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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion At Victoria University College, Wellington, N. Z. Vol. 24, No. 4. 1961

Film Review — "Lopt and Cropped"

Film Review

"Lopt and Cropped"

It is not surprising that The Wanton Countess (or Senso, to give it its Italian title) ran for only one week at the Paramount, for in its present form it is a considerable feat of endurance; nothing more than a melodramatic love story with a historical setting, beautiful costumes, and lushly romantic background music lifted from Bruckner's Seventh Symphony.

Set in 1866 in Austrian-occupied Venice, the film is based on an insignificant story by Camillo Boito, but altered in detail and emphasis. The plot describes the passion of the unhappily married young Countess Serpieri for the worthless and immoral Lieutenant Mahler and the tragic results of her obsession. She is Italian and he Austrian, and the emphasis is on her conflict of emotions; the guilt she feels at betraying her social position and country and her desperation on realising the way her obsession is killing her dignity and pride.

Directed by Luchino Visconti, the original film was cut not only by the Italians for political reasons, but also by the British distributors, censor and Lord knows who else—there are about 20 minutes missing. After the opening a brilliantly handled patriotic demonstration during a performance of II Trovatore at the Fenice, one's anticipation, excited by the skilful colour photography (Krasker and Aldo) falters as the characters open their mouths. The titles claimed that the English dialogue is by Tennessee Williams.

Well, frankly it is now damn awful. Would-be high flown sentiment is expressed in appallingly trite conventionalities. (Farley Granger and Alida Valli originally used English, which was dubbed in Italian and then redubbed in English once more).

Overseas reviewers mention various scenes In the original which are not included in this print—key scenes before the Battle of Custozza, during the execution of Franz Mahler, and other important ones clarifying passages in the plot which at present are hard to explain satisfactorily. Thus, the Countess appears to develop her passion within a few minutes, and some incidents (e.g. the finding of an assassinated Austrian officer by the couple during the initial moments of growing infatuation) are isolated from the main action.

Some hint of how exciting Jie original might have been is given by the excellent handling of the Custozza battle episodes, the scenes of drunken soldiers near the end of the film, the encounter of the Countess with the prostitute at Franz's rooms, and one or two strikingly composed group scenes.

Essentially the story of two people only, credibility depends heavily on the expertise of the two principals. Alida Valli is over-emotional at times, over straining for effect, but she does impart the hysterical distraction of a woman torn by passion and conflict and on the verge of nervous collapse. The performance by Farley Granger, on the other hand, is embarrassingly incompetent and inadequate. It is destitute of any emotional conviction, hollow and meagre in its range of expression.

The costumes and sets are magnificent and the colour skilfully and never ostentatiously used (Note, for example, the effect of the Countess' lustrously dark gown, veil and hat), but all the film's virtues are minor—it is useless to pretend that it has any significant merit as it stands now. The mutilation to which it has been subjected has effectively ruined any structure or design the original work might have had.

Visconti himself made some pertinent remarks to two reporters from Cahiers du Cinema when recently in Paris. He said, "First and foremost, it's Senso slanted towards the historical aspect. I even wanted it to be called Custozza, after the name of a great Italian military defeat. That caused an outcry; from Lux (the production company), from the Ministry, from the censors. So at the outset the battle had much greater importance. My idea was to mount a whole tableau of Italian history, against which the personal story of Countess Serpieri would stand out, though basically she was only representative of a particular class. What interested me was to tell the story of a war which ended in disaster and which was the work of a single class.

"The first final version was quite different from the one seen today. It didn't end for instance, with the death of Franz: we saw Livia pass through groups of drunken soldiers, and the very end showed a little Austrian soldier—very young, 16 or thereabouts, blind drunk, propped up against a wall, and singing a song of victory . . . Then he stopped and cried and went on crying and finally shouted: "Long live Austria!"

"Guallino, my producer and a very sympathetic man, came to watch the shooting. He muttered behind my back: 'Dangerous, dangerous." Perhaps. But for me this was the perfect finish! We left Franz to his own affairs, we didn't give a damn for Franz! It didn't matter in the least whether he was killed or not. We left him after the scene in the room where he shows himself in his true colours. Pointless that he should be shot. We watched her instead, running to denounce him and then escaping into the streets. She passed among whores, becoming a sort of whore herself, going from one soldier to another. Then she fled, shouting: 'Franz, Franz!' And we moved on to the little soldier who stood for all those who paid the price of victory' and who was really crying, weeping and shouting 'Long live Austria!'

"But I had to cut it The negative was burnt. Thousands were spent filming Franz's death. I shot it at the Castle of Sant' Angelo in Rome, because we couldn't manage Verona. I tried to .do the best I could with it, but for me this isn't the end of Senso.

"There were other changes made in my script . . . And if they're going to cut everything that matters, then it's not worth the trouble of making films."

(Footnote: Why doesn't the Paramount show its films on a properly dimensioned screen instead of cropping the image to try and make a wide screen presentation out of it?)

A. W. Everard (V.U.F.S.)

Sketch of glasses and hat with letter F on front