L'innocent

Tullio Hermil (Giancarlo Giannini) is a chauvinist aristocrat who flaunts his mistress (Jennifer O'Neill) to his wife (Laura Antonelli), but when he believes she has been unfaithful he becomes enamored of her again.

This movie is notable for being the last film made by Italian director Luchino Visconti, perhaps best known for "The Leopard". This time around he has really brought himself up to the 1970s and is not shy with the sensuality. Even the film's promo art seems to highlight the nudity, which is odd.

What strikes me about the movie is the casting of Jennifer O'Neill. I suspect that it was largely due to her look. She was a weak actress in "Rio Lobo", but seems to recover here (helped by the dubbing). She would go on to appear in "Scanners"... anyone who has worked with Visconti, Hawks and Cronenberg deserves some respect.

Visconti's final film is a brutally beautiful masterpiece. As ever, the film is fetishistic in its attention to detail (witness the scene in which the two leads are having sex and the camera spends ages examining Luara Antonelli's exquisite shoes, bodice and stockings).

Giancarlo Giannini and Antonelli play a married couple whose pleasure and displeasure at each other's extramarital affairs border on the masochistic.

Giannini, the macho man whose personal moral code allows him not only to take a lover but to tell his wife in great detail about his lustings for his lover, is terrifying as the husband unable to choose between his wife and his lover, hurting both and eventually pleasing neither. But it is often overlooked that Antonelli, whose acting roles prior to 'L'innocente', featured such greats as 'Dr. Goldfoot and the Sex Bombs' and 'The Eroticist', startles as a woman who, although on first glance is 'more sinned against than sinning' but is equally manipulative and sadistic in her relationship with her husband, toying with him as he furiously attempts to make her admit to her indiscretions.

Could we qualify a movie as Ardent? I think so, at least I do when remembering this film. Maybe it's because of the smoldering story it tells, maybe because of the passionate characters temperament, maybe because of the gleaming beauty of the surroundings, the extremely luxurious interiors of upper class old noblesse, with their incredibly gorgeous 'Fin de Siecle' gowns and jewels and objects and music... What a superb film!

Jennifer O'Neil devastatingly beautiful and seductive as the self-assured, selfish, spoiled, ambitious, self-seeking lover, as much as Laura Antonelli as the opposite side of the coin but in a lower key, as the humble and insecure, betrayed, embittered, resentful wife, but also devastatingly gorgeous. And Giancarlo Giannini, holder of the most beautiful male green eyes ever shown on a close up, and adding to that his fantastically sensuous voice.

We end up watching this ultra-refined European product that only a Visconti and very few other directors (Kubrick with "Barry Lindon") could have had the exquisiteness of taste to produce.

The libretto is first rate and overwhelming in its slow development (and that makes almost unbearable the unpredictable climax) leaving us almost as devastated as its female protagonist, when she walks away while an early dawn starts defining the outline of the magnificent garden surrounding that incredibly perfect building where life had just ceased to exist.

The languid pace of Visconti's last film is not a problem for me. He was an old man, directing from a wheelchair, and had slowed down a lot. Think of it as the long slow movement of a symphony by Mahler - whose music, you will remember, he used in Death in Venice - and it will make more sense.

What I want to know is more about Gabriele D'Annunzio's novel. One commentator claims that the male lead is a kind of 'atheistic hero' faithful to his beliefs, and that Visconti subverts the author's intention by showing him as a rich aristocrat as selfish as he is unpleasant. Can any authority on Italian literature shed any light?

love often used misspelled abused love taken for a selfish game manipulating shame

he loved himself apart from that a selfish search for someone to confirm he is what he only pretends to be

was she crazy or insane was her love so true she bared the pain for her it was no game and yet she lost...

beautiful movie, timeless! delightfull to see how this movie takes his time to tell a story, the script is strong, the music emotional, the actors impressive, I can only write down positive aspects, thanks to visconti's perfectionism and talent this movie became more than a traditional story about love and hate. the thin line between the beauty of the movie and the manipulating selfish desire of the story creates a strong emotional masterpiece that will no one left untouched