Luchino Visconti
My mother googles the film hero of her youth: Helmut Berger. She is shocked: only an addicted shadow of the former icon seems to be left. She decides to halt the obvious catastrophic decline of the once “most handsome man in the world”. As a consequence, this one-time god of the screen is suddenly sitting on my mother’s sofa in Nordsehl in Lower Saxony. And he stays put - for several months. While he trustingly rolls out his whole life before us, the dividing lines between film team, world star and family intermingle. This is a film about ageing, rising and falling - and about the fact that it is sometimes possible to regain an element of dignity in life.
Major actress of the New Wave, Anna Karina is bound to the great renewal of cinema in the 60’s. Her companion in life, revisits the story of her life. The film integrates her portrait in the story of her time, but is also a love letter to the woman that shares his life since over 20 years. Dennis Berry revisits the story of her memories with Jean-Luc Godard and the great directors she knew, her memorable meeting with Serge Gainsbourg, and also, more recently, her singer career. With a gaze halfway between mischief and severity, the New Wave's Danish muse embodied a new feminity – deeply linked with women's liberation.
This revealing documentary from director Philippe Kohly examines the storied life of renowned soprano Maria Callas, from her troubled childhood in New York City to her scandal-laden but triumphant international career in opera. Featuring archival interviews with Callas herself and footage of contemporaries such as her lover Aristotle Onassis, this celebration of "La Divina" pays tribute to her enduring legacy some three decades after her death.
Traces the life of Anna Magnani, her creations, her successes, her triumphs, her boycotted career, her nonconformism, her anxieties, her generosity ... Punctuated with photos that tell her career in theater and cinema, Extracts of films, this documentary portrait also gives the floor to his friends and relatives, from Roberto Rossellini to Marcello Mastroianni, through Federico Fellini.
Narrated by cinema legend Franco Zeffirelli, this intimate made-for-television documentary traces the life and times of the mercurial Maria Callas, one of the most renowned and respected operatic divas of the mid-20th century. Rare authentic footage, candid interviews and breathtaking performances help paint a portrait of an artist remembered as much for her quick and explosive temper as she is for her immeasurable talent.
Tullio Hermil is a chauvinist aristocrat who flaunts his mistress to his wife, but when he believes she has been unfaithful he becomes enamored of her again.
A retired professor of American origin lives a solitary life in a luxurious palazzo in Rome. He is confronted by a vulgar Italian marchesa and her lover, her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend, and forced to rent to them an apartment on the upper floor of his palazzo. From this point on his quiet routine is turned into chaos by his tenants' machinations, and everybody's life takes an unexpected but inevitable turn.
Historical evocation of Ludwig, king of Bavaria, from his crowning in 1864 until his death in 1886, as a romantic hero. Fan of Richard Wagner, betrayed by him, in love with his cousin Elisabeth of Austria, abandonned by her, tormented by his homosexuality, he will little by little slip towards madness.
Composer Gustav von Aschenbach, travels to Venice for health reasons. There, he becomes obsessed with the stunning beauty of an adolescent Polish boy named Tadzio who is staying with his family at the same Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido as Aschenbach.
Documentary on Luchino Visconti's travels and auditions in search for a young actor to portray the role of Tadzio in his adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice", finally choosing Swedish actor Björn Andrésen.
A behind-the-scenes documentary produced during the original release of the film. The promotional piece features interviews with director Luchino Visconti and actor Dirk Bogarde as they discuss the filmmaking process involved in bringing Death in Venice to life.
In the early days of Nazi Germany, a powerful noble family must adjust to life under the new dictatorship regime.
The Stranger is a literal (but still very cinematic) adaptation of the novel by Albert Camus. Marcello Mastrioanni stars as Meursault, a man who feels utterly isolated from everyone and everything around him. This alienation results in sudden, inexplicable bursts of violence, culminating in murder. The subsequent trial of Meursault manages to convey the oppressive heat of its Algerian setting with director Luchino Visconti's usual veneer of elegant decadence. Though set in the 1930s, the sensibilities of the film were very much attuned to the 1960s: the problem was that Camus' sentiments had been adopted by so many other filmmakers of the period that The Stranger seemed rather commonplace. The film was originally released in Italy as Lo Staniero.
Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from women and lust from men. A woman offers to take an injured man to the hospital. A widowed father and his son seek for a new wife/mother. A man seeks revenge for a woman's honor. A bored housewife tries to explain to her husband that he's not as romantic as he used to be.
BBC television program exploring Visconti’s mastery of cinema, theater, and opera direction.
Sandra comes back to Volterra, in Tuscany, the little town where she spent her childhood. She is with her American husband, Andrew. She wishes to pay homage to her father who died in Auschwitz where she was still a little child. In Volterra, Andrew meets for the first time Gianni, Sandra's brother. He soon realizes that Sandra and Gianni have a secret since their childhood. (IMDb)
As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.
An anthology of four adult tales: a young couple tries to hide their marriage and the wife’s supposed pregnancy from their place of employment; a billboard photo of a scantily clad woman comes to life to torment the local censor; a lottery is held in which the prize is to spend the night with a beautiful woman; an aristocratic couple comes to terms with life and marriage after the domineering husband is caught visiting sex workers by the press.
When a widow’s family moves to the big city, two of her sons become romantic rivals, with deadly results.
A lonely city transplant, and 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.
On the evening of March 11, 1950, Annabella Bracci, a 12-year-old girl, was brutally killed and thrown into a pit on the outskirts of Rome, near the village of Primavalle. A brief and poetic account of the events and their impact on an impoverished community. A handful of wild flowers and a painful catch in the voices.
Five portraits of actresses in their "common" life, seen as women rather than movie stars.
Bellissima is a satire of the film industry, and centers on a mother and daughter after the latter attends an audition.
In rural Sicily, the fishermen live at the mercy of the greedy wholesalers. One family risks everything to buy their own boat and operate independently.
Gino, a drifter, begins an affair with inn-owner Giovanna as they plan to get rid of her older husband.
The family of a Parisian shop-owner spends a day in the country. The daughter falls in love with a man at the inn, where they spend the day.
A Dominique Maillet's documentary about Visconti in the set of "Conversation Piece".
'The Troubador' is Luchino Visconti's 1964 production of the Giuseppe Verdi Opera.
