BFI | Features | Luchino Visconti

Luchino Visconti: Related resources from the bfi

Nights of Cabiria

The following films are available to hire from the bfi in a variety of formats: 35mm, 16mm, VHS. Some titles are also available to buy on DVD and video (see bottom of the page).

These are just a few of the many thousands of films available to hire from the bfi. For further information, visit the bookings pages or contact Film Bookings.

Films by Luchino Visconti to hire on 16mm, 35mm, VHS

Bellissima: (It / 1951 / 108 mins / b&w)
: An ironic if sentimental look at the film industry with Anna Magnani as the mother who tries to get her little daughter into the movies, before realising that film people are not what she had expected.; Available on 35mm
L' Innocente (The Intruder): (It / 1976 / 125 mins / col); Based faithfully on the novel by Gabriele D'Annunzio, L' Innocente forms a worthy finale to Visconti's illustrious career. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a wealthy gentleman of leisure with mistresses aplenty, is mortified to find his wife pregnant by another man. He desperately tries to preserve his self-respect while his whole philosophy crumbles.; Available on 35mm
The Leopard: (It / 1963 / 205 mins / col); A new print of Visconti's spectacular adaptation of Lampedusa's masterpiece.; Available on 35mm
Ossessione: (It / 1943 / 139 mins / b&w); Visconti's stunning first feature is a bleak view of sexual passion set in authentic film noir territory and transposed to the Po Delta.; Available on 16mm; 35mm; VHS
Rocco and his Brothers: (It, Fr / 1960 / 180 mins / b&w); Alain Delon's first film for Visconti reveals the human aspects to the Italian post-war economic 'miracle' as a southern family struggles to adapt to life in Milan.; Available on 35mm; VHS
Senso (The Wanton Countess): (It / 1954 / 115 mins / col); Venetian aristocrat (Alida Valli) falls in love with an officer from Austrian occupying force (Farley Granger) in this sumptuous melodrama set, like The Leopard, in the pivotal historic period of the 1860s.; Available on 16mm; 35mm
La Terra Trema: (It / 1948 / 158 mins / b&w); Based on 'I Malavoglia' by Giovanni Verga, a moving portrayal of Sicilian fishermen, played by real fishermen and their families, and their struggle against their exploiters.; Available on 16mm; VHS

Films set in or featuring Venice

Don't Look Now (New print): (Roeg / GB, It / 1973 / 110 mins / col); The decaying splendour and beauty of Venice is beautifully captured in this brilliant adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's haunting book, starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie.; Available on new 35mm print
Summertime: (Lean / GB, US / 1955 / 99 mins / col); David Lean's first film shot on location abroad, this is a prototypical if more poignant Shirley Valentine, with Katharine Hepburn as the spinster from Ohio who falls in love while looking for a miracle in Venice.; Available on 16mm
The Lost Moment: (Gabel / US / 1947 / 89 mins / b&w); A remarkably effective adaptation of The Aspern Papers by Henry James, renowned chronicler of the Anglo-American experience in late nineteenth century Venice.; Available on 16mm
Romeo and Juliet: (Zeffirelli / GB, It / 1968 / 152 mins / col); Zefferelli's version of Shakespeare's Veneto-set play features vivid colours and costumes and visual flair, and boasts some impressive fight scenes on the streets of Verona.; Available on 16mm; 35mm

Films starring Dirk Bogarde

Accident: (Losey / GB / 1967 / 105 mins / col); A stunningly confident, oblique study of six people and the way they tear each other to pieces emotionally amid the stifling calm of an Oxford summer. Excellent performances from the entire cast heighten the effect of Harold Pinter's perceptive script, adapted from the Nicholas Mosley novel.; Available on 16mm; 35mm
Despair: (Fassbinder / Ge / 1978 / 119 mins / col); Directed by Fassbinder, screenplay by Tom Stoppard, from the book by Nabokov, Bogarde plays the dissatisfied chocolate manufacturer who decides to opt out of Nazi Germany by killing both his wife and his double.; Available on 16mm
The Fixer: (Frankenheimer / US / 1968 / 130 mins / col); In pre-revolutionary Russia, a Jewish handyman (Alan Bates) is falsely imprisoned without trial for murdering a boy. Bogarde plays a lawyer who is murdered for attempting to help him.; Available on 35mm
King and Country: (Losey / GB / 1964 / 86 mins / b&w); Bogarde again plays a lawyer, this time defending a shell shocked World War 1 Private (Tom Courtenay) in his court martial for desertion. Grimly effective in its indictment of the military mind and claustrophobically shot in dank interiors.; Available on VHS
Our Mother's House: (Clayton / GB / 1967 / 105 mins / col); Seven children keep their mother's death a secret to avoid being sent to an orphanage.; Based on the novel by Julian Cloag. Available on 35mm
The Servant: (Losey / GB / 1963 / 115 mins / b&w); Bogarde's first collaboration with director Joseph Losey, he plays the role-reversing butler to James Fox's decadent upper class master. Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay.; Available on 35mm
They Who Dare: (Milestone / GB / 1953 / 107 mins / col); The rousing story of the exploits of a small raiding party attempting to destroy enemy airfields on a Greek island in World War II.; Available on 16mm

