Senso

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A feast for the eyes this lush melodrama may be an acquired taste for some but I doubt anyone could say it wasn't visually stunning. Venice is rendered so beautifully you will want to hop the next flight there and with the composition of all the other scenes it is like watching a story take place inside of paintings. However as gorgeous as all that is it also can be distracting and take you out of the story as you study the detail which at times feels a bit surreal. Having only seen Alida Valli in her English language films where she often seemed stiff and ill at ease her performance here is quite a revelation. She is fully in command of the screen and her anguished turmoil is compelling to watch. Farley is not bad although his part really doesn't offer him much more than being a slick and very handsome wastrel.

Normally when you think about big, over-the-top, melodramatic productions, you think off Hollywood movies but let me tell you, those Italians sure knew how to be big and melodramatic as well, when it comes done to making drama movies. Normally I'm not too big on melodramas but it can still appreciate those that have something special. Something in the way they got shot or acted out. Or something unique going on with its story and have some interesting characters in it. What this movie has really going for it, is the way it got shot. I really didn't expected this movie to be in color but it luckily was, since it truly added a lot to the overall experience. It's a visually spectacular movie to look at, also since it is being placed at an interesting time period. The movie is set in the late 19th century, during one of the many wars, this time between Austria and Italy. But the war elements get almost pushed to the background in this movie, until its very end. It foremost remains a love-story, with of course some very dramatic developments to it. It's not a happy or sappy sort of love-story. It's about an impossible love, that isn't really meant to be and you know it could never work out well. The love itself isn't all that gloomily to begin with, due to it that the characters themselves are not without flaws. This all set against the backdrop of a war and you know stuff is going to get melodramatic very soon. But it's made all very bearable, due to the way the movie is getting told and shot. It's really a fine looking movie with a great directing approach to it. It's the sort of movie that prefers to have long shots and wide shots in it, rather than closeups and a fast paced story. Not that the movie is slow or anything but it doesn't rush things. Because of that the story and movie itself feel very organic. A melodrama that is definitely worth seeing. 8/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Overall, Senso is worth watching, simply because it is well made fluff that, while not deep nor great, represents an important milestone in European cinema. There are no good, nice, nor even likable characters, but, on a rudimentary level, one can sense the motives of the two leads, even if neither is a character of depth. Thus the film, at least, has a narrative integrity that many melodramas lack, and, once Mahler betrays Livia, it is inevitable that she will damn him. Its use of red herrings and feints of narrative and character development is well done: such as when Livia is told, upon the Count's wanting to leave Venice, that a man came to call on her, she assumes it is Mahler, is followed by the Count, and, when confronted, confesses to having a lover, only to find out the man who called was Ussoni. The Count thereby assumes her revelation of a lover was a ruse to protect Ussoni, whom the Count has little use nor respect for. It's these sorts of moments that lift Senso above run of the mill melodrama, albeit, like Gone With The Wind, not far enough into real drama. If only Visconti had been able to graft a small bit of his working class affinities by showing a bit more of the struggles of the Italian Resistance, Senso may have hurdled that bar. Sans that, Senso lives up to its titular billing, as but a sensual comfort. And all can use a bit of that from time to time.

This is an Italian film I found in the pages of the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I didn't know what to expect, I just hoped it would be worthy of its placement, directed by Luchino Visconti (Ossessione, Rocco and His Brothers, The Leopard). Basically set in the spring of 1866, during the last days of the Austrian occupation and the Third Italian War of Independence, the unhappily married Countess Livia Serpieri (The Third Man's Alida Valli) witnesses her cousin Marquis Roberto Ussoni (Massimo Girotti) organising a protest. Roberto challenges the dashing young Austrian Lieutenant Franz Mahler (Rope's Farley Granger) to a duel at the La Fenice opera house in Venice, Roberto is arrested and sent to the exile for one year. During the commotion, Livia meets Franz, she hates him at first, but spending a night walking together she falls deeply in love with him, they begin a secretive love affair, despite the fact that Franz's radical behaviour was responsible for Roberto's arrest, Livia pretends to be unaware of this. Franz is obviously using Livia for her money and social status, but Livia throws herself into the sexual affair, giving away her money and not caring about the opinions of her in society, but soon she becomes consumed by jealously and paranoia as Franz fails to show up for appointments. War breaks out, forcing Livia and Franz apart, her husband takes her with him to escape the carnage to the villa in the country, but late one night Franz shows up, demanding more money from Livia to bribe the army doctors and keep him away from the battlefield, she complies and gives all money she had saved for Roberto, her betrayal have tragic consequences. Eventually Livia is almost driven mad being unable to see Franz, but she rejoices when she receives a letter from him, in it he thanks her for financial support, but tells her not to look for him, Livia ignores this and heads for Verona to find her lover. Livia finds Franz, but is devastated to find him as a drunk and self-loathing rogue, with a young prostitute, and mocking her, after forcing her to drink with the prostitute Franz angrily throws Livia out,. Livia's sanity is slipping, she heads to the headquarters of the Austrian Army, with the letter he sent her Franz is arrested for treason and executed by firing squad, Livia is now truly insane and is last seen running into the night crying out her lover's name. Also starring Heinz Moog as Count Serpieri and Rina Morelli as Laura. The director originally wanted to cast Ingrid Bergman and Marlon Brando, but Roberto Rossellini put his foot down and said Bergman only worked for him, she was also not interested, while Brando was shunned by the producers. But Valli proves a good choice as the countess used by a cavalry officer, well played by Granger, I could just about follow the story whilst having to read the subtitles, it is essentially a doomed romance going against country and social class, it may have been slow and predictable in places, but overall it is an interesting melodrama. Worth watching!

