White Nights (1957)

This film is also showing at our sister cinema, Ritz Cinemas

Australian Premiere - 4K Restoration

‘A crucial turning point, the link between Visconti’s early neorealist manner and the obsessive stylization of his late films.’ – Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

‘The city of Visconti’s film is a palimpsest in which postwar modernity … is superimposed on the ruins of the city’s gothic past.’ – Michael Sooriyakumaran, Bright Lights Film Journal

In a Tuscan port city, young drifter Mario (Marcello Mastroianni) passes a woman, Natalia (Maria Schell), in tears on a bridge. Over the following evenings, they meet in the same place, and she confides the reason for her vigil: she is waiting for a man whose promise to return has not been kept. Although he is developing feelings of his own, Mario offers to act as her intermediary, bringing ever closer the inevitable moment that they must part – or, perhaps, fall into one another’s arms.

An adaptation of a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Luchino Visconti’s nocturnal fantasy evokes classic French films of the 1940s in his use of studio sets and high-contrast lighting – a far cry from the Neorealism that had dominated the Italian cinema of the past decade. Yet, amid this heightened artificiality, the aching of human longing shines through.

Introduced by Adrian Danks at Lido Cinemas and Ivan Cerecina at Ritz Cinemas.

Presented in cooperation with the Italian Institute of Sydney and the Italian Institute of Melbourne.

Rating

Unclassified 18+

Duration

102 min

Country

Italy, France

Language

Italian (English subtitles)

Cast

Marcello Mastroianni, Maria Schell, Jean Marais, Clara Calamai, Dirk Sanders, Marcella Rovena, Maria Zanoli

Director

Luchino Visconti