Movies - Le notti bianche

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Le notti bianche

	Movies - Le notti bianche

Le notti bianche (White Nights) is a 1957 film directed by Italian neorealist Luchino Visconti, and is one of his best works. Le notti bianche takes its title and basic plot from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1848 short story. In both the story and the film, a lonely young man meets a lonely young woman. Mario (Marcello Mastroianni) is lonely for social reasons; he is a stranger and a newcomer to town. Natalia (Maria Schell) is lonely because she has always lived in isolation, even in the heart of the city. Her loneliness is intensified because she is in love with a man (Jean Marais) who may not ever return to her, but who continues to occupy her heart to the exclusion of any other possible relationship.

In turning the Dostoevsky story into a film, Visconti eliminated the first-person narration and made Natalia less of an innocent, and at times something of a hysteric and a tease. For his part, Mario rejects obvious offers of romantic attention from other women in the story, holding on to a fruitless obsession.

Mario thanks the young woman for the moment of happiness she has brought him. However, he is left alone at the end of the film, befriending the same stray dog he met at the beginning. He is back at square one, and has put more energy into pursuing the fantasy of an obsession rather than any prospect of real love.

The film is in black and white, but is luminous nonetheless.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Le notti bianche ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Le notti bianche; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay