Luchino Visconti

Luchino Visconti, Duke of Modrone (November 2, 1906 - March 17, 1976) was an Italian theatre and cinema director and writer.

Life and work

Born into a noble and wealthy family (one of the richest of northern Italy), in Milan. His father was the Duke of Modrone, and Visconti had six siblings. Due to his upbringing, Visconti was able to be exposed to art, music and theater, and meet some of the forerunners in each, such as the composer Giacomo Puccini, the conductor Arturo Toscanini, and the writer Gabriele D'Annunzio. Interestingly enough, not only was Visconti openly bisexual throughout his life, his father was also bisexual.

In 1936, at the age of 30, he went to Paris and began his filmmaking career as third assistant director in Jean Renoir's Une partie de campagne (1936), thanks to the intercession of a common friend, Coco Chanel. After a short tour to the U.S., where he visited Hollywood, he returned to Italy to be Renoir's assistant again, this time for La Tosca (1939), a production that was interrupted and later completed by German director Karl Koch because of the war.

Together with Roberto Rossellini, Visconti joined the salotto of Vittorio Mussolini (the son of Benito, at the time the national arbitrator for cinema and other arts) and here presumably met also Federico Fellini. With Gianni Puccini, Antonio Pietrangeli and Giuseppe De Santis he wrote the screenplay of his first film as a director: Ossessione (Obsession) (1943), the first neorealist movie. In 1948, he wrote and directed La terra trema (The Earth Trembles), based on the novel I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga.

Visconti was one Neo-realist director who was able to continue working throughout the 1950's, although he veered away from the neorealist path with his 1954 film, "Senso,' which was also filmed in Technicolor. This film takes place in 1866, in Austrian-occupied Venice and is based on the novella by Camillo Bonito. Visconti combines realism and romanticism as a way to break away from neorealism. Nowell-Smith calls this film the "most Viscontian" of all Visconti's films

Visconti was also a celebrated theatre director. During the years 1946-1960 he directed many performances of the Rina Morelli-Paolo Stoppa Company, with Vittorio Gassmann, and several operas, including a famous revival of Donizetti's Anna Bolena at La Scala in 1957 with Maria Callas.

He returned to neorealism one more time in the 1960 film, "Rocco and his Brothers," about Southern Italians who migrate to Milan hoping to find financial stability. Biographer Geoffrey Nowell-Smith said, "Visconti without neorealism is like Lang without expressionism and Eisenstein without formalism…"

Throughout the 1960's, Visconti's films became more personal. "The Leopard," ("Il Gattopardo") made in 1963, and based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedus' novel about the decline of the Sicilian aristocracy. It starred American actor Burt Lancaster in the role of Prince Don Fabrizio.

This film was distributed throughout America and England as well, but in the process Twentieth-Century Fox scaled it down, with important scenes completely deleted. These cuts and the poor sub-titling quality ensure that the essence of the film is lost in this version. Visconti repudiated it, and took no responsibility for it whatsoever.

He told an American reporter in 1961, "I believe in life, that is the central point ... I believe in organized society. I think it has a chance." Even when he wasn't focusing on sending a message to his audience about war or poverty, Visconti was still dealing with life and all its glory and hardships.

It wasn't until his 1969 film, "The Damned," that Visconti received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay but lost. "The Damned," is Visconti's most celebrated film about a German industrialist family that slowly begins to disintegrate. The decadence, and lavish beauty were archetypes of Visconti's aesthetic.

Visconti made no secret of his homosexuality. His last partner was the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who played Martin in "The Damned". Berger also appeared in "Ludwig" in 1972 and "Conversation Piece" in 1974 along with Burt Lancaster.

The last Visconti film was 1976's "The Innocent," which has the reoccurring theme of infidelity and betrayal. Visconti himself died in Rome of a stroke at the age of 69. In Ischia there is a Museum dedicated to the director's memory.

Selected filmography

* Ossessione (1943) (based on James M. Cain's 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice)
* Giorni di Gloria (1945)
* La Terra trema (1950)
* Appunti su un fatto di cronaca (1951)
* Bellissima (1951)
* Senso (Livia) (1954)
* Le notti bianche (White Nights) (1957)
* Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers) (1960)
* Boccaccio '70 (1961) (based on Boccaccio's Decamerone)
* Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) (1963) (based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel Il Gattopardo)
* Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa (Sandra of a Thousand Delights) (1965)
* Lo Straniero (1967)
* La caduta degli dei (The Damned) (1969)
* Alla ricerca di Tadzio (TV movie) (1970)
* Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice) (1971) (based on Thomas Mann's novel)
* Ludwig (1972)
* Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (Conversation Piece) (1974)
* L'Innocente (The Innocent) (1976)

Bibliographies

*Visconti bibliography (via UC Berkeley)

Further reading

*

External links

*bfi: Luchino Visconti
*Guardian article (02/2003)
*Telegraph article (02/2003)
*Biography, filmography and more of Luchino Visconti (site is in Italian)