Luchino Visconti moves away from neorealism in favour of an epic and picturesque sweep of passions. Screening as part of the Still Life. Portrait. Landscape. Genre Beside Itself programme.
Registration opens three weeks before the screening
The Wanton Countess
- Date:
- 5 Feb 2027,
19:00–21:20
Registration opens three weeks before the screening
- Age restrictions
- 18+
Senso
1954, Luchino Visconti
Italy
123 minutes, Italian with Russian subtitles
Starring: Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Massimo Girotti, Heinz Moog
T
1866. Italy is uniting in the shared fervour of the Risorgimento. Venice is living out the final days of Austrian rule, but the city is already buzzing with the anticipation of freedom. To save her troublemaking cousin, Countess Serpieri curries favour with the Austrian officer Franz Mahler—and falls in love, unaware that her feelings will prove as turbulent as the upheavals shaking the country.
Still from The Wanton Countess, 1954
Visconti continuously seeks to impose upon the magnificent, beautifully composed, almost picturesque setting the rigor and, most importantly, the unobtrusiveness of a documentary.
— André Bazin, from Bazin at Work: Major Essays and Reviews from the Forties and Fifties
A variety of picturesque scenes, ranging from portraits in interiors to battle scenes brought to life, serve the director as a means to analyse the contemporary world.
