Presents “visconti”

From June 21 to July 26

At The Gene Siskel Film Center

164 North State Street

Chicago, IL 60601

TEL 312-846-2600

A nine-film series devoted to Luchino Visconti (1906-1976), the great Italian director who combined visual splendor with vivid characterization and a tragic sense of social-historical change.

An atmospheric adaptation of Thomas Mann’s celebrated 1912 novella. A German composer (based on Gustav Mahler) visiting Venice becomes obsessed with the idealized beauty of an androgynous boy. In English.

1961, Luchino Visconti, Italy, B&W, 180 min.

With Alain Delon, Annie Girardot

“Neither the neighborhood intimacy of MEAN STREETS nor the grandeur of the GODFATHER movies is imaginable without Visconti’s example.” (A.O. Scott, The New York Times). Through the changing fortunes of one family, Visconti charts the societal changes that swept an entire generation. Courtesy of Milestone.

1969, Luchino Visconti, Italy, Col.,156 min.

Visconti pulls out the stops with Wagnerian gusto in this lurid saga (Originally X-rated in the U.S.) of a German industrial family that throws its support to the Nazis in the 1930s. In English.

1965, Luchino Visconti, Italy, B&W, 105 min.

Newly married to an American, a young woman returns to her family’s mansion in Tuscany and finds it haunted with secrets from the past. Top prize at the Venice Film Festival. In Italian with English subtitles. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Repertory.

1954, Luchino Visconti, Italy, Col., 119 min.

With Alida Valli, Farley Granger

Venice, 1867: a tale about a beautiful Italian countess’s destructive passion for an arrogant officer in the occupying Austrian army. “A lush, melodramatic portrait of seduction and betrayal, decadence and deceit, revealing Luchino Visconti at his most baroque and the Italian cinema at its most spectacular.” (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader).

1963, Luchino Visconti, Italy, Col., 185 min.

With Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale
Visconti’s masterpiece is one of the cinema’s richest visual experience. Based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, it tells of a Sicilian prince whose sympathies for Garibaldi’s revolution, conflict with the interests of his own declining class. Courtesy of Fox Archives.

1974, Luchino Visconti, Italy, Col.,121 min.

With Burt Lancaster, Helmut Berger

An aging history professor is out of step with modern times until a family of raucous neighbors disrupts his solitude and a young radical awakens his dormant desires. English/ Italian with English subtitles. “Very likable…Visconti is in a jovial mood.” (Pauline Kael)

1976, Luchino Visconti, Italy, Col.,125 min.

With Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli
Visconti’s final film, recapitulating many of his major themes. Operatic, elegant and erotic, THE INNOCENT is based on an 1892 novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio about a hypocritical aristocrat who thoughtlessly cheats on his young beautiful wife until he discovers that she is having an affair with another man.

1972, Luchino Visconti, Italy, Col., 235 min.

With Helmut Berger, Romy Schneider

No Visconti film has more sharply divided critics than this staggeringly sumptuous biography of the mad Bavarian king, many of whose tastes reflect Visconti’s own. Most of the negative judgements were based on the severely truncated version released by MGM; this screening represents a rare opportunity to see the film in its full-lenghth big-screen glory. In Italian, German and French with English subtitles.