Le Notti Bianche [Criterion Collection]

Director: Luchino Visconti Luchino Visconti

Overview

Shy young Marcelo Mastroianni ambles across a bridge one evening, where he meets a strange but alluring girl (Maria Schell) who is awaiting her lover. This chance acquaintance is the first strand in a complex web entrapping Mastroianni in a dreamlike world of flashbacks, flashforwards and false visions. The girl, suspecting that her lover is staying at a nearby hotel, asks Mastroianni to deliver a note to the errant swain. He agrees--then destroys the note, setting the plot in motion. Updated from a 19th century story by Dostoyevsky, White Nights (Le Notti Bianche) was later refilmed by Robert Bresson as Four Nights of a Dreamer.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/12/2005
UPC:	0037429207826
Original Release:	1957
Source:	Criterion Collection
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:41:00
Sales rank:	537

Special Features

New, restored high-definition Digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno; A collection of interviews, from 2003, with screenwriter Suso Cecchi D'Amico, film critics Laura Delli Colli and Lino Miccichè, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, and costume designer Piero Tosi; New audio recording of Dostoyevsky's "White Nights," also downloadable as an MP3; Rare screen test of Mastroianni and Schell; Original theatrical trailer; New and improved English subtitle translation; Plus: a new essay by film scholar Geoffrey Nowell-Smith

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Maria Schell	Natalia
Marcello Mastroianni	Mario
Jean Marais	Lodger
Marcella Rovena	Housewife
Maria Zanoli	Housekeeper
Dirk Sanders	Dancer,Dancer
Giorgio Listuzzi	Policeman
Clara Calamai	Prostitute
Alberto Carloni	Bar Proprietor
Anna Filippini	Daughter
Lanfranco Ceccarelli	Actor,Actor
Angelo Galassi	Actor
Renato Terra	Actor
Corrado Pani	Actor
Winni Riva	Actor
Sandra Verani	Actor
Elena Fancera	Cashier
Ferdinando Gerra	Father
Leonilde Montesi	Mother
Sandro Moretti	Young Man
Lys Assia	Singer
Romano Barbieri	Son
Carla Foscari	Actor
Giorgio Albertazzi	Narrator
Giuseppe Rotunno	Actor
Luchino Visconti	Actor
Nino Rota	Actor,Composer
Franco Cristaldi	Actor
Oscar Di Santo	Actor
Suso Cecchi d'Amico	Actor
Vittorio Trentino	Actor
Leonida Montest	Mother

Technical Credits

Luchino Visconti

Suso Cecchi d'Amico

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Luchino Visconti	Director,Screenwriter
Suso Cecchi d'Amico	Screenwriter
Franco Cristaldi	Producer
Fyodor Dostoevsky	Screenwriter
Jean-Paul Guibert	Producer
Mario Maggi	Producer
Oscar Di Santo	Sound Effects
Vittorio Trentino	Sound Effects

Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. At Loose Ends [6:58]
2. The Bridge...At Midnight [4:00]
3. "You Can Trust Me" [6:29]
4. Stood Up [5:03]
5. A Good Reason [1:29]
6. Natalia's Story [4:37]
7. A New Tenant [19:13]
8. The Letter [9:19]
9. Shame [9:00]
10. Nightclub [11:03]
11. Haunted By the Past [2:10]
12. Mario Finds Trouble [3:33]
13. "You Were Right" [7:56]
14. Snowfall [5:36]
15. Fleeting Happiness [5:03]
16. Color Bars [:00]
1. First Night [23:52]
2. Second Night [30:31]
3. Nastenka's History [21:16]
4. Third Night [14:17]
5. Fourth Night [18:52]
6. Morning [5:01]
7. Credits [:26]

Menu

Side #1 --
   Play the Movie
   Chapters
   Dostoyevsky's "White Nights"
      Play
      MP3 Version
      About the Story
   Visconti's Collaborators
      Play
   Screen Tests
      Marcello Mastroianni
      Maria Schell
      Mastroianni and Schell
   Theatrical Trailer
   Subtitles
      English Subtitles: On
      English Subtitles: Off

Editorial Reviews

Le Notti Bianche is early Luchino Visconti, when the master was at the peak of his powers. Based on a novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and with the unusual and highly theatrical casting of Marcello Mastroianni, Maria Schell, and Jean Marais (who rarely popped up outside the world of Jean Cocteau), this moody black-and-white film documents the existential relationship between Mario (Mastroianni) and Natalia (Schell). The film was shot on transparently stylized sets, in a marked departure from Visconti's earlier, grittier films, particularly Ossessione (1943), Visconti's version of The Postman Always Rings Twice (which he shot without first obtaining the rights to the novel, much to the displeasure of author James M. Cain and MGM, who were then making their own version of the novel with director Tay Garnett). In early Visconti, life is drab, violent, and owes much to the works of neorealists Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. Here, we are in a different world altogether, one of studied artificiality which seems to exist outside of time. Mario loves Natalia, but her heart belongs to another; how will the matter be resolved? The film is not so much a straightforward narrative as it is a meditation on the act of being in love, and the consequences of unrequited passion coupled with senseless devotion. Yet the entire film seems to take place in some sort of limbo; nothing is real, except for the performers. This is Visconti at his most ethereal, and marks the beginning of his increasing interest in stylization in the cinema. This film fell between the cracks of cinema history for a long time, but has since been issued in a superb DVD edition; it is well worth viewing as a remarkable example of a cinematic fabulist at work.

All Movie Guide - Wheeler Winston Dixon