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Senso: Limited Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Radiance Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (27th September 2025). |
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The Film
 Silver Ribbon (Best Cinematography): G.R. Aldo (winner) and Special Silver Ribbon: Luchino Visconti (winner) - Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, 1955 Golden Lion: Luchino Visconti (nominee) - Venice Film Festival, 1954 Golden Goblet (Best Actress): Alida Valli (winner) - Golden Goblets, 1955 Top 10 Film Award (Best Film): Luchino Visconti (nominee) - Cahiers du Cinéma, 1956 1866: Venice has been occupied by the Austrians, but a war of liberation is on the horizon. General La Marmora has forged an alliance with Prussia, emboldening Italian Nationalists to public demonstrations, the biggest one at the La Fenice Opera House during a performance of "Il trovatore" raining leaflets down on the audience from the upper boxes. When handsome Austrian soldier Franz Mahler (Rope's Farley Granger) mocks the demonstration, hot-headed marchese Roberto Ussoni (Teorema' Massimo Girotti) challenges him to a duel. Fearing for his freedom, Roberto's cousin Livia (The Paradine Case's Alida Valli), married to the much older Austrian-courting Count Serpieri (And Jimmy Went to the Rainbow's Foot's Heinz Moog), Livia downplays the incident, suggesting it was a disagreement over a woman given Franz's reputation and solicits an introduction by the Austrian Colonel Kleist (Strange Affair's Tonio Selwart). When Livia appeals to Franz not to accept Roberto's challenge on principle. Franz sees through her ruse, believing Roberto to be her lover and dismisses the "silly" incident; however, Livia learns upon returning home from Roberto's associates that he was arrested outside La Fenice. When her husband refuses to use his influence to help her cousin, Livia confronts Franz who claims to have had nothing to do with Roberto's arrest and sentence of exile from Venice. Livia tries to remain immune to Franz's flirtation until they stumble across the body of a murdered young Austrian soldier, and Franz in turn solicits her sympathy about the situation in which men like him are entangled by their own government. While attempting to reestablish contact with Roberto who has gone to Custoza, Livia convinces herself that she is still trying to help him in seeking out Franz but he quickly becomes the center of her world and it is only when war is declared and she must flee Venice along with her husband to their country villa in Andelmo that she realizes just how much "decency and dignity" she has sacrificed to a faithless man. When Franz reappears in her life, however, she must ultimately choose between duty and desire. Based on the novel by Camillo Boito, Senso was director Luchino Visconti's first Technicolor film is a ravishing visual experience but a combination of budget and censorship makes the film feel like more of a test run for Visconti's more sprawling Super Technirama The Leopard. It would be easy to suggest that if the central romance leaves the viewer feeling cold it might be due to familiarity with the novel or Tinto Brass' more erotic and cynical World War II-era 2002 remake Senso '45 and the outcome; however, the opening opera scene and the "stagey" blocking of scenes in which beautiful compositions threaten to overshadow the unfolding performances suggests that Visconti always intended a degree of theatricality; indeed, it would almost seem reductive to attribute Livia's recklessness to that of a woman frustrated and repressed into early middle age by unhappy marriage to an older man if not for the way in which Livia disguises her appeal to Franz not to accept Roberto's challenge: "I dislike people behaving like characters in some melodrama with no regard for the serious consequences of a gesture dictated by impulse or by unforgivable thoughtlessness." Visconti was no stranger to lusty tales of forbidden passion, having previously adapted James M. Cain's "The Postman Always Rings Twice" for the Fascist-era noir/proto-neorealist Ossessione so there is a degree of "performance" in Livia moving through hostile areas like the Austrian soldiers' barracks and across piazzas of squalor in her hoop dresses and veils – along with her Scarlett O'Hara-esque haughtiness with husband and ladies maid (L'innocente's Rina Morelli) – and the air of mystery she projects to Franz, along with the photographic emphasis on Franz's furtive glances and facial expressions as he assesses the effect of his charm on Livia (although some of this may be compensation for Granger being robbed of his own voice for the Italian version). While there are some Hitchcockian sequences of suspenseful anticipation and surprise reveals, Livia's choices are never in doubt so much as tragically inevitable or their unintended consequences on others (the only time she deliberately effects the life of another is out of spite as she uses the influence of her position). Visconti adapted Boito's novel with regular collaborator Suso Cecchi D'Amico (Bicycle Thieves) while playwright Tennessee Williams (Suddenly Last Summer) and novelist Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky) are credited with "additional dialogue" which may either have been the adaptation for the English dub or sculpting the Italian dialogue to better facilitate the English dubbing. Cinematographer G.R. Aldo (Umberto D.) died during the production and was replaced by Robert Krasker who previously photographed The Third Man with Valli, and the film's technical credits are shot-through with mainstays of both Italian neorealism and the art house and popular genre film cycles through the seventies including editor Mario Serandrei (The Battle of Algiers), production designer Ottavio Scotti (Castle of Blood), and costumes by Visconti-regular Piero Tosi (Death in Venice). Future directors Francesco Rosi (Illustrious Corpses) and Franco Zeffirelli (Brother Sun, Sister Moon) served as assistant directors and future Fellini cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno (Satyricon) was one of the camera operators. The supporting cast is equally interesting including Christian Marquand (And God Created Woman) as Franz's lecherous barracks roommate and Sergio Fantoni (Von Ryan's Express) as one of Roberto's confederates along with uncredited turns from future editor Franco "Kim" Arcalli (Last Tango in Paris), future French art house filmmaker Jean Pierre Mocky (Litan), and Mimmo Palmara (Sodom and Gomorrah). 
