Le Notti Bianche [White Nights] **** (1957, Maria Schell, Marcello Mastroianni, Jean Marais) – Classic Movie Review 5,718

Maria Schell, Marcello Mastroianni and Jean Marais star in Luchino Visconti’s 1957 Italian romantic drama film White Nights, based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short story.

Co-writer/ director Luchino Visconti adapts the 1848 love triangle short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky in one of his finest, most subtle, rewarding and haunting films, Le Notti Bianche [White Nights] (1957). The actors give delicate, sensitive performances and help him to to make a lot out of the story and theme of the past invading the present.

Marcello Mastroianni stars as Mario, a shy, humble clerk in the Italian town of Livorno, who meets and courts Natalia (Maria Schell), a woman he finds crying on a bridge. Night after night Mario accompanies Natalia as she waits for the return of her lover (Jean Marais also stars as the tenant) gone for a year. He promised to return but she doesn’t know whether he will.

Mario is new in town but has got to know this area of it, though not the people, whereas Maria’s grandmother has not allowed her to see it, living in isolation. Both however are linked by their loneliness.

It is written for the screen by Visconti and Suso Cecchi d’Amico, and they tweak the Dostoevsky original by eliminating the story’s first person narration and making Natalia less of an innocent, changing the environment, perspectives and character, but keeping to only three characters. The story is set in Livorno instead of St Petersburg, the city where the original takes place.

There is a glorious studio production, with the entire film shot indoors on a huge soundstage in the Teatro 5 at Cinecittà Studios in Rome on an incredibly elaborate set designed by Mario Chiari re-creating entire streets and squares (Via Grande, Via della Madonna, part of the Venice district), stores, waterways, monuments, public buildings, and the bus stop of Livorno, together with imaginary architectural elements. 

Nino Rota’s attractive score is an obvious asset. There are superb set decorations by Enzo Eusepi and ideal costumes designed by Piero Tosi. 

Director of photography Giuseppe Rotunno makes it look magical in black and white. He put street lamps just behind large rolls of tulle hanging from the ceiling to the ground on the sets of Cinecittá Studios. This works perfectly to conjure up misty backgrounds by night.

Painstakingly crafted in every way, the film is a beautiful, true work of art, a very fine romantic bittersweet melodrama.

Viennese actress Schell (1926–2005) learned and spoke all her lines in Italian, performing it so well it was agreed not to dub her voice by an Italian actress. But French actor Jean Marais was dubbed by Giorgio Albertazzi. Schell and Visconti obviously got on well. He cast her after meeting her at film festival where he was a juror.

It  won the Silver Lion at the 18th Venice International Film Festival, but missed out on the Golden Lion, won by Satyajit Ray for Aparajito.

Also in the cast are Marcella Rovena as Landlady, Maria Zanoli as Maid, Elena Fancera as cashier, Lanfranco Ceccarelli, Angelo Galassi, Renato Terra, Corrado Pani, Dirk Sanders (credited as Dick Sanders) as Dancer and Clara Calamai as Prostitute.

Running time: 102 minutes.

It premiered at at the 18th Venice International Film Festival on 6 September 1957, and was released in Italy on 14 November 1957 and in France on 8 May 1958.

James Gray’s Two Lovers (2009) is a loose remake.

Livorno is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany.

The cast

The cast are Maria Schell as Natalia, Marcello Mastroianni as Mario, Jean Marais as the tenant, Clara Calamai as Prostitute, Marcella Rovena as Landlady, Maria Zanoli as Maid, Corrado Pani as young man on motorcycle, Dirk Sanders (credited as Dick Sanders) as Dancer, Elena Fancera as Cashier, Lanfranco Ceccarelli, Angelo Galassi, and Renato Terra.

Marcello Mastroianni made one other film with Visconti: The Stranger (1967).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,718

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com