{"id":10118,"date":"2015-08-22T20:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-08-23T01:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=10118"},"modified":"2015-08-22T13:01:59","modified_gmt":"2015-08-22T18:01:59","slug":"senso-1954-luchino-visconti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/10118","title":{"rendered":"Senso (1954, Luchino Visconti)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I watch what I damn well please (The Zero Theorem<\/a><\/em>, On Top of the Whale<\/a><\/em>, Master of the House<\/a><\/em>) and sometimes I am a slave to lists. The lists said it’s time to watch Senso<\/em>, even though I hated The Leopard<\/a><\/em> and this sounded similar. Since that last Leopard<\/em> screening almost a decade ago I’ve come to terms with the Italians’ ignorance of proper on-set dialogue recording, and some of my new favorite filmmakers are Italian. I even gave ol’ Pasolini another chance after hating Salo<\/em> in college, and was blown away by his Teorema<\/a><\/em> this year. But Senso<\/em>‘s a period melodrama about people who do dumb things for love, a tragedy about the downfall of the upper class, so it had a lot of strikes against it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Alida Valli (The Third Man<\/em>, The Spider’s Stratagem<\/a><\/em>, mad doctor’s assistant in Eyes Without a Face<\/a><\/em>) is a wanton countess in 1866 Venice whose cousin (Massimo Girotti, the father in Teorema<\/em>) is involved in the rebel movement against the occupying Austrians. He gets in an argument with Austrian officer Farley Granger (Rope<\/em>, Strangers on a Train<\/em>), she intervenes and falls for Granger – though she’s married to a clueless count (Heinz Moog).<\/p>\n

Clueless count:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As the war escalates, Valli betrays the revolution and Granger betrays his army – then betrays Valli, so she reports him and the film ends with his execution. Before the inevitable unhappy ending, I admit the photography could be quite dreamy. Mark Rappaport on the film’s beauty: “You don’t want to hang the images on the wall. You want to live in<\/em> them.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rappaport:<\/p>\n

The sets and costumes bespeak wealth, privilege, and especially the casual acceptance of them in a way that no dialogue could adequately convey. If decor is as important an element as characters, camera work, and plot in many films, in Visconti’s, the ante is upped \u2014 decor is destiny.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From the extras: aha, it’s pronounced Lu-KEE-no<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Farley cheerfully unveiling his lover:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Valli reporting on him:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Played at Venice Film Festival (obviously) alongside Seven Samurai<\/em>, Sansho the Bailiff<\/a><\/em>, La Strada<\/a><\/em>, Rear Window<\/em> and two by Bunuel, but somehow Romeo and Juliet<\/em> won.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I watch what I damn well please (The Zero Theorem, On Top of the Whale, Master of the House) and sometimes I am a slave to lists. The lists said it’s time to watch Senso, even though I hated The Leopard and this sounded similar. Since that last Leopard screening almost a decade ago […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[342,225,324],"class_list":["post-10118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-1950s","tag-italy","tag-luchino-visconti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10155,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10118\/revisions\/10155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}