mix sex with violence. It's wrong."

 

[Matt Hough]

I took out my DVD of this film and watched it tonight for the first time in many, many years. I remembered a fair amount of it but not everything, and while I did think the last half hour dragged, I was still caught up in the twisted, perverse, and murderous machinations of this doomed family. Throughout my viewing I was making parallel comparisons between what was happening with the family to the larger issue of rising Nazi influence in Germany.

The movie is certainly due for a refresh. The DVD had lots of dirt and dust, and there are times when I might have sworn it was framed in the wrong aspect ratio since heads get chopped off but the camera isn't focused on anything else. It's like the cinematographer turned away from the camera for a few moments and things happened someone on the outskirts of the frame that the director left in the final cut.

 

[bujaki]

I took out my DVD of this film and watched it tonight for the first time in many, many years. I remembered a fair amount of it but not everything, and while I did think the last half hour dragged, I was still caught up in the twisted, perverse, and murderous machinations of this doomed family. Throughout my viewing I was making parallel comparisons between what was happening with the family to the larger issue of rising Nazi influence in Germany.

The movie is certainly due for a refresh. The DVD had lots of dirt and dust, and there are times when I might have sworn it was framed in the wrong aspect ratio since heads get chopped off but the camera isn't focused on anything else. It's like the cinematographer turned away from the camera for a few moments and things happened someone on the outskirts of the frame that the director left in the final cut.

Isn't the DVD English only? The Criterion Channel's version is in the original Italian. Most people were dubbed anyway.

 

[JPCinema]

I watched the Criterion Channel version and it was English and also German with subtitles.

 

[JPCinema]

The film was given an "X" rating by the MPAA due to a nude incest scene.
The film was given an "X" rating by the MPAA due to a nude incest scene. Warner Bros. submitted the film for re-classification for its DVD release of the film in 2004. The film's rating was changed from an "X" to an "R".
I remember the controversy as I worked in a theater where it played......"the incest scene" was the reason it was given an X.

 

[Matt Hough]

Isn't the DVD English only? The Criterion Channel's version is in the original Italian. Most people were dubbed anyway.

Yes, (and German in "The Night of the Long Knives" sequence where I turned on the subtitles). I noticed that almost everyone was speaking his or her lines in English so the English track didn't bother me at all.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Isn't the DVD English only? The Criterion Channel's version is in the original Italian. Most people were dubbed anyway.

Yes, (and German in "The Night of the Long Knives" sequence where I turned on the subtitles). I noticed that almost everyone was speaking his or her lines in English so the English track didn't bother me at all.

Pretty typical of Italian films of the period. It was rare for them to record audio on set.

 

[Worth]

Pretty typical of Italian films of the period. It was rare for them to record audio on set.

True, but I usually find more effort typically went into the Italian dub. Though that may just be because I don't speak Italian.