Saturday | June 16, 2018 7:00 pm

Senso

Screening on Film
Recently Restored

Directed by Luchino Visconti.
With Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Massimo Girotti.
Italy, 1954, 35mm, color, 123 min.
Italian with English subtitles.
Print source: Rialto Pictures

Visconti’s first outing in color scintillates from the beginning, with tricolor confetti raining down on Austrian troops in a crowded Venetian opera house. Senso traces a “graphic” relationship between the Countess Serpieri—Alida Valli dressed from veil-to-toe in the darkest hues—and the young Austrian Lieutenant Franz Mahler (Farley Granger) decked out in his gleaming white uniform. A monumental work worthy of von Sternberg and Kazan, this film represents yet another enormous stylistic leap, bringing its director closer to his golden run of 1960s masterpieces.