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Luchino Visconti’s handsome final feature adapts a classic Italian novel about an arrogant aristocrat whose selfish double-standard philosophy causes ruin and misery. The 19th century villas and ornate costumes dazzle, but the depressingly fated story will be tough going for sensitive audiences. This new disc encoding highlights the intoxicating atmosphere, and the intense performances of Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli and Jennifer O’Neill.

L’innocente

Blu-ray

Film Movement Classics

1976 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 129 112 min. / Street Date July 14, 2020 / 29.95

Starring: Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli, Jennifer O’Neill, Rina Morelli, Massimo Girotti, Didier Haudepin, Marie Dubois, Roberta Paladini, Claude Mann, Marc Porel.

Cinematography: Pasqualino De Santis

Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music: Franco Mannino

Production Design: Mario Garbuglia

Costumes: Piero Tosi

Written by Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Enrico Medioli, Luchino Visconti from the novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio

Produced by Giovanni Bertolucci

Directed by Luchino Visconti

The availability of European art cinema became spotty in the 1970s,...

Director: Luchino Visconti Writers: Luchino Visconti, Suso Cecchi d’Amico, Carlo Alianello, Tennessee Williams, Giorgio Bassani, Paul Bowles, Giorgio Prosperi Cinematographers: G.R. Aldo and Robert Krasker Starring: Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Heinz Moog, Rina Morelli Studio/Runtime: Criterion/123 mins. Arguably the first movie that could be called Italian Neo-realist was Luchino Visconti’s Ossesione, which he then followed up with two more features in the same tradition. But as the war that fostered the movement faded into the past Visconti radically shifted his style with Senso. Where neo-realism focused on the poor, here he brought his spotlight to aristrocrats. Where neo-realism...

Chicago – Many great films have been made about the changing of eras and the passing of power from one generation to another. But few are as masterfully conceived and as lovingly detailed as Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti’s 1963 classic “The Leopard.” Gorgeously restored on Blu-Ray, this near-masterpiece was sliced and diced by Hollywood for American audiences, but is now presented in its original three-hour running time.

As one of the founders of Italian neorealism, Visconti is well known for his depictions of upper-class life, which are somewhat inspired by his own upbringing in one of Italy’s wealthiest families. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s 1958 novel of “The Leopard,” published a few months after the author’s death, was an ideal fit for Visconti’s stylistic and thematic obsessions. The story centers on members of the Sicilian aristocracy during the Risorgimento (Italian unification) of the early 1860s. The aristocracy’s delicate...

Luchino Visconti's 185-minute film The Leopard (Il Gattopardo, 1963) begins outside a quiet Italian villa. The camera gradually makes its way closer to the estate, gliding across the windows -- open to the early summer breeze -- until settling on a wafting lace curtain. The curtain invites the camera inside, and we come along with it. Inside the room, Father Pirrone (Romolo Valli) leads Prince Don Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster), his wife Maria (Rina Morelli), and the rest of the Salinas through prayer. As Pirrone continues his mass, we hear a commotion outside. The aristocratic family tries to continue through the service in their ornate setting until Don Fabrizio, upset and distracted by the noise, asks one of his servants about the situation. The servant informs him that a dead soldier has been found in the Salina's garden; it seems that il Risorgimento, the Italian Resurgence, is near their doorstep.