| Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Luchino Visconti |
| Written by | Suso Cecchi d'Amico Enrico Medioli Luchino Visconti |
| Starring | Michael Craig Claudia Cardinale |
| Release date(s) | 16 September 1965 16 January 1966 |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa is a 1965 Italian film directed by Luchino Visconti. It was released as Sandra Of A Thousand Delights in the USA and as Of These Thousand Pleasures in the UK.
Contents |
Visconti's retelling of the Electra story starts with Sandra/Electra (Claudia Cardinale) returning to her ancestral home in Italy - and reviving an intimate involvement with her brother (Sorel) which troubles her naive American husband (Michael Craig) - on the eve of an official ceremony commemorating the death of her Jewish father in a Nazi concentration camp. As ever with Visconti, he is ambivalently drawn to the decadent society he is ostensibly criticising; and Armando Nannuzzi's camera lovingly caresses the creaking old mansion, set in a landscape of crumbling ruins, where the incestuous siblings determine to wreak revenge on the mother (Bell) and stepfather (Ricci) who supposedly denounced their father. Something like a Verdi opera without the music, the result may not quite achieve tragedy, but it looks marvellous.
The title, culled from the poem "Le ricordanze"[1] by Giacomo Leopardi, could be translated as 'Glimmering stars of the Great Bear', and has a strong resonance with the movie's plot:
English translation:
The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
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