IMDb RATING
7.4/10
7.9K
YOUR RATING
An Italian Countess is allied with Nationalists during the Italian-Austrian war of unification. However, she risks betraying their cause when she falls in love with an Austrian lieutenant.An Italian Countess is allied with Nationalists during the Italian-Austrian war of unification. However, she risks betraying their cause when she falls in love with an Austrian lieutenant.An Italian Countess is allied with Nationalists during the Italian-Austrian war of unification. However, she risks betraying their cause when she falls in love with an Austrian lieutenant.
- Awards
- 3 wins & 2 nominations
Franco Arcalli
- Un soldato
- (uncredited)
Aldo Bajocchi
- Un soldato
- (uncredited)
Ottone Candiani
- Un soldato
- (uncredited)
Nando Cicero
- Un soldato
- (uncredited)
Claudio Coppetti
- Un soldato
- (uncredited)
Cristoforo De Hartungen
- Il generale Hauptmann
- (uncredited)
Tony Di Mitri
- Un soldato
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe film opens in La Fenice, the Venice opera house. La Fenice was destroyed by arson in 1996, but reopened in 2003. Enlarged frames of this movie were used as a reference in reconstructing it.
- Quotes
Il tenente Franz Mahler: It's too late! It's over! I'm not your romantic hero!
- Alternate versionsTwo versions of the film are available on video.
- One version is missing the scene where Livia tries to explain where all the money meant for the troops went.
- Another version is missing the climatic battle sequence between the Austrian and Italian troops.
- ConnectionsEdited into Histoire(s) du cinéma: La monnaie de l'absolu (1999)
- SoundtracksSinfonia N. 7 in mi maggiore (7th Symphony)
Music by Anton Bruckner
Performed by Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai
Conducted by Franco Ferrara
Featured review
It's no coincidence that the film opens at the opera. In some fine deep shots we are introduced to our characters with the performance in the background - no doubt to establish the stylistic connection. So Visconti, and collaborator Franco Zefferelli, wanted to make an opera without the singing. This gives us grandeur, but rigidity, and even the mini riot that takes place in the opera house at the outset is aesthetically stylised. You need to buy into the approach at this point, and I simply didn't. It just seemed like a bad idea. Opera is a stage spectacle, all about grand gesture, posturing, formality; it cannot transmit subtleties, the format doesn't allow it. Take away the music and you are left with a banal story and a lot of fancy costumery. For Visconti, constantly wanting to remind us of his noble descent, that is enough - his main concern is showing us lavish interior decor, an obsession you'll find either stirring or stifling. For music we get Bruckner, whose indecisive, meandering drone is largely ignorable.
Cinematically, the result is half-baked. Valli walks into a room full of Austrian soldiers. David Lean (who I equate with Visconti to some extent) would have made a significant scene out of this but Visconti just gives us soldiers draped around the place in various unnatural postures, as you might expect. One of them moves and strikes up a different posture as you might expect. It's all cut and pasted from the Manual of Things Seen and Done Before. The camera stays back, wide angle, and doesn't lend much of a hand with the narrative, leaving the players to communicate with exaggerated gesture.
A married Venetian countess falls for a young Austrian army officer - we know from the first scene that he is an utter cad, but she doesn't or rather she does, but being a one dimensional clinging woman she is bound to hurl herself into disastrous folly. Hence the film mainly consists of Valli ringing the emotional changes over her illicit affair. Visconti indulged so much time in this that he must have thought he was dealing with an original topic. Along the way, there's the approaching end of Austrian rule of northern Italy and some slight comment on the collaboration of senior Venetian figures but that point seems hardly worth making after all this time. There is a lengthy section where Valli's cousin (dashing hero figure) rushes on a military errand rather ridiculously right across the battle line of two approaching armies, but this section was apparently heavily edited, rendering it pointless and incomprehensible. The battle scenes are childish a puff of smoke and the nearest two soldiers fall to the ground this happens repeatedly.
