The Damned (1969 film)

The Damned Italian title La caduta degli dei literally The Fall of the Gods is a 1969 ItalianGerman drama film written and directed by Luchino Visconti. The plot centers on the Essenbecks, a wealthy industrialist family who have begun doing business with the Nazi Party, a thinly veiled reference to the Essenbased Krupp family of steel industrialists.

The Damned has often been regarded as the first of Viscontis films described as The German Trilogy, followed by Death in Venice 1971 and Ludwig 1973. Author Henry Bacon, in his book Visconti Explorations of Beauty and Decay 1998, specifically categorizes these films together under a chapter Visconti amp Germany. Viscontis earlier films had analyzed Italian society during the Risorgimento and postwar periods. Peter Bondanellas Italian Cinema 2002 depicts the trilogy as a move to take a broader view of European politics and culture. Stylistically, They emphasize lavish sets and costumes, sensuous lighting, painstakingly slow camerawork, and a penchant for imagery reflecting subjective states or symbolic values, comments Bondanella.The film centers on the Essenbecks, a wealthy industrialist family who have begun doing business with the Nazi Party. On the night of the Reichstag fire, the familys conservative patriarch, Baron Joachim von Essenbeck, who represents the old aristocratic Germany and detests Hitler, is murdered. Herbert Thalmann, the family firms vice president, who openly opposes the Nazis, is framed for the crime. He escapes the grasp of the Gestapo, but his wife Elizabeth and their children do not. ........

Source: Wikipedia