Sandra
ItalianVaghe stelle dell'Orsa
Directed byLuchino Visconti
Written bySuso Cecchi d'Amico
Enrico Medioli
Luchino Visconti
StarringClaudia Cardinale
Jean Sorel
Michael Craig
CinematographyArmando Nannuzzi
Edited byMario Serandrei
Music byCesar Franck
Production
company
Vides Cinematografica
Distributed byColumbia C.E.I.A.D. (Italy)
Release date
    • 3 September 1965 (Venice)
    • 16 September 1965 (Italy)
    • 26 November 1965 (France)
Running time
105 minutes
CountriesItaly
France
LanguageItalian

Sandra (Italian: Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa, lit. 'Glimmering stars of the Great Bear') is a 1965 drama film directed and co-written by Luchino Visconti, and starring Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel, and Michael Craig. A modern-day retelling of the Electra story, the film centers on the incestuous relationship between a young Italian woman (Cardinale) and her brother (Sorel), on her return to their ancestral home of Volterra. It premiered at the 26th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion.

Plot

Visconti's retelling of the Electra story starts with Sandra/Electra (Claudia Cardinale) returning to her ancestral home in Italy. On the eve of an official ceremony commemorating the death of her Jewish father in a Nazi concentration camp, she revives an intimate involvement with her brother (Jean Sorel), which troubles her naive husband (Michael Craig).

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.

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:

Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa, io non credea
Tornare ancor per uso a contemplarvi
Sul paterno giardino scintillanti,
E ragionar con voi dalle finestre
Di questo albergo ove abitai fanciullo,
E delle gioie mie vidi la fine.(...)

English translation:

Glimmering stars of the Great Bear,
I never thought I'd be back to see you
Shining down on my father's garden,
Nor talk to you ever again from the windows
Of this house where I spent my childhood
And saw the last of my happiness vanish.(...)

Cast

Production

The movie was shot on location in Volterra, a Tuscan town fifty miles southwest of Florence. Casa Inghrami and the Palazzo Viti were both used as settings for the family mansion there.[2]

It was initially reported that the principal actors would voice their own parts in the English-language version of the film.[3] Ultimately though they were dubbed by others.

This is the third of four films Claudia Cardinale made with Visconti, after Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963), followed by Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (1974).

Awards

The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

References

  1. ↑ Leopardi's poem full text at ; English translation at Google Books
  2. ↑ TUSCAN-LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES OF VISCONTI AND 'ELECTRA' By DONALD LaBADIE. New York Times 6 Dec 1964: X13.
  3. ↑ TUSCAN-LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES OF VISCONTI AND 'ELECTRA' By DONALD LaBADIE. New York Times 6 Dec 1964: X13.
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