Λευκές Νύχτες

trolleyfreak5.0

10 Reasons why I adore Luchino Visconti's Le Notti Bianche: 1. It's the second radical film interpretation of a Fyodor Dostoyevsky story (in this case his short work White Nights) from the '50s, equal in quality to Akira Kurosawa's tremendous version of The Idiot (1951).2. Despite having a CV littered with such masterpieces as Ossessione, La Terra Trema, Senso, Rocco And His Brothers and The Leopard, none of them contains the romantic longing of this picture.3. It's entirely studio-bound with one of the most gorgeous, elaborate and claustrophobic sets you could ever wish to see, recreating a typical '50s Italian street complete with gas stations, shops, bars and restaurants and neon signs, creating a deliberately artificial setting.4. The crisp black and white photography and lighting produces a dreamy 'look' reminiscent of the poetic realist pictures produced in France in the '30s by directors of the calibre of Jacques Feyder, Julien Duvivier, Marcel Carné and Jean Renoir.5. It contains one of the greatest spontaneous dance sequences in a non-musical that's ever been filmed, comparable to more famous dance scenes in Jean-Luc Godard's Band Of Outsiders and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction: youtu.be/qLJ9U_AcDnc6. The impressive way in which the natural elements play such a prominent part and help to set the atmosphere for each night's encounter: torrential rain, fog, wind and the most sublime and magical snowfall I've ever seen in a movie.7. The perfect pairing of a handsome Marcello Mastroianni - on the cusp of international stardom - as the lonely dreamer, with the bewitching, childlike, maddening but always ethereal Maria Schell: one of the most photogenic screen couples in cinema history.8. The casting of the tall, striking and brooding Jean Marais - muse of Jean Cocteau - as possibly the only man you could imagine a woman passing over Mastroianni for, and the ghostly cameo from Clara Calamai - star of Visconti's debut picture Ossessione - as a street walker who always seems to be in Mastroianni's orbit.9. The aching beauty of Nino Rota's elegant score.10. The perfect and bittersweet 'full circle' ending where Mastroianni is left in the company of the dog he meets at the beginning of the picture.Online Access: ok.ru/video/1670956517998

Edgar Cochran ✝️🍋4.5

Five reasons to watch Visconti's lightest and most tender romance movie:1) Fyodor Dostoyevsky.2) Nino Rota's mysterious score.2) The most dream-like and romantic use of snow in a black-and-white feature.4) Maria Schell's laugh.5) Marcello Mastroianni's dance move improvisation.94/100

Eric Eidelstein4.5

When you're lonely it's a simple thing to project all of your desires onto a person — perhaps a beautiful person you run into on a bridge — and call that love. Visconti's film isn't a tragic love story. Rather, it's a film about the comfort we find in our delusions and obsessions. It seems safer to convince yourself you're madly in love with someone who will never love you back, who is too stupid to love you back, than cope with the fact that you're alone and unwanted. Eventually, if you're smart — and Marcello Mastroianni's Mario is too far gone — you realize that your obsessiveness, your ceaseless desire to connect with someone who is incapable of connecting back, hurts even more than being stuck with yourself.