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    White Nights

    Reviewed by
    pietroantoni@

    Italian great director Luchino Visconti created a total masterpiece with this 1957 black and white film that aimed and achieved something especially grandiose. Viconti's style was changing rapidly from the now almost dead neo-realism of Italian film. With White Nights, the English title, he had completely transformed what was once so indelibly known as the Visconti look and feel. Mr. Visconti wisely referred to this film as NEO-INTIMISMO, something hard to miss in this grand work. Le Notti bianche has two very young but mesmerizing stars in MARIA SCHELL and the overly gifted MARCELLO MASTROIANI who play restless souls who meet by night in what is supposed to be LIVORNO, Italy. Obviously something happens between the two. French great Jean Marais is like a third wheel in very key scenes of the movie. Though Visconti was hardly a pessimist he seems to be pointing out in White Nights that any type of affair is nothing more than SELF-DELUSION. This is rather harsh but the director based + envisioned the film on a Dostoyevsky short story, though updated. There is almost a fairy tale quality to this film without ever intending to be such. Yet we get lost in the lives of these timeless creatures like children do in fairy tales. Our interest in them becomes enormous; we actually come to care for them; love them, worry about them and the fragile world they inhabit... The film is shot, as earlier stated, in the most sumptuous B+W cinematography, on sound stages in Rome. There is literally not a single frame filmed outdoors. The sets and art decoration are so beautiful, of such inspiration, real yet at the same time like some Utopia as to take the breath away. Sorry! The art director's name won't come to mind. Another great aspect of the film is the costume and make-up design by Academy Award winner, PIERO TOSI, who is still alive. NINO ROTA, as usual, wrote a wrenching romantic musical score that can be quite haunting. I loved the main theme. As the film ends the crescendo of his music adds so much to what and how we are feeling. You will never believe this masterful creation could possibly have been shot indoors, I suppose, at CINECITTA, Italy's Hollywood sound stages. You can't get a film any more perfect than LE NOTTI BIANCHE!

    10
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    pietroantoni@  5.11.2014 age: 36-49 14,540 reviews

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