Senso (1954) Directed by Luchino Visconti
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Gone With the Vento By Fearless Young Orphan Senso (1954) Directed by Luchino Visconti Oh thank god – an Italian movie from the 1950s that isn’t wallowing in Neorealism. This is far more Gone with the Wind than The Bicycle Thief. Senso is a voluptuous, sweeping epic of tragic love in the middle of war, focusing on a beautiful countess and her ill-fated love affair with an enemy officer. I probably have your attention already, no? Find your way to this film if you love pageantry and opulence, high melodrama, and a frantic woman with an utterly shattered heart. Contessa Livia Serpieri is the toast of Venice, a beautiful woman who is a prize showpiece for her rich husband. She has charmed the socks off a number of Austrian military leaders, who are occupying Venice most civilly. Alida Valli is the actress in the part, an incredibly sexy, unusually beautiful woman whom I first saw in Eyes Without a Face many weeks back. I like her beauty because it’s not standard; I can’t see myself mistaking her for anyone else or vice versa. She’s got a series of costumes that make me go all girly, too – I’d never want to have to wear those enormous skirts and all those veils and things, but they are so much fun to look at, and her face is so strong that she is never overpowered by her wardrobe. Yikes, it seems as if I’m getting a bit off-topic! Sorry, I do have that feminine gene that is more interested in clothes than it should be. You may well be yawning and wishing I’d shut up about dresses and get on with the plot, but I must say that her incredible wardrobe is really a rather important part of the goings-on. She’s rich and immaculately turned out, her clothing announcing her status, and sometimes the weight of those dresses seems to bear down on her. She always has people trying to shove shawls on her, or strip veils off of her. It’s interesting to watch her ruin all those dresses for the sake of a man. Who is the man? That’s Franz Mahler. You’ll know his name is Franz because Livia will wail it about a thousand times. Franz, Franz, Franz! Livia’s cousin is an Italian patriot who lands himself in trouble by insulting the occupying Austrian officers, namely Franz Mahler. Livia adores her cousin and tries to use her feminine wiles to persuade Franz not to demand a duel. Franz has already made a reputation for himself around Venice as a ladies’ man. The actor is Farley Granger, with a young handsome face and a roguish charm that works its magic on Livia. After a few minutes she is pointedly not looking at him. Then after a few days, she is seeking him out at his barracks, ostensibly to continue pleading for her cousin’s sake. But probably not really. They stand rather close together. They talk easily. They take a walk together that lasts until the wee morning hours. Livia’s cousin is exiled rather than killed, but Livia keeps showing up to see Franz anyway. Then they are having an affair. We see them together in a hotel. At this point Livia is being smart about this, or at least she seems to have a grip on what she’s doing. She meets Franz and they have a very sexy, physical relationship (it’s clean but quite suggestive for the 1950s, especially when compared to American films of the same era), but Livia states that she knows it cannot last, that each time they meet might be the very last time. Franz is less fatalistic about it, but we get the feeling that his confidence in the affair is not because he trusts it so deeply, but because when push comes to shove, he doesn’t really care. There’s something too greedy about the way he eyes the present she gives him, the way he won’t try to comfort her. One day, Franz fails to arrive for their regularly- scheduled tryst, and there’s no sign of him and no message. Livia is fretful, angry, hurt, worried, miserable. She lurks through the barracks again trying to find him, her ladylike dignity slipping away from her, crushed under her own reckless passion. I’m starting to sound as breathy and melodramatic as the movie itself. Now, I sympathize with Livia’s plight. There’s nothing quite as devastating or infuriating as the end-of-an- affair with a man who is too cowardly to simply say, “It’s over.” Does Livia love Franz? She says she loves him terribly but this doesn’t seem like love to me, as much as an addiction to the way he makes her feel (young, beautiful, adventurous) and when he vanishes, she loses her sense of self. If she were playing things smart, she’d let herself feel crappy for a while and then be done with it, chalking it up to experience and a few nice memories. In fact she almost manages just that. She and her husband the count must move out of Venice because the war has begun between Austria and Italy. They take refuge at a country estate in Tuscany where Livia can lick her wounds. But then who should show up on her balcony but Franz, full of excuses and tender words. He’s so obvious about his motives that even Livia must be able to see this. He might as well be twirling a Snidely Whiplash mustache, the way his shifty greedy eyes are darting around. At first Livia remains strong, angry, tells him to go away. She doesn’t want him hurt but she doesn’t want him to stay. Yet Franz wears her down with his pleas and excuses. What is Livia thinking at this point? I think we get to make up our own interpretation of her actions: she hides Franz in their barn, she protects him from discovery. Does she really believe he has come back to her for good? Or is she just resigned to deal with him, whether or not he’s come back for good, in exchange for the fact that she feels alive when she is with him? I liked the first half of the film more than the second, because in this second hour things become sordid and unhappy indeed. We just want to give Livia a hard shake and say, “Snap out of it!” Livia’s revolutionary cousin has put her in charge of funds for the rebellion, a bag of gold coins and jewelry, but when Franz convinces Livia that he must have money to have himself declared unfit for service (he is afraid of going into battle), she gives him the bag. You can see the flare of damnation in her eyes; she knows she has just betrayed her country for the sake of this fickle man. Personally, I think she knows that this is going to end badly. Personally, I think she’d rather suffer a bad ending than go on living a life of dull nothingness. War rages around Tuscany, and Livia sends Franz off to safety with his bag full of ill-gotten gold. He says he’ll write to her when it’s safe for her to join him. Livia can’t wait that long. Franz was stupid to think that she would. Livia takes off in a carriage for the city, determined to be with her love no matter what. Her carriage ride is a miserable one, but it has a striking moment in it, when she allows herself a few moments to imagine how wonderful things could be, if all goes according to her desires. The smile on her face is the saddest moment in the film. Because honestly, she can’t be so naïve – I don’t think she is – and neither are we, because we all know what she’s going to find when she reaches Franz. Livia looks devastated, sure. But notice that she does not look especially surprised. Senso will probably feel over-the-top to some, with too much hysterical wailing and crying of Livia, too much casual disregard from Franz, too much of scene after scene of unhappy Livia stumbling around back alleys as she tries to find a way to carry on or wreak revenge. It’s hard to be sympathetic with Livia because she so obviously made her own bed, so to speak, and now must lie in it, preferably without all that caterwauling. Then again, when haven’t people acted stupid for the sake of love? Love and desire make idiots out of us all. Don’t think Franz is going to get off scot-free, either. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Bosom-heaving romance and soapy wartime drama are what you will find here, in a beautiful film with a distinctly operatic feel about it. In fact it begins with an opera and that sets the stage for the wide-open despair that follows. It’s gorgeous, acted to the hilt, more and more tragic by the moment. You know if you can stand this sort of thing or not – if you can, then Senso is perfect for your indulgence. .