Visconti, Luchino

Death in Venice

Abroad on a rest holiday composer Gustav Aschenbach (Dick Bogarde) is to all the world reserved and civilized. But when he glimpses someone who inspires him to give way to a secret passion it foreshadows his doom. Director Luchino Visconti (Rocco and His Brothers The Damned) transforms Thomas Mann's classic novel into "a masterwork of power and beauty" (William Wolf Cue). Like Aschenbach Visconti is an artist obsessed: his movies are awash in mood period detail and seething emotions beneath placid surfaces. Earning its maker a Cannes Film Festival Special 25th Anniversary Prize Death in Venice - with a soundtrack feast of Gustav Mahler music and a haunting Bogarde performance-is Visconti at his best.Running Time: 130 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 085392888122

Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel is the very definition of sumptuous: the costumes and sets, the special geography of Venice, and the breathtaking cinematography combine to form a heady experience. At the center of this gorgeousness is Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde in a meticulous performance), a controlled intellectual who unexpectedly finds himself obsessed by the vision of a 14-year-old boy while on a convalescent vacation in 1911. Visconti has turned Aschenbach into a composer, which accounts for the lush excerpts from Mahler on the soundtrack (Bogarde is meant to look like Mahler, too). Even if it tends to hit the nail on the head a little too forcefully, and even if Visconti can test one's patience with lingering looks at crowds at the beach and hotel dining rooms, Death in Venice creates a lushness rare in movies. For some viewers, that will be enough. --Robert Horton

The Damned

This brooding, operatic movie about Nazism makes Cabaret look like wholesome family fare. The family in The Damned is a symbol of German society circa 1934. The Krupp-like steel magnate Baron von Essenbeck represents the spineless establishment. The Nazis kill the baron, then frame one heir apparent, a socialist (married to the stunning Charlotte Rampling). A bearish, boorish Essenbeck representing the SA, the Nazis' early goon squad, takes the reins. But Hitler murdered the SA in the 1934 "Night of the Long Knives," providing The Damned with its bravura action scene, a Nazi massacre at a gay SA orgy. The winning Essenbeck is the murderous, pedophilic, transvestite, mother-rapist Martin (sharp-featured Helmut Berger), who represents Nazism. Though he's better in director Luchino Visconti's 1971 Death in Venice, Dirk Bogarde is classy as Martin's stepdad. The Damned got an Oscar screenplay nomination, and Vincent Canby called Berger's Martin "the performance of the year." --Tim Appelo

A decadent German family of great wealth wallows in its own decay as its factories produce armaments for Hitler and his followers.

Boccaccio '70 (Remastered Edition)

A summit meeting of great Italian directors of the era, Boccaccio '70 is an antipasto platter of vintage sex symbols and naughty material. Cooked up and bankrolled by Carlo Ponti and American producer Joseph E. Levine, the four-part film was meant to tap the international smash of Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, which gave audiences some refreshingly, you know, "mature" subject matter. Four directors were hired to create segments ostensibly based on the tales of Boccaccio: Fellini himself (in the lull between La Dolce Vita and 8-1/2), Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica, and Mario Monicelli.

Monicelli's story, Renzo and Luciana, is an agreeable tale, full of everyday Roman life: an office worker (Marisa Solinas) must marry her boyfriend when she gets pregnant--although marriage is against company rules. Fellini's segment, The Temptation of Dr. Antonio, is fantastical and big-scaled. It tells of a censorious bluenose (Peppino de Filippo) who becomes incensed at the presence of a billboard featuring a sexy portrait of Anita Ekberg (selling milk)--a portrait that comes to life. For this bizarre escapade, Nino Rota composed an advertising jingle that will stick in your mind whether you want it to or not.

Visconti's The Job is the best segment, tracking the emotional chess game between a playboy (Thomas Milian) and his wife (Romy Schneider at her most gorgeous) after he is publicly exposed in a sex scandal. Finally, the De Sica piece (The Raffle) is a fairly broad romp that uses Sophia Loren as the reward in a raffle. Sophia's delicious, needless to say.

The finished product weighed in at a whopping 208 minutes, and Monicelli's segment was lopped off before the film showed at the Cannes Film Festival. It has never been restored, until this DVD release. All the segments are frankly too long, and none qualifies as an essential gem, but they do give the flavor of Italy's best at an especially exciting cinematic moment. --Robert Horton

Four complete segments, each directed by a master filmmaker and starring an extraordinary cast of international stars: "Renzo & Luciana", directed by Mario Monicelli (BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET) was cut to shorten the film for its international release and it's shown here for the first time ever in America. "The Temptation of Doctor Antonio" directed by Federico Fellini (LA DOLCE VITA, 8 1/2) and starring Anita Ekberg (LA DOLCE VITA), enlighten by a dreamy humoristic touch, it's considered by many to be the best Fellini's work ever! "The Job", directed by Luchino Visconti (THE LOEPARD, ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS) stars Romy Schneider (WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT) and future genre icon Tomas Milian (TRAFFIC, ALMOST HUMAN). A witty contemplation of marriage with an attention to details was the trademark of the Visconti's incomparable style. Finally, "The Raffle", an earthy comic romp directed by Vittorio De Sica (THE BICYCLE THIEF, TWO WOMEN) and starring Sophia Loren (YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW, TWO WOMEN) as a woman who causes all sorts of problems for herself when she offers her favors as the prize in a lottery.

