Dirk Bogarde Centenary

Dirk Bogarde Centenary Tribute 1921-1999

Two landmark films and a conversation between the great screen actor’s nephew, Brock Van den Bogaerde, and his official biographer, John Coldstream – plus a related documentary.

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Fri 20 Aug 20.30 (Slindon Cinema) Screened in a rare 35mm print at Slindon Cinema

Accident

Dirk Bogarde gives a finely understated performance in a collaboration between director Joseph Losey and playwright Harold Pinter. Often acknowledged as the pinnacle of Losey’s distinguished career, ‘Accident’ is a compelling and unforgettable masterpiece. Stephen (Dirk Bogarde) is a middle-aged professor at Oxford University. Stifled by academia and marriage, he yearns for an affair with his beautiful and enigmatic student Anna (Jacqueline Sassard). He is locked into a battle for her affection with her fiancé, William (Michael York), whose youthful vitality he envies, and with his friend and academic rival Charley (Stanley Baker), whose media profile and sexual success he covets. Bogarde plays the leading man with complete conviction, even down to his unassuming pipesmoking, withstanding the minutest scrutiny. Also watch out for his unmistakable trademark expression in a scene with Baker – never has a simple mannerism conveyed so much more than words ever could. This exemplifies perfectly Bogarde’s belief that the camera could capture thought. The deep, intelligent, at times challenging Pinter script is a work of creative brilliance without an ounce of fat, providing the viewer with an overview of the situations, human problems and emotions that confront the characters, yet deftly allowing us to fill in the gaps and draw our own conclusions – a class act that few can match. UK 1957 Joseph Losey 105m

Booking Ref

Sat 21 Aug 11:30 (Auditorium)

Sat 21 Aug 13.30 (Studio)

Death In Venice

While recovering in Venice, sickly composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) becomes dangerously fixated with teenager Tadzio. Based on the classic novella by Thomas Mann, this late-career masterpiece from Luchino Visconti (The Leopard) is a meditation on the nature of art, the allure of beauty, and the inescapability of death. A fastidious composer reeling from a disastrous concert, Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde, in an exquisitely nuanced performance) travels to Venice to recover. There, he is struck by a vision of pure beauty in the form of a young boy (Björn Andrésen), his infatuation developing into an obsession even as rumours of a plague spread through the city. Setting Mann’s story of queer desire and bodily decay against the sublime music of Gustav Mahler, ‘Death in Venice’ is one of cinema’s most exalted literary adaptations, as sensually rich as it is allegorically resonant. Presented in a digitally restored print. Italy/France 1971 Luchino Visconti 130m

Bogarde and the Europeans: An illustrated conversation

In the latter part of his career Dirk Bogarde collaborated memorably with some of the giants of European cinema: Visconti, Fassbinder, Cavani, Resnais and Tavernier. To mark Bogarde’s centenary his nephew, Brock Van den Bogaerde, and his official biographer, John Coldstream, meet to discuss a distinguished body of work, illustrated with extracts selected from ‘The Damned’ (1969), ‘Death in Venice’ (1971), ‘The Night Porter’ (1975), ‘Providence’ (1977), ‘Despair’ (1978) and Bogarde’s poignant 1990 swansong, ‘Daddy Nostalgie’ (These Foolish Things).

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World

Visconti proclaimed his Tadzio as the world’s most beautiful boy. Fifty years later, that shadow continues to darken Björn Andresen’s life, as we see in this new documentary. See fiull details in the Documenatry section on pg41. Sat 21 Aug 13.30 (Studio)