Feb, 21 @ 7:00 pm

In director Lucchino Visconti's lush and haunting version of Thomas Mann's novella, an artist obsessed by his ideal of physical and spiritual beauty jeopardizes his own life to be near the object of his desire. Playing Count Aschenbach, a character loosely based on Gustav Mahler (whose gorgeous music enhances the film's pleasure), Dirk Bogarde embodies the outwardly civilized and meticulously reserved composer as he takes a rest cure in Edwardian Venice. The dichotomy between the intellectual and the sensual is brought to the fore by Aschenbach’s first glimpse of the beautiful young Tadzio, unleashing a secret obsession. The Count’s fascination with the youth’s physical perfection is mirrored in Visconti's masterful visual style. Never has Venice looked more stunning and decadent.

Throughout history, human beings have desired physical beauty. What do we find beautiful and why? What in our nature makes us susceptible to beauty, what qualities in people evoke this response, and why is sensitivity to beauty ubiquitous in human nature? Dr. Nancy Etcoff joins us before the film to explore these and other fascinating questions.

Nancy Etcoff is a faculty member of the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard University Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative and a psychologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Psychiatry, where she is the director of the Program in Aesthetics and Well Being. She has conducted research on the perception of beauty, emotion, well-being, and the brain for over 20 years. Her critically acclaimed popular science book, Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty has been published in over a dozen languages, and was the subject of a one-hour Discovery Channel program.

Bump for those interested!