Thomas Mann

Literary adaptation: a handsome youth of humble origins rises in society through his connections made as an elevator attendant in a luxury hotel.

Composer Gustav von Aschenbach travels to Venice for health reasons. There, he becomes obsessed with the stunning beauty of an adolescent Polish boy named Tadzio who is staying with his family at the same Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido as Aschenbach.

Thomas Mann's witty and intimate story of a irresistible scoundrel.

Mid-19th-century, Baltic Sea port city of Lubeck, Germany. Follows the fourth generation of the Buddenbrook mercantile family as Tony and Thomas reach the age of marriage. Fatefully impeded every step of the way, the Buddenbrooks struggle as economic hardship and personal defeats weigh down family relations.

Death in Venice was Britten's final opera--an extraordinarily atmospheric and haunting adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella, evoking the grandeur and shabbiness of a Venice in the grip of disease. He eloquently and evocatively describes the moral and physical degeneration of Aschenbach, the writer whose obsessive pursuit of beauty in the form of a boy leads him into humiliation and death. Robert Tear takes the demanding role of Aschenbach opposite Alan Opie, who sings the various baritone parts. To portray the beauty and fascination of the Polish family and Tadzio, Britten made prominent the use of dance, by turning these characters into dancers, choreographed in this production by Martha Clarke. This new production for Glydebourne is directed by Stephen Lawless and conducted by Graeme Jenkins.

A short mime adaptation of a Thomas Mann story about a Parisian urchin who makes her living selling human heads.

A musician beds down a prostitute he knows is diseased in order to gain inspiration, an act he later believes to have been a tacit pact with Satan

Explores the complex relationship between the spirit, body, and mind. The film is a nightmare with closed eyes because it counts among the most terrible moments of my life, my second exile, which lasted a very long time. Inspired by an ancient Hindu legend.

Hans Castorp, fresh from university and about to become a civil engineer, comes to the Sanatorium Berghof in the Swiss Alps to visit his cousin Joachim, an army officer, who is recovering there from tuberculosis. Intending to remain at the Berghof for three weeks, Hans is gradually contaminated by the morbid atmosphere pervading the place. Wishing very much to be considered a patient like the others, he achieves his ends and stays in the sanatorium for ...seven years. During this time, he has enough time to take part in the furious philosophical debates pitting against each other Settembrini, a secular humanist, and Naphta, a totalitarian Jesuit. And to fall in love with the beautiful but enigmatic Clawdia Chauchat. When he is finally discharged in 1914 - along with all the other patients - it is only to plunge into the horrors of World War I.

Gregorius, the Outcast. As an infant, he was abandoned by his own parents, conceived through the sinful love of a brother and sister. As a young man, misunderstood in a humble fishing village, he imagined the lake as an ocean, a small boat as a throne, and a spear as a royal sceptre. Yet deep within, he knew he was destined for something greater. Driven by a desire to become a knight and make the world a better place, Gregorius embarks on a journey that reveals the unfathomable ways of God. For within every sinner, there may also dwell a saint. Whether you are an outcast, a knight, a king, a hedgehog, or a pope, beneath the heavens there is ultimately only one true path: the path of a pure heart. Gregorius, the Chosen One. Inspired by Thomas Mann's novel, Tomasz Mielnik's poetic absurd comedy transports audiences to a long-lost age, when the star-filled sky served as a map of endless, radiant, and irresistible journeys.

The Lübeck merchant Friedemann owes his crippled figure to a wet nurse "devoted to drink". He lives a secluded life with his three simple-minded sisters and his bedridden mother, loving only the theater and music. Only Gerda, the unhappy wife of the district commander of Rinnlingen, makes him blossom...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was the author of Werther, the romantic novel that was transformed into a play during Goethe's lifetime and which initiated the whole German romantic movement. The book's story tells of young love and suicide. In this East German film, based on a book by Thomas Mann, Lotte (Lilli Palmer) was the woman who served as the model for the heroine in the novel Werther. She comes to Goethe's hometown for a visit, and her experiences there eerily re-create episodes from the book. Goethe comes across as a pompous old bore, and his friends as pandering sycophants, in this very proper communist party-sponsored, anti-heroic movie.

This drama is taken from Thomas Mann's 1903 semi-autobiographical novel. Tonio (Jean Claude Brialy) is an aspiring writer and the son of a rigid aristocratic father and a music-loving mother. Wandering throughout Germany and Italy to "find himself," Tonio frequently remembers his childhood experiences in a series of flashbacks. The highlight of the film is the expert lensing by cinematographer Wolf Wirth. Erika Mann, the daughter of the late poet and author, collaborated with Ennio Flaiano on the screenplay.

The Twenties: The German Fuhrmann family spend their holidays in Italy again. The country is full of mysteries in that time. The Fuhrmann's have to realize the upcoming and growing fascism and their children are fascinated by a magician visiting the town. Soon nothing is as usual. The times are changing ...

First part of two of the saga of the troubled Buddenbrook family and their business in mid 19th century Germany.

Short film based on Thomas Mann's short story "Der Kleiderschrank".

Gustav Von Aschenbach, a passionate composer, arrives in Venice as a result of wanderlust and there meets a young man by whose beauty he becomes obsessed.

Based on a Thomas Mann novel and made with amateurs the directors found while doing a workshop at Ceará.

Britten's last opera, in two acts, presented by Teatro Real.

The siblings Sieglinde and Siegmund von Arnstatt are inseparable. Their arrogant manner is particularly felt by Sieglinde's fiancé, Lieutenant Justus von Beckerath. Siegmund jealously watches over his sister, with whom he falls into a frenzy of emotion during a performance of Richard Wagner's opera "Die Walküre." Beckerath realizes that he will never be able to break into the incestuous intimacy of the twins. Finally, Siegmund and Sieglinde give themselves over completely to their sensual intoxication...

An American heiress in Europe falls in love with a German prince, but he is required to marry someone else for reasons of state convenience.

An old woman who is unaware that she is near death, falls in love with her son’s young American tutor.

A staging of Britten's opera filmed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in June 2008.

Homeless, all thrown Mephistopheles is suffering from idleness and boredom. In a market where you can buy everything - from gralic to books on Russian history, he manages to find the soul of a ballet dancer.

Based on unfinished 1954 novel by the German author Thomas Mann. It is a parody of Goethe's autobiography Poetry and Truth, particularly in its pompous tone.

Hans Castorp, fresh from university and about to become a civil engineer, comes to the Sanatorium Berghof in the Swiss Alps to visit his cousin Joachim, an army officer, who is recovering there from tuberculosis. Intending to remain at the Berghof for three weeks, Hans is gradually contaminated by the morbid atmosphere pervading the place. Wishing very much to be considered a patient like the others, he achieves his ends and stays in the sanatorium for ...seven years. During this time, he has enough time to take part in the furious philosophical debates pitting against each other Settembrini, a secular humanist, and Naphta, a totalitarian Jesuit. And to fall in love with the beautiful but enigmatic Clawdia Chauchat. When he is finally discharged in 1914 - along with all the other patients - it is only to plunge into the horrors of World War I.