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A coup de théâtre for Luchino Visconti is a coup de cinéma and vice versa, his camera passes through La Fenice's proscenium and turns to reveal the orchestra and the audience, cf. Renoir's La Carrosse d'or. (Il Trovatore interrupted by a political demonstration makes for clashing colors and clashing melodramas, tricolore leaflets rain down on white uniforms.) Venice 1866, desire and betrayal during the Occupation. "We Italians come to the theater for very different reasons." The Venetian countess (Alida Valli) is no stranger to heightened intrigue, her husband (Heinz Moog) is in the government and her cousin (Massimo Girotti) is a Resistance firebrand. The young Austrian lieutenant (Farley Granger) catches her eye, a vain cad who seems like a prince during their nocturnal tour of the city. (Moonlight turns the damp cobblestones a shimmering blue, yet this is also the Venice of corpses near canals and peeling walls.) Heine is quoted, the illicit rendezvous at the Aldeno manor is composed as an oil canvas with lamp, mirror and curtain. The romantic image, its rhapsody and terror: "I realized for the first time that I wasn't in control of my feelings, as I'd always believed." An object lesson in how to film opera, out of Cocteau (L'Aigle à deux têtes) and Mamoulian (Becky Sharp). The Risorgimento in full sway, yet a potential visit from Garibaldi can't excite the lady half as much as the lover hiding in Verona, no past or future for her, only the moment. The battlefield scenes are shot under the aexis of Gerolamo Induno, a panning view of advancing lines amid cannon fire gives The Birth of a Nation. The aristocracy and the revolution, ruthlessly resolved by Visconti with a throb of vengeful sorrow and a firing squad. "Thus is the course of history so often altered, is it not?" Cinematography by G.R. Aldo and Robert Krasker. With Rina Morelli, Christian Marquand, Sergio Fantoni, and Marcella Mariani.
--- Fernando F. Croce |