Senso

Director: Luchino Visconti Luchino Visconti

Overview

Italian director Luchino Visconti dishes up his usual blend of elegance and decadence in Senso. The international cast includes French film star Alida Valli as a Italian countess married to a Venetian nobleman, and English leading man Farley Granger as an Austrian military officer. The two are swept up in the Austrian empire's evacuation of Italy in 1866. Valli and Granger fall in love, but Valli ultimately realizes that the officer is interested only in her wealth and prestige, whereupon she gives him over to a firing squad. Visconti had wanted Ingrid Bergman and Marlon Brando for his leads, but when Bergman's husband Roberto Rossellini would not permit her to appear in the film, Brando also bowed out. Originally running 166 minutes, Senso was released in a radically cut version in the US in 1968, titled Summer Hurricane; yet another recut version popped up in England as The Wanton Contessa.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/22/2011
UPC:	0715515068116
Original Release:	1954
Source:	Criterion Collection
Time:	2:03:00
Sales rank:	14,822

Special Features

The Wanton Countess, a 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; Visual Essay by Film Scholar Peter Cowie; "Man of Three Worlds: Luchino Visconti," a 1966 BBC Program exploring Visconti's mastery of cinema, theater, and Opera Direction; ; Plus: a Booklet featuring an essay by Filmmaker and Author Mark Rappaport and an excerpt from actor Farley Granger's Autobiography, Include Me Out

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Alida Valli	Contessa Livia Serpieri
Farley Granger	Lt. Franz Mahler
Massimo Girotti	Marquis Roberto Ussoni
Heinz Moog	Count Serpieri
Rina Morelli	Laura
Marcella Mariani	Prostitute
Christian Marquand	Bohemian Officer
Tino Bianchi	Meucci
Sergio Fantoni	Patriot
Tonio Selwart	Col. Kleist

Technical Credits

Luchino Visconti

Carl Alianello

Giorgio Bassani

Paul Bowles

Suso Cecchi D'Amico

Giorgio Prosperi

Tennessee Williams

Luchino Visconti	Director,Screenwriter
G.R. Aldo	Cinematographer
Carl Alianello	Screenwriter
Giorgio Bassani	Screenwriter
Paul Bowles	Screenwriter
Gino Brosio	Set Decoration/Design
Suso Cecchi D'Amico	Screenwriter
Domenico Forges Davanzanti	Producer
Marcel Escoffier	Costumes/Costume Designer
Franco Ferrara	Musical Direction/Supervision
Aldo Graziati	Cinematographer
Robert Krasker	Cinematographer
Giorgio Prosperi	Screenwriter
Giuseppe Rotunno	Cinematographer
Ottavio Scotti	Art Director
Mario Serandrei	Editor
Piero Tosi	Costumes/Costume Designer
Tennessee Williams	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Senso is a stunning film, featuring Luchino Visconti at his most operatic. With Alida Valli and Farley Granger thrown in for marquee value, the film chronicles the last days of the Austrian-Italian conflict, in the spring of 1866. A performance of Il Trovatore serves as the backdrop for a stormy romance between Livia Serpieri, trapped in a loveless marriage, and a young Austrian office-worker, Franz Mahler (Granger). Their affair is bound to end tragically, and it does, but not before Visconti and his scenarists (including additional dialogue from Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles) have created a delirious world of color, music, deception, and betrayal in which revenge is always the strongest motivation for all human affairs. Senso simply demands to be seen on a cinema screen; reduced to the dimensions of even the most grandiose home theater system, the film loses much of its visual impact. Yet Visconti's vision is so over the top, so deliciously abandoned, that the trip is well worth taking, even on DVD. One of the most unrestrained of Visconti's many films, Senso is a lavish spectacle of the highest order.

All Movie Guide - Wheeler Winston Dixon