“Death in Venice, also costume designed by Piero Tosi. I don’t know, maybe my favorite Visconti movie? You know, obviously, like, Visconti and his collaborators’ attention to detail in creating the period world is something that I, shockingly, really love. You know, in The Leopard, when they open up the closet, at a ball, and it’s filled with, like, hundreds and hundreds of chamber pots, I’m like, “This is gold.” And, you know, anyway, I love Dirk Bogarde. His performance is incredible. It was also so brilliant to, you know, to make the lead character a composer instead of a writer. It just makes it much more cinematic. And a funny story that, like, Warner Brothers, when they saw the director’s cut, they were perplexed and also disappointed. But then one of the studio executives said, “The composer is amazing.” “I love this guy.” And Visconti said, “Well, it’s Gustav Mahler.” And the studio executive said, “Let’s sign him!” So that’s funny.”
