Luchino Visconti

Luchino Visconti , duke of Modrone (November 2nd 1906, Milan - March 17th 1976, Rome), going down from the noble family of the Visconti, is a realizer of Cinéma Italy N. He was also director of Théâtre, Director and writer.

Biography

Family

Wire of Giuseppe Visconti (November 10th 1879, Milan - December 16th 1941, Milan) and of Carla Erba (owner of the famous company pharmaceutical, deceased with Cortina d' Ampezzo, Belluno, the January 17th 1939). The Visconti family was already famous, pertaining to the great Milanese aristocracy. Luchino was the fourth of seven children:

Guido, the elder one (death with the battle of El Alamein in 1941; it had a love affair with the actress Elsa De Giorgi),
Anna (bride thereafter with a prince Caracciolo),
Luigi (which married the actress Laura Adani),
Luchino ,
Edoardo (father of the future realizer Eriprando),
Ida Pace (known as `Nane'),
Uberta (April 6th 1918, Milan - July 30th 2003, Rome) married the April 30th 1940 with the realizer Renzo Avanzo and, in second weddings, with type-setter and leader Free Mannino, frequent collaborator of Luchino.

Youth

Impassioned horses, Luchino Visconti took care, during its youth, of a stable of its property (it will achieve its military service as warrant officer of cavalry to Pinerolo). He actively attended moreover the world of the opera and the melodrama, which influenced it much. The Visconti family had her appointed platform with La Scala (Giuseppe, the father, was one of the most important patrons of the theater), and the living room of her mother was attended, inter alia, by Arturo Toscanini; it is at that time that Luchino Visconti became acquainted with Giacomo Puccini and Gabriele D' Annunzio.

Beginning of career

Its cinematographic career began in 1936, in France, where he worked at the sides of Jean Renoir (met thanks to Coco Chanel) as assistant, with the realization and the choice of the costumes of two of his works, the Hollows and Outing in the country . The preoccupation with a realism of the large French scenario writer marked it deeply. Always in France, it met Italian, militant refugees of left, with the contact of which its political convictions changed radically. After a short stay in Hollywood, it returned to Italy in 1939 because of the death of his mother. With Renoir it started to work with a film adaptation of the Tosca, but, following the bursting of the war, the French realizer was constrained to give up turning - it was replaced by the German Karl Koch.

The meeting with certain intellectual and critical young people, collaborators with the review Cinema (founded, irony of fate, by a son of Benito Mussolini, Vittorio), made germinate in its spirit the concept of a cinema which would tell in a realistic way the life and the daily dramas of the people, concept in rupture with the insipidnesses clinquantes and edulcorated comedies of the cinema dei telefoni bianchi (literally “cinema of the white telephones”). At that time it met Roberto Rossellini and, probably, Federico Fellini. Visconti projected to carry out the adaptation of the Grand Meaulnes of Alain-Baker and that of the Malavoglia of Verga, but these projects fell through.

Ossessione

On the basis of this idea, it signed in 1942, with Giuseppe De Santis, Gianni Puccini, Antonio Pietrangeli, Mario Serandrei and Rosario Assunto, its first film, one of major works of the neo-realism: Ossessione ( diabolic Lovers ), inspired of the famous novel The Postman always boxing rings twice ( the factor sounds always twice) James Cain, with, as main actors, sulfurous the Clara Calamai (it replaced at the last time Anna Magnani, initially intended to interpret the turbid role of Giovanna) and Massimo Girotti in the role of the Gino mechanic.

A second project, an adaptation of Amante di Gramigna of Giovanni Verga, could not be concluded, the war intensifying. Captured and imprisoned, Visconti escaped the firing squad thanks to the intervention from the actress Maria Denis (who tells this experiment in her autobiography It Gioco beyond verità ( Play of the truth ). At the end of the conflict, Visconti took part in the sides of Mario Serandrei to the realization of documentary the Giorni di gloria ( Days of glory), devoted to Resistance and the Release.

In parallel, it assembled theatrical creations (the company formed with Paolo Stoppa and Rina Morelli remained legendary, Vittorio Gassman joined there), as well as lyric settings in scene, its dream of a life. It directed Maria Callas, in 1955, in Sonnambula ( Somnanbule ) of Vincenzo Bellini, and Traviata of Giuseppe Verdi.

Terra dieresis

In 1948, it turned over behind the camera to carry out Terra dieresis ( the Earth trembles ), a polemical film denouncing the social conditions of the most underprivileged classes openly. It was an adaptation of the novel I Malavoglia of Giovanni Verga, of quasi documentary invoice, with the splendid images, but of difficult comprehension made because of use of purest the sicilian dialect (precisely that of the fishermen of Aci Trezza, close to Catane). The film accepted the favors of the public neither at its exit, nor two years later, in 1950, when one second version doubled in Italian left.

