Casanova and the Leopard
In his series of articles on cinema, Kevin Ryland has concentrated on American films. This month he focuses on two of Italy’s greatest artists, Federico Fellini (1920 – 1993) and Luchino Visconti (1906 – 1976), film-makers of eventually quite distinct styles yet whose roots were in neo-realism.
Both Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini made films in the golden age of Italian cinema, from the end of World War II to the late seventies. They show a wide range of technique and artistic sensibility, a remarkable visual sense and dramatic and emotional power.
Fellini was a journalist and cartoonist before entering films in 1940 as a gagwriter (writer of jokes) and then as an author of screenplays, notably for Rossellini’s neorealist “Rome – Open City” (1945). In 1950 he made his first film as a director. His first triumph was “La Strada” (1954) which showed his love of circuses, street life and the Italian people. This film won him an Oscar and, by the time of “La Dolce Vita” (1960), a withering satire on modern Roman society and the empty lives of the rich, he was an international figure. Many consider his “8½” (1963), an autobiographical work about a film director, his creative problems and relationships, shot in superb wide-screen black and white by Gianni Di Venanzo, his finest work.
As he became more famous, Fellini’s films changed to extravagantly baroque creations with a cartoon-like sense of the absurd and surreal, larger than life characters. His films began to be criticised as too self-indulgent and Fellini’s “Casanova” (1976) was described by one critic as “frigid and disappointing”.
I find this to be a wonderful film, featuring an outstanding performance by Donald Sutherland as the notorious lover. As the story progresses, we are not sure whether we are seeing Casanova or looking through his eyes and seeing his sexual adventures as a projection of his fantasies and frustrations. He was more than an adventurer, of course: he was a cultured man of letters and linguist which the film shows well.
The film’s visual style is astonishing and the very unreal and ornate look is fascinating. When Casanova is crossing the stormy Venetian waters to a romantic meeting the waves are created by moving black plastic sheeting. Venice in winter, with the canals frozen, is a dreamlike glassy vista upon which Casanova dances with his ideal woman, but his partner is an automaton (robot) whose porcelain features and lack of emotional response make a sad end to the great lover’s search for feminine perfection.
Count Luchino Visconti worked as an assistant to the great French director Jean Renoir then made his debut as a film-maker in 1942 with “Ossessione”, a neo-realist view of passion and murder made during the dying days of fascism. In 1948, he made “La Terra Trema”, a depiction of Sicilian fishermen’s struggle against weather, death and economic exploitation – a Marxist tract in filmic terms.
Visconti was a Milanese aristocrat but he seemed able to balance his Marxist views with his privileged background and florid style in film, theatre and opera. His masterpiece “The Leopard” (Il Gattopardo) (1963), based on Giuseppe de Lampedusa’s modern classic novel about the decay of Sicilian aristocracy at the time of the-19th century revolution, is a superb historical recreation, full of exquisite detail, fine music and lovely colour photography. The long ball scene near the close of the film is held to be a superb example of cinematic control and power.
Burt Lancaster as Prince Salina (the “Leopard” of the title) gives a truly memorable performance (in English, but dubbed into Italian) as a forceful intellectual sensitive to the need for change but regretting the passing of an order which had its own beauties and tradition. This great film marks a high point of Italian and European film-making and should be seen by everyone.
KR
