''Sandra'' ( it, Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa, lit=Glimmering stars of the Great Bear) is a 1965

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed and co-written by

Luchino Visconti Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo (; 2 November 1906 – 17 March 1976) was an Italian filmmaker, stage director, and screenwriter. A major figure of Italian art and culture in the mid-20th century, Visconti was one of the ...

, and starring

Claudia Cardinale Claude Joséphine Rose "Claudia" Cardinale (; born 15 April 1938) is an Italian actress. She has starred in some of the most iconic European films of the 1960s and 1970s, acting in Italian, French, and English. Born and raised in La Goulette, a ...

, 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 Volterra (; Latin: ''Volaterrae'') is a walled mountaintop town in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its history dates from before the 8th century BC and it has substantial structures from the Etruscan, Roman, and Medieval periods. History Volt ...

. 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 (

) 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" by

Giacomo Leopardi Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (, ; 29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. He is considered the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and one of ...

, could be translated as 'Glimmering stars of the Great Bear', and has a strong resonance with the movie's plot: English translation:

Cast

... Sandra Dawdson * Jean Sorel ... Gianni Wald-Luzzati * Michael Craig ... Andrew Dawdson *

Renzo Ricci Renzo Ricci (27 September 1899 – 20 October 1978) was an Italian stage and film actor. He was also a noted theatre director. Ricci played the title role in Roberto Rossellini's 1961 film ''Garibaldi''.Bondanella, Peter. ''The Films of Roberto ...

... Antonio Gilardini * Fred Williams ... Pietro Formari * Amalia Troiani... Fosca - maid * Marie Bell ... Sandra's mother * Vittorio Manfrino * Renato Moretti * Giovanni Rovini * Paola Piscini * Isacco Politi *

Ferdinando Scarfiotti Ferdinando Scarfiotti (6 March 1941 – 30 April 1994) was an Italian art director and production designer. After graduating in architecture at the University of Rome, he was approached by Luchino Visconti, who asked him to design his sta ...

... party guest

Notes

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. It was initially reported that the principal actors would voice their own parts in the English-language version of the film.TUSCAN-LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES OF VISCONTI AND 'ELECTRA' By DONALD LaBADIE. New York Times 6 Dec 1964: X13. Ultimately though they were dubbed by others. This is the third of four films Claudia Cardinale made with Visconti, after ''

Rocco and His Brothers ''Rocco and His Brothers'' ( it, Rocco e i suoi fratelli) is a 1960 drama film directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, Renato Salvatori, Katina Paxinou, Roger Hanin, Paolo Stoppa, and Claudia Cardinale in one of h ...

'' (1960) and ''

The Leopard ''The Leopard'' ( it, Il Gattopardo ) is a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa that chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the ''Risorgimento''. Published posthumously in 1958 by Feltrinelli, after two rejections by the ...

'' (1963), followed by '' Gruppo di famiglia in un interno'' (1974).

Awards

The film won the Golden Lion at the

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...

References

External links

* 1965 drama films 1965 films Italian black-and-white films 1960s Italian-language films Films about Jews and Judaism Films directed by Luchino Visconti Golden Lion winners Films set in Tuscany Incest in film Films with screenplays by Suso Cecchi d'Amico 1960s Italian films {{1960s-Italy-film-stub