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| Senso | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Luchino Visconti |
| Written by | Carlo Alianello Suso Cecchi d'Amico Giorgio Bassani Luchino Visconti Giorgio Prosperi |
| Starring | Alida Valli Farley Granger Heinz Moog Massimo Girotti Rina Morelli Christian Marquand Marcella Mariani |
| Music by | Anton Bruckner from Symphony No. 7, adapted by Nino Rota[1] |
| Cinematography | G.R. Aldo Robert Krasker |
| Editing by | Mario Serandrei |
| Release date(s) | 30 December 1954 |
| Running time | 117 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
"Senso" is a 1954 melodrama film, an adaptation of Camillo Boito's Italian novella Senso by the Italian director Luchino Visconti, with Alida Valli as Livia and Farley Granger as Lieutenant Franz Mahler.
Originally, Visconti wanted Ingrid Bergman and Marlon Brando for the starring roles but the producer denied it.
Both Franco Zeffirelli and Francesco Rosi, later well-known film directors in their own right, worked as Visconti's Assistant Directors.
[
Senso is set in Italy in 1866, when the Italian-Austrian war of unification was coming to its end.The film opens in the La Fenice opera house in Venice with a performance of Il Trovatore, ossia la tromba guerriera di Manrico, di Verdi.
At the close of Manrico's rousing aria Di quella pira, the opera is interrupted by a major protest of Italian Nationalists against the occupying Austrian troops present in the theatre.
Livia, an Italian Countess who is unhappily married to a stuffy old aristocrat, bears witness to this and tries to conceal the fact that her own cousin Marquis
Roberto Ussoni
organized the protest.
During the commotion, she meets a dashing young Austrian Officer named Franz Mahler, and is instantly smitten by him.
The two begin a secretive and highly forbidden love affair.
Despite the obvious fact that Franz was responsible for sending Roberto into exile because of his radical behavior, Livia vainly pretends not to be aware of it.
Although he is obviously using her for her money and social status, Livia throws herself into an affair of complete sexual abandon with Franz, giving away all her money and not caring what the high society thinks about her.
But soon, Franz begins failing to show up for their trysts and Livia is slowly consumed with jealousy and paranoia.
The war finally forces the lovers apart, with Livia's husband making her move away to their villa in the country in order to avoid the carnage.
Late one night, Franz sneaks his way into Livia's bedroom, where he asks her for more money in order to bribe the army doctors to have him stay away from the battle field.
Livia complies, giving away all of the money she was holding for Roberto, who intended to supply with it the partisans who were fighting the Austrians.
Livia's betrayal leads to tragic consequences.
The Austrians overwhelm the under-equipped Italians.
Eventually, Livia is almost driven mad by the fact that she is unable to see Franz and rejoices when a letter from him finally arrives, thanking her for the financial support that helped him stay away from the front.
He advises Livia not to look for him, but she does not listen.
As soon as possible, Livia, still grasping the letter, boards a carriage and hurries to Verona to find her lover, where she soon discovers what her indiscretion has caused, amidst the gloating Austrian soldiers.
Once there, Livia makes her way to the apartment, which she herself had bought for Franz.
But all LIVIA finds is a drunken, self-loathing rogue in the company of a prostitute, who openly mocks Livia for accepting his abuse.
Franz brutally throws Livia out of his apartment, and she finds herself in streets full of drunk, sleazy soldiers.
Livia realizes that she still has Franz's letter and nothing remains now but mutual self-destruction.
Her sanity slipping, Livia heads to the headquarters of the Austrian Army, where she hands Franz's letter to a General, thereby convicting Franz of treason.
Although the General sees that Livia is acting out of spite for being cuckolded, he is forced to comply and Franz is executed by firing squad.
Livia, now insane, runs off into the night, crying out her lover's name.
The novella is written in the form of a private diary, narrated in first person by Countess Livia.
At the present time she is courted on and off by a lawyer, Gino, whom she constantly rebuffs. Narration switches back and forth between this subplot and the main plot, which take place 16 years apart (1865). As Livia recollects her story, it's very much like Visconti's film adaptation. Visconti focused on the main plot, deleting the diary subplot and the character of Gino entirely.
The film pushes Livia's story into the background and gives more detail to the war itself while introduding a new subplot about Livia's nationalist cousin, Roberto Ussoni, who leads a rebellion against the Austrians. In the film, Livia gives his money to her lover, leading to a dramatic massacre of the Italian partisans, an episode not in Boito's original story. Visconti strayed so far away from the original source, that at one point he thought of renaming the film Custoza, after the big battle that occurs during the climax, but was denied due to legal reasons.
The character of Franz Mahler is named Remigio Ruz in the novella; Visconti changed the name as a tribute to Gustav Mahler, one of his favourite composers, whose music features in the later Death in Venice.
There's also a thematic connection with the film's opening, set in an opera.
The scene does not feature in Boito's novella, where the protagonists first meet at a swimming bath.
Visconti's original ending where Livia wanders through the ransacked Verona in a nearly catatonic state while being accosted by drunken Italian soldiers was banned by Italian censors because it was regarded as an outrage to the Italian army.
The final scene that closes the film was shot later, in order to wrap up Senso in a more-or-less positive light. Farley Granger was unavailable for the reshoot, so a body double was used, shot only from a distance with his face obscured.
A truncated English language version, recut to 94 minutes, was released with the title The Wanton Contess and contains dialogue written by Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles.
[edit] Reception
G.R. Aldo's cinematography for the film received the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists' award. Visconti was nominated for the Golden Lion award at the 1954 Venice Film Festival.[edit] Home media
A digitally restored version of the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in February 2011. The release includes The Wanton Countess, the rarely seen English-language version of the film, the Making of “Senso,” a new documentary featuring Rotunno, assistant director Francesco Rosi, costume designer Piero Tosi, and Caterina D’Amico, daughter of screenwriter Suso Cecchi D’Amico and author of Life and Work of Luchino Visconti, Viva VERDI, a new documentary on Visconti, Senso, and opera, a visual essay by film scholar Peter Cowie, and Man of Three Worlds: Luchino Visconti, a 1966 BBC program exploring Visconti’s mastery of cinema, theater, and opera direction. There is also a booklet featuring an essay by filmmaker and author Mark Rappaport and an excerpt from actor Farley Granger’s autobiography, Include Me Out.[2][edit] 2002 remake
Unlike the 1954 version, Senso '45 did not romanticize the affair between Livia and Mahler (Helmut Schultz in the 2002 film), the film showed it as a clinical study of vanity and lust. The film went on to win Italian cinema's "Silver Ribbon" Award for best costume design.
[edit] References
- ^ Nino Rota filmography: Senso
- ^ "Senso". The Criterion Collection. http://www.criterion.com/films/27543-senso.
[edit] External links
- Senso at the Internet Movie Database
- Senso '45 at the Internet Movie Database
- Alberto Zambenedetti, " Senso - A Palimpsest", essay on luchinovisconti.net (Analysis of the film, the original novella, and the 2002 remake)
- Criterion Collection Essay by Mark Rappaport
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