Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian filmmaker, theatre and opera director, and screenwriter. He was one of the fathers of cinematic neorealism, but later moved towards luxurious, sweeping epics dealing with themes of beauty, decadence, death, and European history, especially the decay of the nobility and the bourgeoisie. Critic Jonathan Jones wrote that “no one did as much to shape Italian cinema as Luchino Visconti.”
Teatro La Fenice is a historic opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice became the site of many famous operatic premieres at which the works of several of the four major bel canto era composers—Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi—were performed.
My Voyage to Italy is a personal documentary by acclaimed Italian-American director Martin Scorsese. The film is a voyage through Italian cinema history, marking influential films for Scorsese and particularly covering the Italian neorealism period.
Alida Maria Laura, Freiin Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg, better known by her stage name Alida Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films in a 70-year career, spanning from the 1930s to the early 2000s. She was one of the biggest stars of Italian film during the Fascist era, once being coined "the most beautiful woman in the world" by Benito Mussolini, but managed to find continued international success post-World War II. According to Frédéric Mitterrand, Valli was the only actress in Europe to equal Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo.
Ludwig is a 1973 English-language epic biographical drama film co-written and directed by Luchino Visconti. The film stars Helmut Berger as King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Romy Schneider as Empress Elisabeth of Austria, along with Trevor Howard, Silvana Mangano, Helmut Griem, and Gert Fröbe. It is the third and final part of Visconti's "German Trilogy", following The Damned (1969) and Death in Venice (1971).
Camillo Boito was an Italian architect and engineer, and a noted art critic, art historian and novelist. He was the brother of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi's friend and librettist Arrigo Boito.
Death in Venice is a 1971 historical drama film directed and produced by Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti, and adapted by Visconti and Nicola Badalucco from the 1912 novella of the same name by German author Thomas Mann. It stars Dirk Bogarde as Gustav von Aschenbach and Björn Andrésen as Tadzio, with supporting roles played by Mark Burns, Marisa Berenson, and Silvana Mangano, and was filmed in Technicolor by Pasqualino De Santis. The soundtrack consists of selections from Gustav Mahler's third and fifth symphonies, but characters in the film also perform pieces by Franz Lehár, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Modest Mussorgsky. Preceded by The Damned (1969) and followed by Ludwig (1973), the film is the second part of Visconti's thematic "German Trilogy".
Senso is an Italian novella by Camillo Boito, an Italian author and architect. He wrote it around 1882. The novella develops a disturbing account of indiscriminate indulgence in selfish sensuality. The word "senso" is Italian for "sense," "feeling," or "lust." The title refers to the delight Livia experiences while reflecting on her affair with a handsome lieutenant. The novella is typical of Scapigliatura literature, which was at its peak at the time.
Mahler is a 1974 British biographical film based on the life of Austro-Bohemian composer Gustav Mahler. It was written and directed by Ken Russell for Goodtimes Enterprises, and starred Robert Powell as Gustav Mahler and Georgina Hale as Alma Mahler. The film was entered into the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Technical Grand Prize.
Scapigliatura is the name of an artistic movement that developed in Italy after the Risorgimento period (1815–71). The movement included poets, writers, musicians, painters and sculptors. The term Scapigliatura is the Italian equivalent of the French "bohème" (bohemian), and "Scapigliato" literally means "unkempt" or "dishevelled". Most of these authors have never been translated into English, hence in most cases this entry cannot have and has no detailed references to specific sources from English books and publications. However, a list of sources from Italian academic studies of the subject is included, as is a list of the authors' main works in Italian.
The Glass Mountain is a 1949 black and white British romantic film drama directed by Henry Cass. It starred Michael Denison, Dulcie Gray and Valentina Cortese. The film was a popular success of its day, and was re-released in the UK in 1950 and 1953. It features acclaimed classical vocalists Elena Rizzieri as herself and Tito Gobbi as himself, with the orchestra and chorus of the Venice Opera House. The theme music by Nino Rota is memorable, and was also a contemporary hit. It was mainly filmed on location in the Dolomites and at Venice's La Fenice Opera House. Co-producer Joseph Janni also co-produced another film shot in Italy, the comedy Honeymoon Deferred, in 1951.
Conversation Piece is a 1974 drama film directed, co-written, and produced by Luchino Visconti. It stars Burt Lancaster, Helmut Berger, Silvana Mangano, and Romolo Valli; with cameo appearances by Claudia Cardinale and Dominique Sanda. The film explores such themes as the collision between old and new, imminence of death, existential crises, and the sociopolitical gap between generations. The title refers to an informal group portrait, especially those painted in Britain in the 18th century, beginning in the 1720s.
Sissi – Fateful Years of an Empress is a 1957 Austrian film directed by Ernst Marischka and starring Romy Schneider, Karlheinz Böhm, Magda Schneider, Gustav Knuth and Josef Meinrad, costumes by Gerdago. It was entered into the 1958 Cannes Film Festival.
Marcella Mariani was an Italian actress and Miss Italy contest winner. Though she appeared in several popular movies and was garnering acclaim as an actress, her career was cut short by her death in a 1955 airliner crash.
Giancarlo Zagni was an Italian director and screenwriter.
The list of the 100 Italian films to be saved was created with the aim to report "100 films that have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978". Film preservation, or film restoration, describes a series of ongoing efforts among film historians, archivists, museums, cinematheques, and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images they contain. In the widest sense, preservation assures that a movie will continue to exist in as close to its original form as possible.
Salvo D'Angelo was an Italian film producer. He also worked as an art director and production designer.
Le braci ("Embers") is a 2015 Italian opera by Marco Tutino after the novel Embers by Sándor Márai.
Senso '45 is an Italian erotic drama film written and directed by Tinto Brass, based on the novella Senso by Camillo Boito, which also inspired Luchino Visconti's 1954 film.