Let us note that, in all the history of the peninsular cinema, only four films were entirely turned in dialect and were subtitled in Italian: Terra dieresis was the first; the others, Albero degli zoccoli (1978) of Ermanno Olmi, in dialect bergamask, Giro di the moon will tra will terra E pond (1997) of Giuseppe Gaudino, in Dialecte campanien with quotations Latin be, and finally, LaCapaGira (2001) of Alessandro Piva, in Dialecte apulien.

Bellissima

More captivating for the public was its third work, Bellissima (1951), written by Cesare Zavattini, an analysis without concession of the slides of the world foil of the cinema, with one of the actresses symbols of the Italian neo-realism, Anna Magnani, at the sides of Walter Chiari; also took part in it the realizer Alessandro Blasetti, person in charge of castings, and the presenter Corrado, in its own role.

Visconti carried out the following year the episode Anna Magnani of the film Siamo gives , drawn from another idea from bubbling Zavattini, that to show episodes of the private life of four actresses famous (in addition to Magnani, one finds Alida Valli, Ingrid Bergman and Isa Miranda), followed castings of a contest of search for new female faces to launching to the cinema.

Senso

In 1954, it carried out its first color film, Senso (freely drawn from an account of Camillo Boito), which signed a turning in its career, and which many criticisms interpreted like a treason of the Néo-réalisme. Large read again historical fresco in a critical in the context of the analysis of a private drama, extremely required way in the care of the details of the decoration and the setting in scene (care for which Visconti was recognized unanimously like a Master; only Free Zeffirelli, its lover and raises declared, followed it in this way), Senso inaugurated a series of complex and attractive, impregnated films violence and tensions, always discussed by the public and the critic; the human, moral decline and physics became there a leitmotiv which it declined until the end of its career.

Into Senso , at the time of Italy of Risorgimento facing Austria which always occupies Venezia, and of the Défaite of Custoza, noble Vénitienne (Alida Valli), fall passionately in love with an officer with the Austrian army (Farley Granger), which does not think, him, which by means of escaping from the army thanks to the money that its noble mistress could get to him, that it to him will get by giving him the “war treasure” of the Italian patriots; being discovered ridiculed, she will denounce her lover deserter and will make it condemn to the firing squad, before losing the reason. The film of Visconti was the object of important polemics to the Mostra of Venice, and at the time of a tumultuous evening of attribution of the prices, he was completely ignored by the critic, which preferred to allot the Lion of Gold to Renato Castellani with Giulietta E Romeo .

Vaghe stele dell' Orsa

Sandra

Damnés - Caduta degli dei

Ludwig

Ludwig, the twilight of the gods

Gruppo di famiglia in a interno

Violence and passion

Innocent the

Notti bianche

In 1957, Luchino Visconti gained the Money Lion thanks to Notti bianche ( Sleepless nights ), tender and delicate history of love inspired by the novel of Dostoïevski, superbly interpreted by Marcello Mastroianni, Maria Schell and Jean Marais (with the special participation of Clara Calamai), film learnedly photographed in black and white in an atmosphere of lead and fog, in a port inspired by that of Leghorn, completely reconstituted with Cinecittà.

Rocco E I suoi fratelli

In 1960 it accepted the Special price of the jury of the Mostra for Rocco E I suoi fratelli (Rocco and his/her brothers) , odyssey of a southernmost family emigrated in Milan to seek there work, film treated on the mode of the Greek Tragédie, but inspired of the Frères Karamazov of Dostoïevski. The film made scandal because of certain extremely raw and violent scenes for the time, so much so that the censure advised with the projectionists to put their hand on the objective during the accused scenes. The scenario is of Vasco Pratolini, Suso Cecchi D' Amico, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Massimo Franciosa, Enrico Medioli and Luchino Visconti.

The following year, in 1961, it carried out the episode It lavoro ( Work ) of the film Boccace 70 in which also took part Vittorio de Sica, Federico Fellini and Mario Monicelli. Visconti attacked directly the commission of censure which had abused its preceding film.

It Gattopardo ( the Cheetah )

In 1962 it put finally critics agreement and public with its greater success, It Gattopardo (the Cheetah) , drawn from the homonymous novel of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and accepted the Palme of Gold to the Cannes festival. The scenario was of Suso Cecchi D' Amico, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Massimo Franciosa, Enrico Medioli and Luchino Visconti. Interpreted by a dazzling casting (Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon…), located at the time of the unloading of the partisans of Garibaldi in Sicily, the film reports the vicissitudes of prince Fabrizio Corbera di Salina (Burt Lancaster), constrained land great landowner to accept the union between the declining aristocracy and the new middle-class, union reaching its paroxysm in the very famous final scene of the ball, which occupies last half an hour of film, scene considered unanimously as the point of organ of art viscontien. Alberto Moravia exclaimed after having seen film: “It is the film of purest Visconti, more balanced and most exact”.

The film was distributed to the USA and in England by the Twentieth Century Fox, but by carrying out important cuts.

