The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Consulate General of Italy will present a retrospective of five classic films by Luchino Visconti. For ticket information contact the Museum of Fine Arts.
On the MFA website we read:
With Ossessione in 1943 by Luchino Visconti (1906-1976), the Italian neorealist film movement began. Visconti broke the rules of studio filmmaking by taking his camera into the streets, capturing the lives of ordinary men and women. After the release of La Terra Trema in 1948, Visconti turned toward more historical and literary themes to create epic, operatic, and melodramatic work. Visconti never completely turned away from social themes, however, as his films constantly feature the battle between Marxist ideology and nostalgia for the aristocracy.
The five films in this series highlight Visconti’s penchant for elaborate dramas, while also showing the bleak reality of the working class. All films in Italian with English subtitles unless otherwise noted.
Highlights
Aug 6, 7, 9 The Leopard An epic of the grandest possible scale, the film recreates, with drama, and opulence, the tumultuous years of Italy’s Risorgimento—when the aristocracy lost its power and the middle class rose and formed a unified, democratic country. Burt Lancaster stars as the aging prince watching his culture and fortune wane in the face of a new generation, represented by his upstart nephew (Alain Delon) and his beautiful fiancée (Claudia Cardinale).
Aug 8, 13 Sandra Visconti’s dark drama follows Sandra (Claudia Cardinale), a beautiful Italian Jew, as she returns from Geneva to her family home in Volterra, to unveil a monument to her father, who was killed in a Nazi concentration camp. She clashes with her brother and demented mother who heighten Sandra’s guilt over being alive.
Aug 13, 14, 15 Ludwig An epic masterpiece, this lavish and operatic portrait centers on the “Mad King” of Bavaria, a 19th-century homosexual who built enormous castles, patronized the arts, and nearly bankrupted his country. Living at odds with the rest of the world and isolated by changing times, he wanders around his castles as an eccentric loner indulging in drink and destructive affairs with handsome male servants and artists.
Aug 14, 16 Rocco and His Brothers In search of a better life, the Parondi family moves to Milan. Depicting their adaptation to urban life in five sections—one for each brother. Visconti’s sober image of life in Milan and the burden of change on a family end without resolution; but the auteur’s passion for melodrama and emotion creates an exhilarating cinematic experience.
Aug 15, 16 Death in Venice After composer Gustav von Aschenbach comes to Venice to escape personal loss and failure, he
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