Visconti
From June 21 to July 26, the Gene Siskel Film Center, in partnership with Cinecittà Holding and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Chicago, presents Visconti, a ten-film series devoted to the great Italian director who combined visual splendor with vivid characterizations and a tragic sense of social-historical change.
Visconti (1906-1976) was born into one of the wealthiest and most prestigious aristocratic families in Italy. In Paris in the 1930s, he entered filmmaking as an assistant to Jean Renoir and became a lifelong Marxist--without, however, sacrificing his luxurious aristocratic lifestyle and seigniorial manner. Visconti aided the Resistance during the war and was imprisoned by the Fascist government. His first films, OSSESSIONE (1942) and LA TERRA TREMA (1948), are considered foundational works of the Italian neorealist movement.
Possibly influenced by his simultaneous careers as one of Italy’s leading theater and opera directors, Visconti confounded (and, at first, alienated) critics by moving in a markedly different direction: sumptuous, sensual, baroque, literary, melodramatic, operatic. The lavish costume drama SENSO (1954) marked a turning point in his career, although elements of his later style can be retroactively recognized in his early neorealist work.
ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (1960), a hybrid of his early and late styles, was a major international hit. The culmination of his mature style came in THE LEOPARD (1963), initially unsuccessful in the U.S., though immediately lauded in Europe and now widely recognized as Visconti’s masterpiece. THE DAMNED (1969) and DEATH IN VENICE (1971) solidified his status as one of the superstars of the auteur-dominated art-cinema movement. Rarely seen today, Visconti’s final films, LUDWIG (1972), CONVERSATION PIECE (1974), and THE INNOCENT (1976) brought his style to an uncompromising extreme that continues to divide critics. Weakened by strokes, Visconti died while editing his final film, THE INNOCENT.
Visconti’s sweeping, operatic style and fanatical attention to detail make his films 35mm musts. None of his films are currently available in the U.S., with the exceptions of THE LEOPARD and SANDRA (and those only in archival prints). Because of rights problems, OSSESSIONE, LA TERRA TREMA, WHITE NIGHTS, and THE STRANGER are regrettably not available at this time. The rest of the films are being imported from Europe in prints supplied by Cinecittà Holding. We encourage you to take advantage of this rare opportunity to see Visconti’s grandly stylized films on the big screen.
BELLISSIMA, SENSO, THE LEOPARD, LUDWIG, CONVERSATION PIECE, and THE INNOCENT will all be screened when Visconti continues in July. Please check our website and our July Gazette for dates and show times.
“Visconti” was organized by Cinecittà Holding and is sponsored by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Chicago, and Smeraldina Natural Artesian Water. Special thanks to Tina Cervone and Patrizia Gambarotta, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Chicago; Federica Terzulli, Cinecittà Holding; James Quandt, Cinematheque Ontario; Jim Sinclair, Pacific Cinematheque; Schawn Belston, Caitlin Robertson, 20th Century Fox; Jared Sapolin, Sony Repertory; Marilee Womack, Warner Brothers Classics; Valentina Mandozzi, Minerva Pictures; Barbara Varani, Compass Film; Philippe Chevassu, Tamasa Distribution.
DEATH IN VENICE
(MORTE E VENEZIA)
1971, Luchino Visconti, Italy, 130 min.
With Dirk Bogarde, Björn Andresen
In this richly atmospheric adaptation of Thomas Mann’s celebrated 1912 novella, a German composer (Bogarde) visiting Venice becomes obsessed with the idealized beauty of an androgynous boy, causing him to linger in the city as a deadly cholera epidemic spreads. In English. 35mm widescreen. (MR)
Saturday, June 21, 7:30 pm
Thursday, June 26, 6:00 pm
ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS
(ROCCO E I SUOI FRATELLI)
1961, Luchino Visconti, Italy, 180 min.
With Alain Delon, Annie Girardot
This vivid and violent family saga traces the five brothers of a peasant clan from their beginnings in grinding rural poverty to the flowering of their rivalries and ambitions in working-class Milan. Through the changing fortunes of one family, Visconti charts the societal changes that swept a generation from the fields of their ancestors to the cold concrete of the modern city. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Sunday, June 22, 2:30 pm
Tuesday, June 24, 6:30 pm
THE DAMNED
(LA CADUTA DEGLI DEI)
1969, Luchino Visconti, Italy, 156 min.
With Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin
Visconti pulls out the stops with Wagnerian gusto in this lurid saga (originally X-rated in the U.S.) of a Krupp-like German industrial family that throws its support to the Nazis in the 1930s. Their devil’s bargain yields spectacularly dire results, as the family descends into depravity and murder, and Germany itself is consumed in a storm of fire and blood. In English. 35mm. (MR)
Saturday, June 28, 7:30 pm
Tuesday, July 1, 6:30 pm
SANDRA
(VAGHE SELLE DELL’ORSA)
1965, Luchino Visconti, Italy, 105 min.
With Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel.
Rarely screened, SANDRA is the link between THE LEOPARD and THE DAMNED in an unofficial trilogy dealing with families in decline. Newly married to an American, a young woman (Cardinale) returns to her family’s mansion in Tuscany and finds it haunted with secrets from the past, including incest and collaboration with the Nazis. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm archival print courtesy of Sony Pictures Repertory. (MR)
Sunday, June 29, 3:00 pm
Wednesday, July 2, 8:00 pm
SENSO
1954, Luchino Visconti, Italy, 119 min.
With Alida Valli, Farley Granger
“Aptly titled--a lush, melodramatic portrait of seduction and betrayal, decadence and deceit...revealing Luchino Visconti at his most baroque and the Italian cinema at its most spectacular.”--Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
A key film in the director’s career and in the history of Italian cinema, SENSO’s lavish Technicolor style and theme of aristocratic decline set the stage for THE LEOPARD and other late Visconti works. Fassbinder and Scorsese were both greatly influenced by this operatic tale, set in 1866 Venice, of a beautiful Italian countess’s destructive passion for an arrogant officer in the occupying Austrian army. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)
Sunday, July 6, 3:00 pm
Thursday, July 10, 6:00 pm
THE LEOPARD
(IL GATTOPARDO)
1963, Luchino Visconti, Italy, 185 min.
With Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale
“Magnificent...a great film of a great book.”--Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Visconti’s widescreen masterpiece is one of the cinema’s richest visual experiences. Based on the novel (whose 50th anniversary is marked this year) by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, it tells of an aging but still vigorous Sicilian prince (Lancaster, who modeled his performance on the princely Visconti) whose sympathies for Garibaldi’s revolution conflict with the interests of his own declining class. The climactic grand ball is an overwhelming tour de force of densely orchestrated detail. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm archival print courtesy of 20th Century Fox. (MR)
Saturday, July 12, 3:30 pm
Thursday, July 17, 6:30 pm
CONVERSATION PIECE
(GRUPPO DI FAMIGLIA IN UN INTERNO)
1974, Luchino Visconti, Italy, 121 min.
With Burt Lancaster, Helmut Berger
“Very likable...Visconti is in a jovial mood.”--Pauline Kael.
Visconti’s next-to-last film is one of his most genial, personal, and (in the U.S., at least) underappreciated works. The director is reunited with Burt Lancaster, and the story recalls both THE LEOPARD and DEATH IN VENICE, but here the result is autumnal comedy rather than twilight tragedy. Lancaster plays an aging history professor out of step with modern times, until a family of raucous neighbors disrupts his solitude and a petulant young radical (Berger of THE DAMNED) awakens his dormant desires. In English and Italian with English subtitles. 35mm widescreen. (MR)
Tuesday, July 15, 6:00 pm
THE INNOCENT
(L’INNOCENTE)
1976, Luchino Visconti, Italy, 125 min.
With Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli
“Among the most beautiful and severely disciplined films Visconti has ever made.”--Vincent Canby, The New York Times.
Visconti’s final film, released after his death, is a fitting conclusion to his career, recapitulating many of his major themes while retaining his full artistic powers. Operatic, elegant, and erotic, THE INNOCENT is based on an 1892 novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio about a hypocritical aristocrat (Giannini) who thoughtlessly cheats on his beautiful young wife until he discovers that she is having an affair with another man. Antonelli, European cinema’s hottest sex symbol at the time, delivers a performance of haunting sensuality and sadness. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm widescreen. (MR)
Saturday, July 19, 7:45 pm
Thursday, July 24, 6:00 pm
LUDWIG
1972, Luchino Visconti, Italy, 235 min.
With Helmut Berger, Romy Schneider
“A revelation, an unqualified masterpiece that ranks with the director’s greatest work.”--Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times.
No Visconti film has more sharply divided critics than this staggeringly sumptuous biography of the mad Bavarian king, many of whose tastes (opera, lavish decor, male beauty) reflect Visconti’s own. Most of the negative judgments were based on the dubbed and severely truncated version released by MGM; this screening represents a rare opportunity to see the film in its full-length big-screen glory. Major episodes include Ludwig’s patronage of opportunistic Richard Wagner (superbly played by Trevor Howard) and his platonic love affair with Empress Elizabeth of Austria (Schneider). In Italian, German and French with English subtitles. 35mm widescreen. (MR)
Special pricing: $16 General Admission; $12 Students; $9 Members. There will be a 15-minute intermission. Because of the extraordinary cost of this presentation, no free passes or blue tickets will be accepted.