ESSAYS

Yesterday, Yesterday... (Luchino Visconti’s Nostalgia and Melancholy)

Program of Films by Luchino Visconti II, Film Programmes, 26 October — 6 November 2006

The author takes the hypothesis about the importance of nostalgia for the film in general as a starting point. By pointing out the dominance of nostalgia in the world film during the first half of the 1960s, he observes two films by Luchino Visconti, Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) and Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa (Sandra of a Thousand Delights), as good examples of Visconti’s nostalgia. Special attention is given to longer shots of groups of characters that imply the sense of stopping, but also the flow of time, and also to the focalization of the film through the character of the Prince of Salina in Il Gattopardo, as to the role of shadow in Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa.

Bruno Kragić