Visconti & The Leopard

1895-1999
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Post by Big Magilla »

Itlaiano - here's the original N.Y. Times review. Although I liked the film more than Mr. Weiler did, you can see I am not the first to call it a soap opera.

Senso (1954)
July 9, 1968
A. H. WEILER.
Published: July 9, 1968

AS an aristocrat proud of his leftist politics, Italy's distinguished opera, stage and screen director, Luchino Visconti, has championed a variety of lost causes on film, including the belated "Senso" now at the Bleecker Street Cinema. Produced in 1954 as a multimillion dollar period piece, it was shown dubbed in English and drastically cut on television as "The Wanton Countess," and the uncut version had a brief, unheralded run last month at the Elgin Theater here.

Mr. Visconti"s good intentions notwithstanding, there really is no deep mystery about "Senso." As a novel-like depiction of an ill-fated illicit romance intertwined with a momentous chapter in Italy's fight for freedom from the Austrians, it is an obvious, rudimentary operatic approach to amour and an illustration of history that is likely to be fuzzy to anyone but a student of Garibaldi's 1866 campaign in and around Venice and Verona.

One must assume that Mr. Visconti, who collaborated on the script, is indicating the moral decay of the aristocracy through his views of the affair between the beauteous Countess Serpieri and her designing, Austrian officer-lover. Set against luxurious sets and actual palazzos that underline the breathtaking beauty of the countryside, their clandestine meetings and incessant protest of passion and fear for the future are repetitious and flamboyant. It is closer to soap opera than Mr. Visconti imagined.

It is to be expected that the Countess, unloved by her collaborator-husband but sympathetic to the cause of freedom espoused by her aristocratic patriot cousin, will, nevertheless, even give her lover money for the cause entrusted to her. But as expected, the lady can stand just so much two-timing before her heart breaks and she turns him in as a deserter to be shot. All things considered, it appeared perfectly logical, to one viewer, at least, that she seemingly goes mad at the end.

Alida Valli not only is aristocratic and beautiful but also should be credited with carrying an overly heavy romantic role fairly effectively. As the scheming apple of her eye, Farley Granger is merely a handsome, operetta-type of leading man despite a strong climactic confessional scene. And Massico Girotti, as the noble patriotic leader, and Heinz Moog as the Count, are among the principals who simply seem to make many entrances and exits to expound on liberation and its meaning.

To the credit of the late R. G. Aldo and Robert Krasker, the color photography of soldiers advancing in vivid uniforms to the sound of trumpets, firing from behind haystacks or in bloody retreat from the cannonading of the victorious Austrians at the Battle of Custoza enhance the film's historic aspects. But "Senso" means "sentiment" and Mr. Visconti's operatic lovers, who dominate it, date "Senso" more than its history does.
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Post by Big Magilla »

Precious Doll wrote:What was the picture quality of the DVD like Magilla?

I have read an on-line review that stated that the visual quality as being quite poor, however another review didn't mention the visual quality. I had it on my list to buy but scratched it off hoping a better version will emerge in the future.

I saw the film years ago on television and loved it.

It looked fine to me, though the DVD itself is bare bones.

I don't know what version played on Australian TV - the American TV version is callled The Wanton Countess and runs 15 minutes shorter than the complete version.

This film has had a troubled history in the U.S. It was not released here theatrically until 1968. The N.Y. Times gave it a scathing review.




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Post by ITALIANO »

Big Magilla wrote:the love story set to a backdrop of 19th Century Austrian-Italian conflicts is pure soap opera

It can be considered soap opera only if one considers the great Romantic novels of the XIX century as soap opera. It is definitely the purest, most correct example of Romanticism (and I mean it both in its philosophical and in its artistic meaning) ever made in the cinema - and Visconti, one of the best educated, most sophisticated men of his time, was extremely careful about what he was doing, and extremely serious about it. The movie is actually an improvement over Boito's novel it is based on - which belonged to Romanticism, but it was Italian Romanticism, and Italians, with a few exceptions (like Manzoni's The Betrothed), were never as great at that as, say, the Germans or the English. But in Visconti's expert hands the material gets all the complexities and the depth of a major work of art - watching the movie is really a full immersion into a historical and artistic era. Soap opera it definitely isn't - and honestly even if one watches it as just a love story, forgetting all the rest, I think it's treated in a very controlled, very sober way.

But yes, Valli is great.

