Luchino Visconti: Life as in a Romance

The documentary on Luchino Visconti examines the extraordinary life of the great artist, an existence that ran parallel to his works, either by analogy or from a distance. His films, plays and operas hearken back to the sites of his childhood, adolescent years and youth: the family palazzo on Milan’s Via Cervia, the Villa Erba in Cernobbio, the Grazzano Castle, Paris at the time of Renoir and Chanel, the locations of the recurring Proustian dream all establish the territory and the extraordinary backdrop against which a natural talent gradually develops and comes into the limelight, always guided by an unruly anger and a creative genius. Seen in this light, the many excerpts from Visconti’s films and plays found in Lizzani’s documentary -  La terra trema, Ossessione, La caduta degli Dei, Senso, Le notti bianche, Gruppo di famiglia in un interno - become crystal clear. Additional materials from international film libraries show what took place behind the scenes of Visconti’s works, featuring figures such as Maria Callas, Thomas Mann, Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio Gassman, as well as Visconti on the set of the Leopard, with Alain Delon on the set of Rocco and his Brothers and with Silvana Mangano for Death in Venice.