The script can't do anything with the stereotypical characters and the one-sentence plot and there are no stand-out lines. This is extraordinary considering the 'English dialogue by Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles'. Probably it was there but smothered by Visconti's operatic technique. One wonders why these writers were attracted to the project (apart from a free holiday in Rome) perhaps they liked the final humiliation of the countess, which is quite harsh even gleefully misogynistic. She gets her own back though, and it seems the moral is that both men and woman, with their impulsive need for each other, no matter how noble the exterior, are stupid, weak and mutually self-destructive. That ridicules everybody (...or does it?).
Funnily enough, the main problem is Alida Valli, who is required to over-emote in every scene (in total contrast to her depressive role in "The Third Man") it's a little unpleasant to watch and she soon begins to annoy. She doesn't look right at all during the romance too hard-edged. Farley Granger was actually the main point of interest. His slight woodenness suits the impossibly white uniform and cape he was made to wear (what sort of wash-powder did they have in those days?), and in the climactic drunken scene (enhanced by a delightful whore - the highlight of the film) he did as well as anyone could have done under a direction that demanded over-amplification of every attempted nuance. And his eyes expressed something beyond the paltry plot of the film as if betraying that this Italian job was an odd, intense experience for him for one reason or another. So, for all the film's grandeur, all I was left with was some vague speculation of a personal nature about one of its players. Perhaps his story relating to the real world - is the film Visconti should have made.
Cinematically, the result is half-baked. Valli walks into a room full of Austrian soldiers. David Lean (who I equate with Visconti to some extent) would have made a significant scene out of this but Visconti just gives us soldiers draped around the place in various unnatural postures, as you might expect. One of them moves and strikes up a different posture as you might expect. It's all cut and pasted from the Manual of Things Seen and Done Before. The camera stays back, wide angle, and doesn't lend much of a hand with the narrative, leaving the players to communicate with exaggerated gesture.
A married Venetian countess falls for a young Austrian army officer - we know from the first scene that he is an utter cad, but she doesn't or rather she does, but being a one dimensional clinging woman she is bound to hurl herself into disastrous folly. Hence the film mainly consists of Valli ringing the emotional changes over her illicit affair. Visconti indulged so much time in this that he must have thought he was dealing with an original topic. Along the way, there's the approaching end of Austrian rule of northern Italy and some slight comment on the collaboration of senior Venetian figures but that point seems hardly worth making after all this time. There is a lengthy section where Valli's cousin (dashing hero figure) rushes on a military errand rather ridiculously right across the battle line of two approaching armies, but this section was apparently heavily edited, rendering it pointless and incomprehensible. The battle scenes are childish a puff of smoke and the nearest two soldiers fall to the ground this happens repeatedly.
The script can't do anything with the stereotypical characters and the one-sentence plot and there are no stand-out lines. This is extraordinary considering the 'English dialogue by Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles'. Probably it was there but smothered by Visconti's operatic technique. One wonders why these writers were attracted to the project (apart from a free holiday in Rome) perhaps they liked the final humiliation of the countess, which is quite harsh even gleefully misogynistic. She gets her own back though, and it seems the moral is that both men and woman, with their impulsive need for each other, no matter how noble the exterior, are stupid, weak and mutually self-destructive. That ridicules everybody (...or does it?).
Funnily enough, the main problem is Alida Valli, who is required to over-emote in every scene (in total contrast to her depressive role in "The Third Man") it's a little unpleasant to watch and she soon begins to annoy. She doesn't look right at all during the romance too hard-edged. Farley Granger was actually the main point of interest. His slight woodenness suits the impossibly white uniform and cape he was made to wear (what sort of wash-powder did they have in those days?), and in the climactic drunken scene (enhanced by a delightful whore - the highlight of the film) he did as well as anyone could have done under a direction that demanded over-amplification of every attempted nuance. And his eyes expressed something beyond the paltry plot of the film as if betraying that this Italian job was an odd, intense experience for him for one reason or another. So, for all the film's grandeur, all I was left with was some vague speculation of a personal nature about one of its players. Perhaps his story relating to the real world - is the film Visconti should have made.
- federovsky
- May 2, 2008
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- The Wanton Contessa
- Filming locations
- Teatro La Fenice, Venice, Veneto, Italy(opening scenes)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- ITL 700,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $27,723
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $3,984
- Oct 28, 2018
- Gross worldwide
- $27,723
- Runtime2 hours 3 minutes
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