The Magic Mountain

I saw the long version of five hours plus on two DVD's, and was impressed by the acting, the sets, Geissendorfer's conscientious direction and Michael Ballhaus's elegant camera-work (the snow scenes especially). It was hard to write a script that would bring out all the elements of Mann's novel, but I think they succeeded for the most part. The torpor of life in a TB sanatorium was well captured--Castorp is never quite sure just how long he has spent at the facility--and the genial brutality and occasional incompetence of the staff too.

The actors impressed me, with one exception. Christian Eichhorn was young and ardent as Castorp, Flavio Bucci extravagant and impassioned as Settembrini (just as I imagined him from the novel), and Rod Steiger tore a couple of scenes to tatters in an enjoyable way in the third and final episode. Marie-France Pisier is hardly a "listless, worm-eaten Kirghiz-eyed" woman as Mann describes her, but is always striking and lovely to look at. Only Charles Aznavour, badly miscast as Naphta, fails to impress the viewer. What were they thinking of, casting the hapless hero of Truffaut's Shoot the Pianist as a callous totalitarian philosopher?