Senso [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

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
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Language:	English
Time:	2:03:00
Sales rank:	12,615

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	Livia Serpieri
Farley Granger	Tenente Franz Mahler
Massimo Girotti	Marchese Roberto Ussoni
Heinz Moog	Conte Serpieri
Rina Morelli	Laura
Marcella Mariani	Clara
Christian Marquand	Ufficiale boemo
Tonio Selwart	Colonnello Kleist
Sergio Fantoni	Luca
Cristoforo De Hartungen	Generale Hauptmann
Tino Bianchi	Capitano Meucci
Marianna Leibl	Moglie del generale austriaco,La moglie del generale Hauptmann
Ernst Nadherny	Comandante della piazza di Verona
Goliarda Sapienza	Patriota
Franco Arcalli	Un soldato
Nando Cicero	Un soldato
Jean-Pierre Mocky	Un soldato
Spartaco Nale	Un soldato
Winni Riva	La cameriera
Anton Bruckner	Composer
Giuseppe Verdi	Composer

Technical Credits

Giorgio Prosperi

Giorgio Bassani

Suso Cecchi d'Amico

Camillo Boito

Tennessee Williams

Paul Bowles

Luchino Visconti	Director
Giorgio Prosperi	Screenwriter
Giorgio Bassani	Screenwriter
Domenico Forges Davanzati	Producer
Suso Cecchi d'Amico	Screenwriter
Camillo Boito	Screenwriter
Tennessee Williams	Screenwriter
Paul Bowles	Screenwriter
Vittorio Trentino	Sound Effects

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