Transitional period

In 1965 left the film Vaghe stele dell' Orsa ( Sandra ), history of a inceste to the title inspired by Giacomo Leopardi, still interpreted by Claudia Cardinale, followed Strega bruciata viva , an episode of the collective Streghe (1966), followed that which was probably its most debatable film and less succeeded, Lo Straniero (the Foreigner) (1967), inspired by the homonymous book of Albert Camus, in which it directed again Marcello Mastroianni.

The Tetralogy

At the end of the Sixties, Visconti worked out the project of a German tetralogy taking as a starting point the mythological , declining sets of themes , of Wagner and Thomas Mann. On the four titles envisaged, it carried out only three of them.

the first was Caduta degli Dei ( Damnés ) (1969), history of the rise and the fall of the members of an owner family of the most important German steel-works during the rise of the Nazisme. This film marked the first appearance with the screen of Helmut Berger, egery and last lover of Visconti.

the second was Morte has Venezia ( Mort in Venice ) (1971), drawn from new the homonym of Thomas Mann, sublime fresco exploring the topic of the ineluctability of old age and dead associated with the search of the ideal and inaccessible beauty.

the third and last shutter was Ludwig ( Ludwig, the twilight of the gods ), where Helmut Berger interpreted the role of young king de Bavière, one of the longest films of the history of the cinema (one duration of almost five hours in its original version, more precisely, according to a version left to France in 1987, at Movies-Collection, in two cassettes vidéos-VHS Secam, of 4:00 and 42 minutes exactly; all the other versions are incomplete and lie knowingly when they are claimed integral ); the film tells the history of last king de Bavière, Louis II, the slow forfeiture of the young idealistic monarch, visionary, who preferred the daydream, art, the beauty, the friendship and the love with the loads of the capacity, that many those that he liked betrayed, that its people also betray, and which end up being interned; it drowned, like its doctor, in the Lake Starnberg, mysterious circumstances.

the Tetralogy should have finished with a new film adaptation of a work of Thomas Mann, Montagna incantata ( the magic Mountain ). Unfortunately, during the turning of Ludwig , it was reached of a AVC which left it with half paralyzed.

The will

In spite of its painful physical condition, he managed to make his the last two films, where the topics of the forfeiture and loneliness become more and more prégnants. It is about Gruppo di famiglia in a interno ( Violence and passion ), at the same time inspired by Mario Praz and openly autobiographical, once again interpreted by Burt Lancaster and Helmut Berger. This film is followed twilight Innocent the ( Innocent the ), freely inspired of the novel of Gabriele d' Annunzio, Innocent the , title of the Italian original version (1892), ( the Intruder , in its French translation), interpreted by Giancarlo Giannini and Laura Antonelli.

Luchino Visconti died spring 1976, touched by a serious form of thrombosis, little time after having viewed with its collaborator close relations film in a first assembly, with which it was not satisfied. The film was presented to the public in this version, settings besides some adjustments made by its collaborator to the setting in scene, Suso Cecchi d' Amico, which was based on the indications left by the realizer during a discussion of work. Rina Morelli, actress that Visconti estimated much and with which it had shared the great theater seasons of the immediate post-war period, died shortly after him.

A museum is devoted to him to Ischia

Catalog of films

Realizer, scenario writer and director

14 feature-length films

1943 : Ossessione ( diabolic Lovers ) according to the novel of James Cain the factor sounds always twice
1950: Terra dieresis ( the ground trembles ) according to the novel of Giovanni Verga Malavoglia

1951: Bellissima

1954 : Senso

1957 : the notti bianche ( Sleepless nights ) according to the Romance homonym of Dostoïevski

1960: Rocco E I suoi fratelli ( Rocco and his/her brothers )

1963: It Gattopardo ( the Cheetah ) according to the homonymous novel of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

1965: Vaghe stele dell' Orsa ( Sandra )

1967: Lo straniero ( the Foreigner ), according to the Romance homonym of Albert Camus

1969: Caduta degli Dei ( Damnés )

1971: Morte has Venezia , according to the new homonym of Thomas Mann

1972: Ludwig ( Ludwig, the twilight of the gods )

1974: Gruppo di famiglia in a interno ( Violence and passion ; titrate English: Conversation Part )

1976: Innocent the E , according to the Romance homonym Innocent the E , the Intruder in French, of Gabriele D' Annunzio

2 short films

1961 : It Lavoro ( Work ), sketch of Boccaccio 70
1966: Strega bruciata viva ( the Witch burned alive ), episode of the film Streghe ( the Witches )

Documentary

1945 : Giorni di Gloria ( Days of glory)

See too

Devoted catalog of films

Luchino Visconti , documentary film of Carlo Lizzani realized in 1999.

External bonds

Luchino Visconti on CinEmotions
luchinovisconti.net
Site dedicated
June 15th, 1942 /Début of the turning of '' Ossessione '' by Luchino Visconti
'' Vidéo: '' Luchino Visconti in 1963, it is expressed little before the gold Palm of Cannes for its film the Cheetah , a file of the French-speaking Switzerland Télévision

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