Le notti bianche (1957)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Luchino Visconti

Writers:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (novel)
Suso Cecchi d'Amico (story) ...

Release Date:

28 May 1961 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

A humble clerk courts a woman who night after night awaits for the return of her lover.

Plot Keywords:

Love | Snow | Dance | Older Man Younger Woman | 1950s

Awards:

6 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Maria Schell	...	Natalia
Marcello Mastroianni	...	Mario
Jean Marais	...	Tenant
Marcella Rovena	...	Landlady
Maria Zanoli	...	Maid (as Maria Zanolli)
Elena Fancera	...	cashier
Lanfranco Ceccarelli
Angelo Galassi
Renato Terra
Corrado Pani
Dirk Sanders	...	Dancer
Clara Calamai	...	Prostitute
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Giorgio Albertazzi	...	Narrator (voice)
Lys Assia	...	Singer - Scusami
Romano Barbieri	...	Son
Alberto Carloni	...	Innkeeper
Pietro Ceccarelli
Anna Filippini	...	Daughter
Carla Foscari
Ferdinando Gerra	...	Father
Giorgio Listuzzi	...	Police Man
Leonilde Montesi	...	Mother
Sandro Moretti	...	Young Man
Winni Riva
Sandra Verani

Also Known As:

Nuits blanches (France)
White Nights

Runtime:

Germany:97 min | Italy:107 min | USA:97 min

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Netherlands:6 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Rank Film

Movie Connections:

Featured in Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004) (TV)

Soundtrack:

O' Cangaceiro

Beautiful fairy tale from Visconti.

A mythic, Venice-like city is an appropriate backdrop for a film which must have greatly offended European critics at the time who had thought of Visconti as one of the pioneers of the new realism in Italian Cinema (and indeed with Ossessione and La Terra Trema, he was!). But with this film Visconti seems to have changed his idea of what he wants in a film: instead of the pursuance of realism at all costs, we have a dream-like fairy tale about fairy tales.

Mario (Marcello Mastroianni) meets Natalia (Maria Schnell) one night, and is entranced. But as they begin to talk, over a couple of nights, he falls in love with her, and realises that she is already in love with another man. Maria is obsessed with a fairy-tale man (Jean Cocteau's leading man Jean Marais), who up and left her a year ago without explanation and said he would return in a year, and if she still loved him, he would be there for her.

This film is evocative and beautiful - i'd love to see it in a clean theatrical print - especially the snow scenes at the end.

Its a very satisfying cinema experience, and one of Visconti's most beautiful films. 8/10.

Highlights: the dancing scene! Snow scenes are beautiful, but the dancing scene stands head and shoulders above the rest of the movie. Marcello is shy and introverted - he is sitting in a night club with dreamy Natalia. When couples start getting up and busting some very cool moves to Bill Haley and the Comets' Thirteen Women, Mario becomes nervous and starts talking to her about himself, talking around the fact that he's a shy person and doesn't like dancing and physical things... he likes dreaming, solitude... But when he sees how interested Natalia is by another man pulling some mean dance moves, things change. Great scene.