The Damned
1969 · Movie · 164 min. · Italy
A family's decline coincides with Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s and serves as an allegory for German society as a whole in this intoxicating work from Luchino Visconti. The Essenbeck family runs the German steel industry and the nervous patriarch attempts to appease the Nazis by appointing a successor sympathetic to their cause. But his choice sets off a round of in-fighting as his children battle for control of the company. His young grandson eventually takes charge, but his drug addiction wreaks havoc on his family when he brutally rapes his mother and turns her into an addict. By the end of the film, the Nazis, including the party members in the family, are on the verge of taking over Europe.
Direction Luchino Visconti
Cast Dirk Bogarde · Ingrid Thulin · Helmut Griem · Helmut Berger · Renaud Verley · Umberto Orsini · Reinhard Kolldehoff · Albrecht Schönhals · Florinda Bolkan · Nora Ricci · Charlotte Rampling · Irina Vanka · Karin Mittendorf · Valentina Ricci
Soundtrack Maurice Jarre
Screenplay Luchino Visconti · Nicola Badalucco · Enrico Medioli
Cinematography Pasqualino De Santis · Armando Nannuzzi
Original title La caduta degli Dei
7.5
5K votes (FilmAffinity)
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