Those who are interested in Visconti's works could also try to see a less famous movie - one of his last - called Conversation Piece. It's probably not a masterpiece, though it has its fans, but it contains some great moments, and it also marks Visconti's second professional experience with Burt Lancaster. The Leopard it isn't - by then Visconti was an old man, and probably too much in love with Lancaster's co-star, moody Austrian actor Helmut Berger. It is also - unlike most of Visconti's best films (Bellissima is another exception) - based on an original idea rather than a novel. Still, it's an often fascinating movie, intensely, almost nakedly autobiographical, but - this being Visconti - with a strong sense of history (only this time it's set in the same decade it was shot) and without any self-indulgement. Lancaster is Visconti's version of himself here (as he was in some ways in The Leopard, too) - an old, retired, professor being confronted with the contemporary world, and his own homosexuality, when he befriends his new, noisy neighbours - and his life changes dramatically for it.
Lancaster's relationship with Visconti is especially interesting - Visconti most of the times loved to work with gay - or let's say "bisexual", though I hate this word - actors. Even when he chose American actors (and he loved American cinema, he was a fan of musicals and romantic comedies), it was men like Farley Granger or - though in the end they didn't make a movie together - Tab Hunter. Burt Lancaster was obviously completely different, and the two seemed to have nothing in common. Yet, he became - probably with Dirk Bogarde -Visconti's favorite actor, a close friend and, in this almost final movie, he was chosen by the director for this sad, uncompromising self-portrayal.
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Post by Precious Doll »

What was the picture quality of the DVD like Magilla?

I have read an on-line review that stated that the visual quality as being quite poor, however another review didn't mention the visual quality. I had it on my list to buy but scratched it off hoping a better version will emerge in the future.

I saw the film years ago on television and loved it.
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Post by Big Magilla »

I've finally seen Senso on a region 2 DVD import from the U.K.

The film is sumptuously photographed, much of it on location in Venice, beautifully scored and costumed, but the love story set to a backdrop of 19th Century Austrian-Italian conflicts is pure soap opera, not the grand opera a film directed by Visconti, assisted by Zeffirelli, with dialogue by Tennessee Williams one might expect. Valli, though, is magnificent especially in her final scene.

Next up: Bellissima.
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Post by ITALIANO »

Well... I guess. You know Italians - SO unreliable...
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ITALIANO wrote:
Sonic Youth wrote:You know how much I liked the movie? I purchased the novel on Amazon this weekend, that's how much.

And this is enough, Sonic Youth, to make me forgive you for all the fights we had in the past :)
For the time being, right?
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Okri wrote:Which translation?

Er, I didn't even take that into consideration. I just picked an inexpensive paperback.

And trust me, I'm all for quality translations. I have Richard Lattimore's Illiad and Odyssey translations at home. But how many translations of The Leopard could there be? Anyway, I looked it up, and it's Archibald Colquhoun. If it's no good, sorry. It was an impulse purchase.
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Post by ITALIANO »

Sonic Youth wrote:You know how much I liked the movie? I purchased the novel on Amazon this weekend, that's how much.
And this is enough, Sonic Youth, to make me forgive you for all the fights we had in the past :)
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Post by Okri »

Which translation?
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You know how much I liked the movie? I purchased the novel on Amazon this weekend, that's how much.
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Post by ITALIANO »

I'm glad to see that Americans can appreciate this true masterpiece - one of the great epic movies of Italian cinema, and one of the few film versions of great novels to be almost as good as its source (some say even better). As for Burt Lancaster, this is probably his best performance ever (with the possible exception of Atlantic City), or at least it is considered to be such by Italians. Even more - because of The Leopard, Burt Lancaster is oddly considered to be "one of us", a familiar face, as Italian as the most Italian actors like Mastroianni or Gassman. We collectively fell in love with him. He was lucky, in a way - he was given one of the best Italian characters in our literature, and by a director like Visconti who could do wonders with actors (years before he had even got a surprisingly good performance from Farley Granger in Senso).
Yet he pulled it off - don't ask me how a former circus acrobat from America could be so convincing as a XIX century Sicilian prince - it has to do with the magic of movies, and of course with the undeniable talent of an extremely intelligent performer being given what he realized was such an important chance (Sicilian actor Corrado Gaipa, who provided the voice, definitely helped - dubbing can be a major asset in a movie, as we Italians know well).
Now, I have to say that even when Lancaster was announced for the part, nobody in Italy complained - we were used to foreign actors or actresses playing meaty roles in our best movies, and unlike what would have happened elsewhere, we accepted it - national pride applies here to soccer, not to films. Still, it was a big risk, for Visconti especially. But the result was a personal triumph - both for Visconti and for Lancaster. I guess no Italian actor of the time would have been as perfect in the role - and, a bit like Vivien Leigh as Scarlett, when you read the novel now you can't imagine any other face playing Don Fabrizio Salina with the same combination of dignity, sadness, intelligence and pride.
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Post by Big Magilla »

For comparison sake. After all, the American release version is the one most of us first saw, at least those of us who were alive and old enough to go to the movies in 1963. :p
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Big Magilla wrote:Sonic, you can hear Lancaster speak in his own voice on the 161 American release version of the film on Disc 3 of the Criteiron collection.

I know. But why would anyone want to do such a thing? :p

I've only seen Death in Venice, and this I didn't like nearly as much. If this movie is great, it's solely because of Mahler.
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Post by Big Magilla »

Sonic, you can hear Lancaster speak in his own voice on the 161 American release version of the film on Disc 3 of the Criteiron collection.

Visconti was a painterly director, a visual master, all his films are breathtaking though perhaps none more so than this one. His Ossessione (the first film version of The Postman Always Rings Twice), Rocco and His Brothers, The Damned and Death in Venice are also available on region 1 DVDs and Bellisima and Senso are available on region 2 DVDs.
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