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The Damned

7.5

5,469

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Original title

La caduta degli Dei

Year

1969

Running time

164 min.

Country

Italy

Director

Luchino Visconti

Screenwriter

Luchino Visconti, Nicola Badalucco, Enrico Medioli

Cast

Music

Maurice Jarre

Cinematography

Pasqualino De Santis, Armando Nannuzzi

Producer

Co-production Italy-Germany-Switzerland;

Italnoleggio, Eichberg Films

Genre

Drama | Nazism. 1930s

Movie Groups

The German Trilogy

Synopsis

A family's decline coincides with Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s and serves as an allegory for German society as a whole in this intoxicating work from Luchino Visconti. The Essenbeck family runs the German steel industry and the nervous patriarch attempts to appease the Nazis by appointing a successor sympathetic to their cause. But his choice sets off a round of in-fighting as his children battle for control of the company. His young grandson eventually takes charge, but his drug addiction wreaks havoc on his family when he brutally rapes his mother and turns her into an addict. By the end of the film, the Nazis, including the party members in the family, are on the verge of taking over Europe.

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Rankings Position

#53 Best Italian Movies of all time

Awards: 1969: Nominated for Oscar: Best Original Screenplay

1969: Golden Globes: Nominated for Most Promising Newcomer - Male (Helmut Berger)

1969: New York Film Critics Circle: 4 Nominations, including Best Film

1969: National Society of Film Critics (NSFC): nominated to Best Actress.

1969: National Board of Review (NBR): nominated to Top Five Foreing Films.

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Critics' reviews

"A magnificent failure, an example of a great director working at the peak of his ability and somehow creating almost nothing at all (...) Rating: ★ (out of 4)"

Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun-Times
"By the end of the opening sequence, the film has already indulged in pan-sexuality, corporate backstabbing, anti-reactionary suppression, pedophilia, and murder plots."

Eric Henderson: Slant
"A spectacle of such greedy passion, such uncompromising sensation, and such obscene shock that it makes you realize how small and safe and ordinary most movies are."

Vincent Canby: The New York Times
"While the filmmaker's take on what passes for decadent and amoral have culturally shifted somewhat, much of what's depicted continues to resonate as such (...) The cast, all tremendously game and wholly trusting of Visconti"

Jim Tudor: Screen Anarchy

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Ranking Lists Position

47 My Favorite Italian Movies (46)

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The Damned

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