Luchino Visconti and the Alchemy of Adaptation (Suny Series, Horizons of Cinema)

__Examines the place of book-to-film adaptations by one of Italy's most famous postwar film directors.__ Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Literary Sources, Cinematic Frameworks Authors, Auteurs, Adaptation Cryptographs and Code-Breakers: Tradition and Invention Part I Neorealist Interiors in Word and Image 1 La terra trema (The Earth Trembles, 1948): Inhabiting The House by the Medlar Tree, from Verga to Visconti Visconti and Political Neorealism before Gramsci: “The Creative Treatment of Actuality” The Home in The House by the Medlar Tree and the Aesthetics of Fragmentation 2 Ossessione (Obsession, 1942): In from the Outside: Literary Interiors in Neorealist Exteriors The Invention of Landscape(s), from Italy to France Public, Private, and Places in Between 3 Senso (1954) and Le notti bianche (White Nights, 1957): Voice and Body: Books through Stars of the Screen Senso: Boito and Valli, Betrayal and History Narrating White Nights, from Him to Her Visconti’s First Super Spectacle Part II The Super-Spectacle Adaptations 4 Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers, 1960): Passion and Pugilism in Visconti’s Boxing Film From Adaptation to a Grammar of the Boxing Film Rocco and His Brothers: Arthouse or Italian Blockbuster? 5 Il Gattopardo (The Leopard, 1963) and Il lavoro (The Job, 1964): Wedding Bestseller with Blockbuster Marriage, Present and Past: Matrimony and Transaction in The Job Readers at the Theater: History, Heritage, and Historical Films 6 La caduta degli dei (Götterdämmerung) (The Damned, 1969): A Queer Macbeth in Nazi Uniform Macbeth, Titan of Industry: Visconti and a Modern Shakespeare Mother to Son: The Damned’s Queer Inheritance Night of the Long Knives Part III The Late Works, Page to Screen 7 Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa (Sandra, 1965) and L’Innocente (The Intruder, 1976): D’Annunzio, Decadence, and Tragic Masculinity The Intruder: Decadence Remastered Volterra: From D’Annunzio to the Gothic Giallo 8 Lo straniero (The Stranger, 1967): Crime and Punishment in a “Failed” Adaptation The Reception of The Stranger, the Film that Illustrated the Novel At the Courthouse: Visconti, Existentialism, and the Transmuted Legal Drama Genuflecting at the Altar of Literature: Worshiping a Novel 9 Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice, 1971): Ode to the Elegant Art of Adaptation Versions of Death in Venice Mahler and Mann, Visconti and His Mother Conclusion: Adaptations of Life and Literature Bibliography Filmography Index Since the beginning, much of Italian cinema has been sustained by transforming literature into moving images. This tradition of literary adaptation continues today, challenging artistic form and practice by pressuring the boundaries that traditionally separate film from its sister arts. In the twentieth century, director Luchino Visconti is a keystone figure in Italy's evolving art of adaptation. From the tumultuous years of Fascism and postwar Neorealism, through the blockbuster decade of the 1960s, into the arthouse masterpieces of the 1970s, Visconti's adaptations marked a distinct pathway of the Italian cinematic imagination. Luchino Visconti and the Alchemy of Adaptation examines these films together with their literary antecedents. Moving past strict book-to-film comparisons, it ponders how literary texts encounter and interact with a history of cultural and cinematic forms, genres, and traditions. Matching the major critical concerns of the postwar period (realism, political filmmaking, cinematic modernism) with more recent notions of adaptation and intermediality, this book reviews how one of Italy's greatest directors mined literary ore for cinematic inspiration.