"The Damned"
1969
Directed by Luchino Visconti

"I am making The Damned for the generations who do not know what Nazism was like."  Visconti noted.  "Young people must understand that it is the absense of protest that constitutes the blackest evil."
Beginning on the night of the Reichstag fire in February, 1933 and ending shortly after the infamous "Night of the Long Knives" in June 1934, we follow a German family's decline as the Nazi party rises.  Dirk Bogarde stars as a scheming opportunist who plots to take over the steelworks and munitions empire.  A baroque film which explores the dark cycles of violence and evil in human history and consciousness with erotic indulgence. With Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin Helmut Griem, Helmut Berger, Renaud Verley, Umberto Orsini, Albrecht Schoenhals, René Koldehoff, Florinda Bolkan and Charlotte Rampling.  146 minutes.