Published: 2025-12-15

Mephistophelian Seduction by Evil – Twilight of the Gods, 1969, Luchino Visconti

Iwola Kolasińska-Pasterczyk
Cultural Studies Appendix
Section: Artykuły
https://doi.org/10.21697/zk.2025.12.14

Abstract

Although Luchino Visconti’s main intention in making Götterdämmerung (1969) was not to analyze the phenomenon of Fascism, it can also be seen as a study of the birth of the diabolical ideology that brought about the destruction. In the present interpretation, the film is treated as a Faustian work akin to Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, showing the problem of the Faustian attitude (described in Oswald Spengler’s historiosophical concept) and reflecting the “soul of Germany.” The emphasis is placed on entanglement in Evil leading inevitably to destruction.

Keywords:

Visconti, evil, Faust, Mephistopheles, Goethe, Wagner, decadence

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Kolasińska-Pasterczyk, I. (2025). Mephistophelian Seduction by Evil – Twilight of the Gods, 1969, Luchino Visconti . Cultural Studies Appendix, (12), 243–269. https://doi.org/10.21697/zk.2025.12.14

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