BOCCACCIO '70 is presented in a widescreen anamorphic digital transfer, loaded with never seen before extras, including a rare behind-the-scene archival footage

Rocco and His Brothers

In sweeping epic style, the prize-winning Rocco and His Brothers tells the story of four poor Italian brothers and their mother who leave their country home and move to bustling Milan with hopes of improving their bitter fortune. The family is thrown into chaos when two of the brothers are torn apart by their love for the same woman and their struggles to succeed in a viciously competitive world. French heartthrob Alain Delon is the gentle, idealistic Rocco, and Italian movie star Renato Salvatori is the undisciplined, savagely jealous Simone. Internationally renowned director Luchino Visconti (Senso, The Leopard, Death in Venice) combined keenly realistic observations and strong passions to create one of his most satisfying and deeply affecting films -restored and unedited!

Ossessione

Ossessione isn't just the finest film version of The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain's classic tale of murder, betrayal, and erotic obsession; it's also the first masterpiece of Italian neorealism and a key historical precursor of film noir. A handsome drifter (Massimo Girotti) fetches up at an isolated roadhouse, gets mutually besotted with the proprietor's sultry wife (Clara Calamai), and has soon carried out a plot to murder the older man in an apparent off-road accident. That's only the beginning, of course. In his directorial debut, Luchino Visconti weaves a sensuous, tragic spell, born equally of the stark, sun-struck settings--especially those utterly realistic yet somehow otherworldly highways, elevated above the surrounding marshland--and a dynamic camera style that lifts the storytelling to operatic heights. Yet another layer of erotic complication is added by the presence of "La Spagnolo" (Elio Marcuzzo), a philosopher-king of vagabonds who--like the director--is at least as infatuated with Girotti's studly beauty as the heroine is. --Richard T. Jameson

Passion turns deadly in this controversial neo-realist classic from acclaimed director Luchino Visconti (Death in Venice), adapted from James M. Cain's "The Postman Always Rings Twice." Beautiful hotel owner Giovanna ("Deep Red's" Clara Calamai) is hopelessly drawn to Gino ("Last Tango in Paris'" Massimo Girotti), a handsome drifter. They decide to kill off her spouse and collect his hefty insurance premium, but soon the lovers are trapped in a spiral of deception, jealousy, and fate. Banned and censored for years, "Ossessione" profoundly affected generations of audiences after causing a stormy religious and political scandal in Italy, and is now available in its original, uncensored director's cut.

Le Notti Bianche (White Nights) - Criterion Collection

A chance encounter on a canal bridge results in a series of twilight rendezvous between a lonely city transplant (Marcello Mastroianni) and a sheltered woman (Maria Schell) haunted by a lover's promise. Their hesitant courtship soon entangles both of them in a web of longing and self-delusion. Adapted from the Fyodor Dostoyevsky short story, director Luchino Visconti's Le notti bianche—shot in ravishing black and white—is a romantic, shattering tale of the restlessness of dreamers.

La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles)

The second haunting film from director Luchino Visconti presents a wrenching study of a family struggling to find happiness against the backdrop of Sicily's fishing community. Real Sicilian locals played all of the villagers, whose lives undergo dramatic changes when they plot to overthrow the wholesalers depriving them of a decent living. Against the odds, they still enjoy love, laughter, and friendship within their community. Experience the drama and visual poetry of this international classic, now presented in its complete European cut.

The Leopard [Region 2]

With this magnificent Criterion DVD release, Luchino Visconti's 1963 historical drama The Leopard will finally earn widespread recognition as one of the most beautiful epics ever produced. In adapting the popular novel by Giuseppe Tomassi di Lampedusa (an Italian equivalent to Gone with the Wind, set during the tumultuous Garibaldi revolution of 1860-62), Visconti was initially reluctant to cast Burt Lancaster as the melancholy Prince of Salina--the aging aristocrat "leopard" of the title--who accepts change as inevitable during the struggle for a unified Italy. But Lancaster (even with his voice dubbed in the fully restored Italian release) delivered one of his finest performances, modeled after Visconti himself, and reacting to political and familial upheavals with the wisdom and whimsy of a man who knows that his way of life--and all he holds dear--must change with the times. You won't find a more intimate epic, and Giusseppe Rotunno's masterful cinematography represents the pinnacle of painterly beauty, matched only by the authentic splendor of the film's impeccable production design. The climactic hourlong ballroom scene--which even the hard-to-please Pauline Kael called "one of the greatest of all passages in movies"--is utterly breathtaking. Anchored by Lancaster's performance and the romantic pairing of Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, The Leopard is sheer perfection, fully restored to its 185-minute glory. --Jeff Shannon

Conversation Piece [Region 2]

Senso (1954)

It is 1855, and the Austrian military has occupied Italy. Countess Livia Serpieri (Alida Valli) falls deeply in love with Franz Mahler (Farley Granger), an Austrian lieutenant. She betrays her country by stealing funds collected to aid the resistance and giving them to Franz so that he can bribe his way out of service. When she rendezvous with the lieutenant, she finds a drunken, ungrateful rogue who has used her only for her money, in what is perhaps among the most psychologically disturbing scenes ever filmed. Her revenge is swift and decisive, and though severe, quite believable. This 1954 film from Luchino Visconti (The Damned, Death in Venice) is a complex depiction of human passions and the destruction they can wreak, set against the larger destruction of war. A simple story told against the backdrop of countries at war, it belongs to the same genre as Reds and Doctor Zhivago, and is definitely worth viewing. --James McGrath