Mar 30, 2010
Festival
The 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival (April 22-May 6), under the auspices of an ongoing partnership with The Film Foundation and Gucci, will present a new print of a masterpiece of world cinema, Luchino Visconti’s Senso (Italy 1954, SFIFF 1957), at the Castro Theatre and the Pacific Film Archive.
Senso, Visconti’s 1954 film about the affair between an Italian countess (Alida Valli) with partisan sympathies and an Austrian officer from the occupying army (Farley Granger), set during Garibaldi’s war of independence in the 1860s, is one of the most extraordinary historical films ever made. Rarely have the dramas of history and romantic passion been so skillfully and compellingly intertwined. It also marks one of the medium’s most creative uses of color. Visconti and his cinematographers Aldo Graziati (who tragically died during the shoot) and Robert Krasker fashioned a palette that was both delicate and vivid, rich in its historical associations and its evocations of landscape painting of the period. For that reason alone, Senso has been extremely difficult to restore, and the shrinkage and overall damage to its original three-strip Technicolor camera negatives have only increased the level of difficulty. Now, with the advent of digital technology, StudioCanal, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia/Cineteca Nazionale and the Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata have joined forces to restore this magnificent film to its original grandeur, with funding provided by Gucci, The Film Foundation and Comitato Italia 150. Senso‘s U.S. premiere was a highlight of the San Francisco International’s inaugural year in 1957.
Senso will play 6:30 pm, Thursday, April 29 at the Pacific Film Archive and 12:30 pm, Sunday, May 2 at the Castro Theatre and will be presented as part of The Film Foundation and Gucci’s Cinema Visionaries program, which to date also includes the restoration of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Le Amiche (Italy 1955, SFIFF 1995) and John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence (USA 1974, SFIFF 1984), which were both presented last year at the 52nd SFIFF.
Copresented by The Film Foundation and Gucci, with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute, San Francisco.
For tickets and information, go to www.sffs.org or call 925-866-9559.
For photos and press materials visit sffs.org/pressdownloads.