The troubled ex-child actor—a wild industry kid grown into a maladjusted adult—has become a cheap joke. But it’s easy to forget the very real difficulties faced by those who had a public adolescence many of their peers would envy, but at the cost of normative childhood experiences, exacting a considerable toll on their sense of self. With their new documentary, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, directors Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri offer a candid glimpse into the life of one such individual.
The film depicts the day-to-day life of Björn Andrésen, a 66-year-old sometime actor and musician. At the age of 15, Andrésen was cast as Tadzio, the object of middle-aged composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde)’s ephebophilic attentions in Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. We learn that Andrésen lost his parents at a young age and was raised from the age of 10 or so by his grandmother, who was keen for him to become famous and was excited by the prospect of celebrity herself. At a casting call, young Andrésen was put forward, and Visconti was instantly enamored, ordering the boy to take off his shirt and dubbing him “the most beautiful boy in the world.”
Visconti saw in Andrésen the very qualities that he felt would beguile von Aschenbach—and was perhaps beguiled himself. The director was utterly domineering toward his young charge, forbidding his exclusively gay crew from talking to him. Visconti made cruel jibes about the boy’s supposedly wizened appearance at a press conference, and while he was promoting Venice he even took taking him to a gay club to be leered at and objectified by much older men.
Andrésen discusses the traumatizing effect this had on him and how he views his life as having been colored by tragedy and poor mental health ever since he was robbed of the ability to lead a happy and normal life. It’s evident that this experience has taken a huge and lasting toll on Andrésen’s personal relationships and general well-being. He has been unable to form healthy, lasting relationships with anyone, his past always engulfing his relations with his loved ones.
Indeed, the abiding feeling you take away from this documentary is, “As great a work of cinematic art as it is, why the hell was a story about a grown man lusting after a 14-year-old boy seen as a good idea for a film in 1971? And who would offer their own grandson for it?” It’s a mark of how perverse societal standards were in those days that, in an archive interview shot during the film’s production, Visconti reveals how studio executives merely objected to the fact that it was about a middle-aged man obsessed with a 14-year-old boy and wanted the object of his inappropriate lust to be a 14-year-old girl.
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World is well worth checking out as a glimpse into a life that has been (likely permanently) ruined by Svengali grandparenting and should, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, cause cineastes to reconsider their love for a work whose classic status is well-deserved but all too frequently unchallenged. It may not be a happy tale, but it’s certainly one that needs telling.
Photo courtesy of Juno Films
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