#296: VISCONTI, Luchino: Le Notti Bianche (1957)

VISCONTI, Luchino (Italy)

Le Notti Bianche [1957]

Spine #296
DVD

Marcello Mastroianni, as a lonely city transplant, and Maria Schell, as a sheltered girl haunted by a lover's promise, meet by chance on a canal bridge and begin a tentative romance that quickly entangles them in a web of longing and self-delusion. Luchino Visconti's Le notti bianche, an exquisite adaptation of Dostoyevsky's "White Nights," translates this romantic, shattering tale of two restless souls into a ravishing black-and-white dream.

101 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

in Italian

1:66:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2005

Director/Writers

Based on the story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Screenplay by Suso Cecchi D’Amico and Luchino Visconti.

Visconti was 51 when he directed Le Notti Blanche.

Other Visconti films in the Collection:

#556: Senso (1954)
#235: The Leopard (1963)
#1098: The Damned (1969)
#962: Death In Venice (1971)

The Film

Is this the turning point where neorealism is replaced by the coming of New Age Cinema? Referring to this film, Visconti himself used the term neoromanticism.

Terms. The film stands firmly on its own four feet, meaning Marcello Mastroianni (Mario) and Maria Schell (Natalia), who carry the film together; they are hardly ever absent in the frame. The star power of French actor Jean Marais (Lodger) was added, probably for additional box-office appeal.

Visconti created a vivid indoor set for the entire film; special mention to the DP, Giuseppe Rotunno, who lit the set in imaginative ways, according to a scene’s mood.

An example of filmic rhyming — which always makes a cinematic tale more interesting — is when Natalia laughingly tells Mario about how her grandmother safety-pins their skirts together. Later, we actually see Natalia trying to undo the pinned skirts in order to move to the Lodger!

Or the rough rhyming of the Rossini opera and the Bill Haley rock ‘n roll (see below) …

A moody film, with a totally downbeat ending. Oh, yeah …

**

As was the practice of nearly all Italian films of the period, virtually none of the dialogue or sound was recorded live — it was all dubbed in post.

Mastroianni, of course dubbed himself, but surprisingly, Schell — who spoke little Italian — learned all her lines phonetically and dubbed herself. Marais was dubbed by Giorgio Albertazzi. 

Film Rating (0-60):

55

The Extras

The Booklet

Ten-page booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Geoffrey Nowell-Smith.

“These antinomies find their most vivid expression in the contrast between the scene of Natalia’s visit with her grandmother and the lodger to hear Gioacchino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and the rock music sequence in the café across the bridge … a group of young people are dancing to the song Thirteen Women (And Only One Man in Town), by Bill Haley and His Comets … Visconti was far from being a fan of pop music, which here represents the negative side of modernity, but faced with the opportunity to stage a rock number, he gives it his all.”

Commentary

None.

Collection of interviews

From 2003, with screenwriter D’Amico, film critics Laura Delli Colli and Lino Miccichè, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, and costume designer Piero Tosi.

Good overview.

Audio recording

Of Dostoyevsky’s White Nights, also downloadable as an MP3.

A valuable extra. It is instructive to learn the difference between the Dostoyevsky and Visconti’s interpretation.

Read by T. Ryder Smith. Or read the short story here.

In the film, Mastroianni ends up with nothing but the same emaciated white dog he meets at the start of the film. He seems bitter to have “wasted his time” on an already betrothed woman.

In the story, however, the narrator seems grateful, even after such a harsh disappointment:

“My God, a whole moment of happiness! Is that too little for the whole of a man's life?”

Original theatrical trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

35

55 + 35 =

90

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