About

Senso will screen from an imported 35mm film print.

Inspired by his parallel career as a director of opera, Visconti’s first foray into the mode of opulent costume dramas is an extravagant Technicolor triumph. Senso vividly renders a 19th century romance between an Italian countess (Alida Valli of The Third Man 1949 fame) and an officer of the Austrian army (Hollywood heartthrob Farley Granger) in the midst of a war between the two states.

With the visual resplendence of its ornate costuming and lush cinematography, the film marked a sharp departure from Visconti’s earlier work as a documenter of the destitute and downtrodden. Yet the film retains the director’s keen sense of socio-political context, placing the high melodrama of the two lovers’ courting against the tumult of the violent struggle for Italian unification – a historical milieu to which Visconti would return with his masterpiece The Leopard 1963.

Ages 15+