Luchino Visconti Movies

An introverted American professor (Burt Lancaster) has retired to an Italian house, but finds his life interrupted when a decadent family moves upstairs. ~ John Bush, Rovi

Based on a novel by Thomas Mann, Death in Venice stars Dirk Bogarde as a German composer who is terrified that he has lost all vestiges of humanity. While visiting Venice, Bogarde falls in love with a beautiful young boy (Bjorn Andresen). The relationship is ruined by Bogarde's obsession with the boy's youth and physical perfection; the composer realizes that the child represents an ideal that he can never match. The character played by Dirk Bogarde is evidently intended to be Gustav Mahler, whose haunting music is featured on the film's soundtrack. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Stranger is a literal (but still very cinematic) adaptation of the novel by Albert Camus. Marcello Mastrioanni stars as Meursault, a man who feels utterly isolated from everyone and everything around him. This alienation results in sudden, inexplicable bursts of violence, culminating in murder. The subsequent trial of Meursault manages to convey the oppressive heat of its Algerian setting with director Luchino Visconti's usual veneer of elegant decadence. Though set in the 1930s, the sensibilities of the film were very much attuned to the 1960s: the problem was that Camus' sentiments had been adopted by so many other filmmakers of the period that The Stranger seemed rather commonplace. The film was originally released in Italy as Lo Staniero. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This Dino De Laurentiis production from 1965 is actually an anthology of five different directors' work, each telling their own stories about witches. The five stories are "The Witch Burned Alive," "Civic Sense," "The Earth As Seen From The Moon," "The Girl From Sicily," and "A Night Like Any Other." Silvia Mangano appears in all five, with Clint Eastwood starring in the last featured vignette. Like many gang-directed projects, this film is also plagued by a lack of continuity and by the pretentiousness of the individual directors. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Arguably Luchino Visconti's best film and certainly the most personal of his historical epics, The Leopard chronicles the fortunes of Prince Fabrizio Salina and his family during the unification of Italy in the 1860s. Based on the acclaimed novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, published posthumously in 1958 and subsequently translated into all European languages, the picture opens as Salina (Burt Lancaster) learns that Garibaldi's troops have embarked in Sicily. While the Prince sees the event as an obvious threat to his current social status, his opportunistic nephew Tancredi (Alain Delon) becomes an officer in Garibaldi's army and returns home a war hero. Tancredi starts courting the beautiful Angelica (Claudia Cardinale), a daughter of the town's newly appointed Mayor, Don Calogero Sedara (Paolo Stoppa). Though the Prince despises Don Calogero as an upstart who made a fortune on land speculation during the recent social upheaval, he reluctantly agrees to his nephew's marriage, understanding how much this alliance would mean for the impecunious Tancredi. Painfully realizing the aristocracy's obsolescence in the wake of the new class of bourgeoisie, the Prince later declines an offer from a governmental emissary to become a senator in the new Parliament in Turin. The closing section, an almost hour-long ball, is often cited as one of the most spectacular sequences in film history. Burt Lancaster is magnificent in the first of his patriarchal roles, and the rest of the cast, especially Delon and Cardinale, become almost perfect incarnations of the novel's characters. Filmed in glorious Techniscope and rich in period detail, the film is a remarkable cinematic achievement in all departments. The version that won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival ran 205 minutes. Inexplicably, the picture was subsequently distributed by 20th Century Fox in a poorly dubbed, 165-min. English-language version, using inferior color process. The restored Italian-language version, supervised by cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, appeared in 1990, though the longest print still ran only 187 minutes. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

Luchino Visconti's operatic masterpiece tells the story of the Parondis, a poor family from a village in southern Italy who come to Milan seeking a better life. Following the death of her husband, proud Rosaria (Katina Paxinou) picks up stakes and moves to the city with four of her sons: Simone (Renato Salvatori), Rocco (Alain Delon), Ciro (Max Cartier), and Luca (Rocco Vidolazzi). Awaiting them in Milan is her oldest son, Vincenzo (Spiros Focas), who himself is preoccupied with his impending nuptials to the beautiful Ginetta (Claudia Cardinale). Divided into chapters focused loosely on each brother, the movie chronicles the Parondis' struggle to get by, as the brothers take odd jobs and the family endures life in a cramped tenement. Much of the movie's second half deals largely with Simone and Rocco. The loutish Simone eventually finds success as a boxer, and the family soon moves to a better neighborhood. Meanwhile, Rocco gets drafted by the military, and becomes a successful boxer himself upon his return. Complications arise when Nadia (Annie Girardot), a prostitute, enters their lives. Simone falls in love with Nadia first; however, Rocco eventually becomes the object of her affection. Simone's obsession with Nadia and his rapidly deteriorating behavior ultimately threaten to bring the family to ruin, even as the saintly Rocco tries to save his brother. At the peak of Rocco's success, Simone commits a crime that cruelly dashes Rocco's hopes of keeping the family together. ~ Elbert Ventura, Rovi

This Italian drama is a four episode anthology based on the stories of Pirandello. The episodes were compiled from two Italian episodic films from the mid 1950s. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This early Luchno Visconti drama stars Anna Magnani as an overbearing stage mother. Magnani's daughter (Tina Apicella) has zero talent, but Magnani raises such a ruckus at the studio after the girl's abortive screen test that the producers eventually find work for the girl. By this point, Magnani has renounced show business and, with daughter in tow, returns to her patient husband, who has been waiting for his wife to get her dreams of vicarious stardom out of her system. Based on a story by famed Italian scenarist (and frequent Fellini collaborator) Cesar Zavattini, Bellissima seems too trivial a story to be given the tender loving care provided by Visconti. Originally released at 130 minutes, the film was honed down to 90 minutes for American consumption. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This troubled film version of the Puccini opera was begun by Jean Renoir while lecturing in Italy at the invitation of dictator Benito Mussolini. After only a few scenes had been shot, Italy entered WW II and Renoir had to flee, leaving his assistant Carl Koch to complete the film. The familiar plot takes place in the Rome of 1800, where opera diva Floria Tosca (Imperio Argentina) falls in love with a painter, Cavaradossi (Rossano Brazzi). The artist had previously helped Tosca's brother, Angelotti (Massimo Girotti) -- a resistance leader -- escape from the evil police chief Scarpia (Michel Simon). Scarpia arrests Cavaradossi, leading Tosca to decide to surrender herself to him in exchange for her beloved's freedom. Simon is outstanding as the nasty police chief, and Ubaldo Arata's black-and-white cinematography is nice to look at, but the film in general is a rather flat treatment of a compelling story. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi