SENSO Movie Review

The Wanton Contessa

In Venice in 1866, as loyal patriots join forces against the occupying Austrian military, an Italian noblewoman (Alida Valli) very nearly betrays her country as a result of her desperate, obsessive love for a cynical, handsome, greedy young Austrian officer (Farley Granger). Luchino Visconti's visually stunning, richly colored spectacle was conceived as a cinematic grand opera complete with huge, sweeping dramatic arcs and sequences of such visual grandeur that they become the equivalent of arias. The film's richly detailed, visually seductive settings draw you in to another world, but Visconti is clear about his purpose—the lust, sloth, and treachery that results from the aristocrats’ way of life is a high price to pay for the luxury. Senso was an over-the-top experience for audiences prepared for another neo-realist work like Ossessione or La Terra Trema from Visconti, and some felt that his new reliance on visual lushness was in itself a form of decadence. The shortened English-language version—released as The Wanton Countess—didn't help matters, nor did the florid dialogue supplied for it by Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles. An even bigger problem now is finding a print (or videocassette) with the fully restored color scheme that Visconti envisioned. But if you can, or if you have the opportunity to see a well-preserved archival copy, Senso remains an extraordinarily beautiful and startlingly subversive work of art.

NEXT STOP … Rocco and His Brothers, The Leopard, The Innocent

1954 125m/C IT Alida Valli, Massimo Girotti, Heinz Moog, Farley Granger; D: Luchino Visconti; C: Robert Krasker. VHS VCD