Film Forum

Luchino Visconti’s WHITE NIGHTS

Luchino Visconti · 1957 · Italy · 103 min

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Based on the short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky In Italian with English subtitles “Visconti’s version of the Dostoevsky story—about the chance encounter of a couple as she is waiting in vain for her lover, and the obsessive, panic-stricken relationship which then develops between them—later filmed by Bresson as FOUR NIGHTS OF A DREAMER. Visconti traps his characters (three excellent performances) within a claustrophobic canal-side set, and the film is a series of brief walks, chases, attempted escapes, always frustrated. Shot as neo-realist high tragedy, the film offers its characters only one strange moment of escape from their night-time obsessions—a raucous, sexual, subversive scene in a dance-hall. Then the snow comes down, and with it a chilly desperation about the extent of human self-delusion.” – Time Out Restored by Luce Cinecittà, from the original 35mm negative A JANUS FILMS RELEASE