The Damned takes place in Germany in the early 1930s, as Hitler ascends to power, aided by the giant munitions concern owned by the powerful von Essenbeck family – a thinly veiled reference to the Krupp munitions dynasty. Shot on a generous budget from 22 July – 14 October 1968 on location in Germany and Italy, the production gave Visconti free reign to do as he wished, and he grabbed the opportunity with both hands. In short, Visconti was something like Erich von Stroheim in his devotion to his work everything had to be real, down to the last detail of the costumes for the extras, and the military hardware used in the film. But upon arrival to inspect the work, he tapped his cane on the floor lightly, saying only “I think not,” and returned to his palatial home, later sending down a messenger to tell the crew that the entire floor had to be torn up and replaced with parquet. One incident aptly sums up his fanatical devotion to every detail in his work: on the set of The Damned, Visconti had insisted that real marble be laid on the floor of the main set. An intense person whose authority on the set was unquestioned, Visconti smoked 120 cigarettes a day, and even after a stroke in 1972, refused to give up the habit, eventually succumbing to a fatal stroke on 17 March 1976 at the age of 69. But Visconti was always an extravagant personality, a sort of doomed romantic who revelled in a lifestyle of lavish luxury, made no secret of his bisexuality and his many affairs, and demanded nothing less than total devotion to those who worked for him, both in front of and behind the camera. Even the film’s trailer is over the top, revelling in sadism and violence, suggesting an exploitation film rather than a serious historical account of Germany’s Nazi era. Luchino Visconti’s La caduta degli dei ( The Damned, 1969) is such an outrageously excessive and daring film that one wonders, in retrospect, how Visconti got away with it.
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