Baltic Cinema: The Damned (La Caduta Degli Dei)
Dir. Luchino Visconti Germany / Italy 1969 167’
35mm transferred to digital video | In German and English with English subtitles | 18
The Damned (La Caduta Degli Dei) has been selected by Kuba Ryniewicz, currently exhibiting in Close to Home, as part of a season of films. View full season here.
Baltic Cinema: The Damned (La Caduta Degli Dei)
Wed 7 October | 18:30
£6/£4.50* per person
As part of his Baltic Cinema season, Kuba Ryniewicz presents Luchino Visconti’s Technicolor assassination of the all-corrupting power and moral degeneracy of fascism.
‘The most savagely subversive film by the iconoclastic auteur Luchino Visconti employs the mechanics of deliriously stylised melodrama to portray Nazism’s total corruption of the soul. In the wake of Hitler’s ascent to power, the wealthy industrialist von Essenbeck family and their associates—including the scheming social climber Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde), the conniving matriarch Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), and the cruelly deviant heir Martin (Helmut Berger, memorably donning Marlene Dietrich–like drag in his breakthrough role)—descend into a self-destructive spiral of decadence, greed, perversion, and all-consuming hatred as they vie for power, over the family business and over one another.
The heightened performances and Visconti’s luridly expressionistic use of Technicolor conjure a garish world of decaying opulence in which one family’s downfall comes to stand for the moral rot of a nation.’ —Criterion
Doors open 18:00; Film starts 18:30. Pop-up cinema bar open from 18:00 for drinks.
Please note we cannot offer refunds on this event.
*Concessions: under 18s, unwaged & 65+
Baltic Cinema
Baltic Cinema is a year-round cinema programme at Baltic, lighting up our Level 1 Cinema with the best new and archive films. Bringing otherwise rarely-screened work to the North East, Baltic Cinema also expands our exhibitions, offering a chance to explore further some of the themes they raise.
Baltic Cinema has five strands:
Currents presents new work from across the world
Sources expands on our exhibitions
Selected shows films selected by our artists and partners
Quayside Kino is a monthly screening for families and children
News From Home offers films on and from the North East, for the people who live here
All regular screenings take place in our Level 1 Cinema.
Baltic Cinema is supported by Film Hub North with National Lottery funding on behalf of the BFI Film Audience Network.
