Italian director’s universality visible in archive’s showcase

The wildly popular Italian cinema class, known informally to
students as “Sex and Politics” and formally as Italian
46, has introduced many undergraduates to great cinematic legends
such as Roberto Rossellini and Bernardo Bertolucci.

Another director, who is not typically on the syllabus but of
equal stature and importance, is Luchino Visconti. Starting Friday
and continuing throughout the month, the UCLA Film and Television
Archive will be showcasing all the director’s films on campus
at the James Bridges Theatre.

“Visconti is one of the most important Italian filmmakers
of the 20th century,” said Archive Programmer David
Pendleton. “We’ve wanted to do a retrospective on him
for a long time.”

Visconti, named by both Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese
as major influences, is known for his stark dichotomies in his
filmmaking. While he was born an aristocrat and many of his films
exude indulgence, he was politically left-leaning and a
self-proclaimed Marxist. Visconti was one of the founders of the
neo-realist movement and, in fact, exposed the world to one of the
first examples of film noir. He later drifted toward the operatic
and the melodramatic.

“He doesn’t fit neatly into any major movements or
schools,” Pendleton said.

While it may be hard to categorize his work in any specific
movement, it’s clear he was the king of consummate attention
to detail. He wanted every nuance of his films to be real ““
vodka bottles really pour vodka and newspapers only read the
correct dates. These attributes have contributed to the mythology
that surrounds Visconti and his vastly diverse range of films.

The first to be screened, “The Leopard,” features
American movie star Burt Lancaster as a Sicilian prince attempting
to hold on to his eroding aristocratic power. The screening marks
the Los Angeles premiere of Fox’s restoration of the film.
Although it received less than stellar reviews by the American
press, it was able to capture top honors at the Cannes Film
Festival in 1963.

“Visconti addresses the conflict between tradition and
modernity,” Pendleton said. “After Italy underwent
rapid industrialization, there was a clash with traditional values.
This universal theme is at the heart of many Visconti
films.”

After “The Leopard,” the screenings proceed in a
somewhat chronological order to show Visconti’s progression
as a filmmaker.

His four films form an even further departure for the
indefinable director. He abandons themes of contemporary society
and instead concentrates on the past. “Death in
Venice,” the first of Visconti’s last four films, is a
shining example of a reflection on history and social change and
how families are in turn affected.

“Visconti’s focus on family, history and social
change is more than evident in Coppola’s “˜The
Godfather’ and Scorsese’s “˜Mean Streets’
and “˜The Age of Innocence,'” Pendleton said.
“What makes Visconti so appealing, and so Italian, is his
sense of spectacle.”