Italy is still probably in ruins of war at this point, real or figurative, so what does this filmmaker do, Visconti? By waving his wand, he conjures up an earlier Italy, also in the throes of occupation and war, it's the last days of the Austrian occupation around Venice, but now it can all be placed in the safer distance of history, set up as operatic melodrama on a stage. You'll see this self-referential waving of the hand in the just the opening scene. We open in an opera house in the middle of a play, with actors on stage valiantly rushing to weapons. As soon as the play is over, patriot viewers rain the place down with revolutionary pamphlets. It is an operatic play that we see; film as opera. Up on this stage, collaboration with a regime can be safely contained in a love affair, rich countess falling for the dashing Austrian lieutenant. In the usual melodramatic passion, she risks all. The whole point of the story is to have moments like when news reach her of a battle won against the Austrians, but instead of rejoicing at liberation, she must look terrified because her beau might have been on that battlefield. It's not something I can get excited about, nor would I recommend you go out of your way to find it, except as contrast to other, more pertinent things about how a viewer can be choreographed through space. I mean, here is a cinema of vistas and gestures. When a camera pans around a room that someone walks in, it's just this room that we see. War is suddenly introduced as a series of vistas with crowds rushing about, filmed in a disjointed way in order to convey chaos and mobilization and yet they manage to look placid and painterly. But how about this? It ends with another self-referential note but now one that waves away illusion, dispels fiction. Having risked all, she finds out he's not the dashing hero of operas that she wanted him to be. Up on this stage, turning your back on your countrymen is only the innocent fallout of passion, all because you maybe yearned for some of the romance of stories from the past.

Opens with a lush rendition of Il Trovatore at Teatro La Fenice, SENSO is an ostentatious melodrama imprinted with Visconti's pronounced blue blood opulence, retells an Italian countess' (Valli) vain and poignant attempt to pursue her one-sided affection to an Austrian officer (Granger shines in the rich Technicolor palette as an Adonis), whose misogyny and promiscuity will cause his own doom and mar her mentality up to the hilt. The film sets its time during the fall of Austrian occupation in Venezia 1866, Valli is wavering between her bureaucratic husband (Moog) and rioting cousin (Girotti), to break loose from the stalemate, she irrevocably falls for a young lieutenant in the opponent camp, but he is no knight in shining armor but a foul and spineless scoundrel with irresistible sheen of deadly charm. Granger's gorgeous lover-boy image is a quintessential smokescreen to veil his despicable innards, but after all, it is a consensual deal despite of Valli's false hope, more significantly its anti-war signals have been forcibly cast by Granger's self-abandonment and the lousy war battlefield experienced by Girotti, which, more plausibly it is an intentional move by Visconti, a distraction from the central turmoil, but done with a tinge of amateurish fecklessness. Valle shoulders on a profound effort to scrutinize a woman's inscrutable sexual desire which being repressed for too long, both she and Granger align themselves with Visconti's brimful-of- emotion style (again, thanks to Techincolor and the overstuffed score as well) which approximate the OTT threshold in certain degree, although falling out with Visconti eventually, Granger succeeds in bringing about his best screen persona and it was such a great era when a gay man can play an outright straight womanizer on the celluloid. On the one hand SENSO fails to impress me as my favorite among Visconti's work of art, and scale-wise pales by comparison with LUDWIG (1972, 8/10) and THE LEOPARD (1963, 8/10), but on the other hand, only Visconti can flaunt such an overbearing melodrama with true mettle and without any compromise, a trend-setter would inspire later kindred spirits, for instance Baz Luhrmann's 3D adaption of the bourgeois sumptuosity THE GREAT GATSBY (2013, 8/10).