Video
Senso did not receive a theatrical release in the United Kingdom until 1957 in its Italian version while stateside it did not reach screens outside of film festival play until 1968 crassly retitled "The Wanton Contessa", dubbed into English, and running almost a half-hour shorter. The film was given a 2K restoration supervised by operator Rotunno and presenter Martin Scorcese for Film Foundation/Cineteca di Bologna in 2010 making its debut on Blu-ray later that year in France and Germany from Studio Canal – the latter reissued in 2014 – and four years later in Italy from Cristaldifilm (who had previously issued a DVD from a digital broadcast master that framed the 1.37:1 film at 1.50:1). The film was released on Blu-ray stateside from Criterion Collection utilizing the same restoration but also including the shorter U.S. dubbed version from a separate transfer. Radiance Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.37:1 pillarboxed fullscreen release also uses the same master but they have performed some additional work on the master for the better. Gone is the slight yellow/green tinge noticeable in the highlights and what should be white clothing, walls, and opening credits lettering while the reds finally pop in the opera sets, red flowers, and the collars of the white Austrian uniforms. No more information is provided about the elements but there may have been some registration issues between the Technicolor color layers, noticeable when in long shot details like the yellow stripe in the blue Austrian uniform trousers which sometimes looks a bit fuzzy. While Radiance presumably did what they could with the existing master, it certainly makes the Criterion look duller by comparison. 
Audio
The first disc includes separate but branched Italian and English versions with DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 tracks and respective English and English SDH subtitles. Radiance is a little unclear in their description of their exclusive English version (121:18 versus the 123:17 Italian version and the 94:00 "The Wanton Contessa" version), noting the English audio was present on "reels" and the the image track here uses the new restoration. Either there was an export version for which picture elements no longer exist or all/most of the dialogue was dubbed in preparation for the English version before the edit was locked in at ninety-four minutes (which might explain why the additional dialogue of Williams and Bowles is listed even in the Italian credits sequence). The track is interesting in that it features the voices of Valli and Granger and some of the Austrian characters speak German – presumably intended to be subtitled in English on the English version – and German-accented English when speaking to the Italians but the Italians apart from Valli have American accents like Granger. It does not really work but is still of historical value since it seems like the producers wanted to get the film as wide a release as possible, and Valli's and Granger's English performances deserve to be preserved somewhere. 
Extras
Radiance have not carried over any of the Criterion or Studio Canal extras, instead including a trio of exclusives. First up is an interview with critic and fashion historian Matteo Augello (18:59) who notes Visconti's reputation as an "antiquarian filmmaker" and reassesses his attention to historical detail, noting that his recreation of Risorgimento Italy is filtered through artistic references and less objective and more personal, likening his approach to Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge (even suggesting that the latter film would not exist if not for Senso), also referencing the creative liberties he took in his esteemed opera productions. Next up is a 1969 French television interview with interview with Luchino Visconti and Maria Callas (23:10) in which they casually recall their first impressions of one another – with more than a bit of flattery – and their views on the filming of opera (as well as his use of it in the opening of Senso).  Finally, there is "Luchino Visconti" (60:31), a 1999 documentary by filmmaker Carlo Lizzani (Wake Up and Kill) who like Visconti had written for the Fascist-era journal "Cinema" edited by Vittorio Mussolini decrying mainstream cinema while nursing their own filmmaking aspirations. The program provides a broad overview of Visconti's filmography but is most interesting early on, discussing his noble background and Marxist politics, becoming an apprentice to Jean Renoir (who directed the French dubbing of Senso) through Coco Chanel who had fallen in love with him, an early short shown at the Venice Film Festival that got the attention of Hungarian filmmaker Gustav Machatý (Ecstasy), the reception of Ossessione and his self-funded follow-ups that lead to Senso and The Leopard and the thematic elements introduced in Sandra and The Stranger that informed his "German trilogy." His penultimate film Conversation Piece gets only slightly more discussion than L'innocente. The piece features onscreen commentary from Lizzani himself along with Girotti, Burt Lancaster, Marcello Mastroianni, and Vittorio Gassman, screenwriters Enrico Medioli and Suso Cecchi D'Amico, and assistant directors Rosi and Zeffirelli (some original to the piece and some archival video). The second disc – which might be a first pressing exclusive – includes the Italian version from the same restoration but framed at 1.66:1. It would have been nice if Radiance had been able to include "The Wanton Contessa" edit as well on the second disc but it is possible that they are assuming that fans of the film already have the Criterion version as well. 
Packaging
The limited edition of 3,000 copies comes with a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow and booklet featuring new writing by Christina Newland, housed in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings (none of which were provided for review).
Overall
Romantically sterile but ravishingly beautiful, Senso was Luchino Visconti's first Technicolor film and the first in which he mixed social commentary with lush recreations of a "bygone" past that continued to linger in spirit during his childhood.
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