As one who doesn't know the novel behind "Midnight in the Garden...." I
can't compare it with the film. My surprise was that someone (Eastwood)
whose work usually promulgates senseless violence and macho BS pulled off
something as (dare I say it?) sensitive as "Midnight in the Garden...."
Those who know Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" (I am not one of them) say
that Visconti's film trashed the novel from top to bottom. I only know
that it trashed what I do know of Mahler biography, and that (among other
things) the image of the sunset against the Nietzsche song from Mahler 3
(which explicitly mentions "Mitternacht") is dead-on "wrong." Some say
that it really takes a genius to mess up that badly--perhaps someone who
knows Visconti's other work can say whether or not that is the case here.

Aaron J. Rabushka
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http://www.cowtown.net/users/arabushk/