But not a love treason. Treason of ideals, treason of your country and treason of the military duty. It's 1866 in northern Italy occupied by the Austrian armed forces. The Italian patriots fight to free their country and unite Italy, supported by French and Prusssian armies. Countess Serpieri (Alida Valli), a Venetian aristocrat married to an older man, falls suddenly deeply in love with an Austrian army officer, Franz Mahler (Farley Granger) who is however nothing more than a philanderer, a crook and a coward who ends up by deserting his army based on a fake and obtained through bribery medical report stating that he is physically unfit for the army. A large sum of money was given to him for that purpose by the Countess. But she had been trusted with that money by the revolutionaries and it was to be used for their cause. When she realizes that he is nothing else than an unscrupulous scoundrel it's already too late and the story ends up tragically. The director Luchino Visconti is above all an aesthetician and this movie has got wonderful images and sceneries both in exteriors and interiors. The critics have already classified his movies as opera cinema. Although he is himself descended from an aristocratic Lombard family, his ideology is much closer to Marxism and in this movie, like in his other beautiful movie, "Il Gattopardo", he depicts the moral and social decadence of the till then dominating aristocracy and the rising to power of another class, the bourgeoisie, like it occurred with most revolutions in Europe during 19th century. So as an aristocrat, Visconti is an aesthetician and that's why his movies are always rich and beautiful in visual terms. But terms of ideology and of his movies message he is closer to Marxism. The only flaw of this movie in my opinion is the performance of Farley Granger a wrong choice for the role of Franz Mahler. He is much inadequate to the character of an elegant, seductive, unscrupulous and libertine officer. In fact he is not very talented and anyway goes better in an American detective movie than in the atmosphere of the Italian Risorgimento. He looks very unrefined for that. On the contrary the beautiful Alida Valli is brilliant as Countess Serpieri. If it weren't for that flaw I'd have rated this movie with an 8 instead of a 7.

For some reason Visconti's early film Senso (1954) eluded me until recently. I had heard of it before but it wasn't until I fell under the spell of Visconti's later masterpiece Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) that I became interested Senso. It's an odd film but not lightweight by any means. The basic story is a tortured potboiler about a passionate, affection-starved Countess, Livia played brilliantly by Alida Valli, and her completely delusional infatuation with a first class cad, a Lieutenant in the Austiran army occupying Venice in the 19th century. This nightmare lover is convincingly done by Farley Granger early in his film career. He had a fascinating face, much more versatile than I remember from his famous Hitchcock performances where he was limited to a naughty baby- face or two. In Senso he looks truly sinister and rapacious. Granger was fortunate in his leading lady because she wrenches a great performance from him in their intense and heart-rending scenes together. Valli was a volcanic actress in her prime. Very beautiful and clearly the fore-runner to Claudia Cardinale, only a much finer actress. The camera work of G. R. Aldo and Robert Krasker is gloriously beautiful and natural. It is in early technicolor and not as vividly retina burning as some of the widescreen epics that were to follow. The only major mistake in Senso is the decision to use Anton Bruckner's 7th Symphony (themes there from) as the ubiquitous melodramatic background. It's not that grand themes aren't apt for this tragic story it's just that grand high classical music (and Bruckner is THE grandest and highest of 19th century romantic composers) doesn't sound right in this film. No expense was spared the sets and costumes so skimping on the all-important, nay, vital musical side seems a little misguided to say the least. Visconti had learned his lesson in this regard by the time he made Il Gattopardo in the early 1960s. Still the same over-heated music but original, well, at least is wasn't Bruckner lifted in chunks from one of his monumental symphonies. Senso is a winner. It seems a bit long about 90 minutes in with 30 minutes to go but it picks up as Alida Valli's character slowly shreds in the final scenes. If you're longing to start a love affair with someone you just met I cannot recommend this film. Otherwise do not hesitate to see this. Granger's voice is dubbed over by the usual Italian voice actor who sounds like a spokesman for detergent. The subtitles seem sensibly translated. But the script is not the main reason to watch this excellent, beautifully filmed minor masterpiece. The photography and Alida Valli's magnificent performance are reasons enough to see this important Italian film. I deduct one star for the Bruckner and another for the homogenized Farley Granger voice- over.