Death is the end of life.To an artist who is only looking for beauty, to come face to face with it in its absolute form is to reach the end. Comprendo? An artist like Visconti does not do phrase-mongereing like Hollywood directors who cater to the masses to impress them.

Actually, Visconti is not invoking any "universal law" but quoting some Rilke's lines from the "Duineser Elegien", which makes sense in the German cultural background of the film.

Maybe I'm not "intellectual" enough, but what is it all about with that (wrong-English)phrase: "like you know, put the eyes on beauty is to put the eyes on (the) death"?First: "A YOU KNOW" ??? What does he mean with "as you know"? Is that any kind of natural or universal law?Second: "... to put the eyes on (the) death"! What is so compelling about that?I take Visconti's "conclusion" as an earnest and very personal, but futile and trite phrase-mongering...Or does anybody know better?

Perchè "A morte Fellini" ?????

Martin's character was a cross-dressing, child molesting disturbed man in an incestuous relationship with his mother. At the end he was a womanizing SS master. What a combo.

I think it is more ascribable to a general cultural and aesthetic depravation than to capitalism. Was the USSR a beatiful place to drive around in? And take the Netherlands, where so much is planned by local governments, yet the architecture is ugly and suffocating. The US are a democracy: if the citizens really cared about how their country looks they would have voted accordingly.

03:40 no he didn't

Visconti è un dio. A morte Fellini

VERAMENTE GRANDE

If there isn't a direct financial incentive and the risk of personal financial ruin, the worker gets lazy, and the consumer suffers. The only way to ensure commercial and social progress is to let businesses compete in a free trade marketplace. It is natural selection--not every venture is equally profitable, and not everyone can survive, commercially speaking. Capitalism and corporate-culture are not synonymous. True capitalism requires individual responsibility for individual actions.

Lately the dollar is not as almighty as it was. I would like to see the American capitalists then how they will feel with this quality of life and this cheap currency.

In America private ownership has destroyed and uglified the landscape. Every parceled-out acre of land is an ugly little Applebee's or Barnes and Noble or planned neo-traditional community...all of it mismatched and choking. I think as capitalism makes everyone stronger and safer it makes the almighty dollar more valuable than the quality of life.

I am so sad to read this, I thought that Poles were very nationalistic and loved their Motherland. Could you explain to me in what way this is happening? Is it cultural, political or religious? I would be very interested to know?

I am just reading your conversation and I'll tell you one thing: my country Poland is going through the same process of destruction of beauty; yet, how may this world go on in its existence if it destros the very essence of our lives, the very essence of our civilization?

People nowadays don't believe in the development of great-souled human, perhaps they don't even believe that a man can have soul. Anyway, that's enough ranting from me for today. But nice to find another person who feels the same. Art is so important!

More sadly, the poisonous inequality and snobbery exists as much as it did. But it is increasingly only an inquality of money and therefore a snobbery about the most trivial of things. Strange how while the obsession with petty class-trapping (private schools, double-barrelled names, ect) ever increases, the truly important thing, the love of great art and music, continues to plummet.

More sadly, england still has as much inequality and snobbery as ever. But it is increasingly only an inequality of money, a vulgar snobbery (if that makes sense). What is strange is how the love of the trivial class trapping (prestigious private schools, double-barrelled names ect) is greater than ever before, while the truly important and life-imporoving thing, the love of great art and music, continues to plummet.

AlessandroI have only just seen you other comments - this You Tube streaming can be most annoying. I wholeheartedly agree with all you say, it is good to know others have this opinion too.

AlessandroI unhappily I agree with your very interesting and depressing comment. I think THIS government has all along wanted to destroy the class system and they have been very successful, controlling the masses with Saturday night TV dross. That may sound a touch paranoid but I think there is no longer any room for great men such as Visconti or Bernstein and we are now expected to conform to the plebeian majority.

You see this most when the media can celebrate "artists" like tracey emin - they simply have forgetten what art is, what it involves, and how true art is not something for museums, but eternally relevent, and how it can shape a life, present the individual with the possibility of living a better life.