Films starring Silvana Mangano

Dark Eyes: (Mikhalkov / It / 1987 / 117 mins / col); A glittery cast stars in this adaptation of several Chekhov stories. The excellent Marcello Mastroianni is superb as the characteristic Chekhovian failure who has never had the courage of his emotional convictions, and Mikhalkov brings much poignancy to the tale.; Available on 35mm; VHS
The Decameron: (Pasolini / Fr, Ge, It / 1970 / 111 mins / col); The first of Pasolini's Trilogy of Life films based on famous story cycles contains ten stories based on the 14th-century works of Giovanni Boccaccio. The film romps through these tales of sex and death, perfectly capturing the bawdy, earthy, anarchic comic spirit of the original.; Available on 35mm; DVD

Films by other great Italian directors:

Michelangelo Antonioni

L' Avventura: (It / 1960 / b&w / 145 mins); The disappearance of a young woman from a group of friends sailing around some Southern Italian islands sparks a hunt for her, led by her lover and her best friend (Monica Vitti), the two of whom start a desultory affair.; Available on 16mm; 35mm; VHS
Beyond the Clouds: (Fr, Ge, It / 1995 / col / 109 mins); A director searching for characters and events for a film, reflects on four separate incidents, filmed in Ferrara, Portofino, Aix en Provence and Paris.; Available on VHS
Cronaca di un amore (Chronicle of a Love Affair): (It / 1950 / col / 100 mins); The story of Paola, a selfish young woman whose adulterous affair with a handsome car salesman reflects the difference in their social classes.; Available on 35mm
Il Deserto Rosso: (It, Fr / 1964 / col / 116 mins); Monica Vitti is Giuliana, the wife of an engineer whose affair with his colleague (the late Richard Harris) brings little solace from her depression, exacerbated by the local heavy-industrial landscape.; Available on 16mm; 35mm; VHS
L' Eclisse (The Eclipse): (It, Fr / 1964 / b&w / 125 mins); Evocative love story about a girl's casual affair with a young stockbroker. Monica Vitti and Alain Delon star.; Available on 16mm; 35mm
Identification of a Woman: (It, Fr / 1982 / col / 131 mins); A successful film director, who has problems with various women, including his estranged wife and a girl he meets, searches for a woman to base his next film project around.; Available on 16mm; VHS
La Notte: (It, Fr / 1961 / b&w / 121 mins); Twenty-four hours in the break up of a typical middle class couple's marriage, starring Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni.; Available on 16mm; 35mm
La Signora Senza Camelie (The Lady without Camellias): (It / 1953 / b&w / 100 mins); A shop assistant manages to get work as an actress in several low-budget films on account of her looks. She marries a film producer who decides to launch her as a star in big budget films.; Available on 16mm
Zabriskie Point: (US / 1968 / col / 110 mins); Antonioni's sorrowing, stranger's eye view of modern America captures the mood of the student revolts dogging the nation in the late 1960s.; Available on 35mm

Bernardo Bertolucci

Before the Revolution: (It / 1964 / b&w / 112 mins); A young man from the bourgeoisie in Parma attempts to break free of social; constraints, embracing socialism and having a brief affair with his aunt.; However, ultimately he marries the girl his parents expect him to and he betrays his political convictions.; Available on 16mm; VHS
La Commare Secca (The Grim reaper): (It / 1962/ b&w / 100 mins); Bertolucci's debut feature was a whodunnit about the murder of a prostitute, which combines an investigation into life in a Roman slum.; Available on 16mm; 35mm
Last Tango in Paris: (It, Fr / 1972 / col / 129 mins); A recently widowed man meets and makes violent love with a much younger woman, the relationship only ending when she shoots him.; Available on 35mm
La Luna (The Moon): (It / 1979 / col / 142 mins); A visually ravishing Oedipal parable, in which a young heroin addict falls in love with his opera singer mother.; Available on 35mm
The Sheltering Sky: (It, GB 1990 / col / 138 mins); Based on Paul Bowles' novel, John Malkovich and Debra Winger star as the bohemian married couple exploring their 10 year-old marriage while travelling through North Africa.; Available on 16mm; 35mm
The Spider's Stratagem: (It / 1972 / col / 1997); Athos Magnami returns to his hometown where the memorial to his fascist father sets him on the trail of the truth about his parent.; Available on 16mm; VHS
Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man: (It, GB 1981 / It / col / 116 mins); A mordantly witty tragic-comedy in which a rich Parma dairy farmer (Ugo Tognazzi) forced to sell up his greatest love - his material possessions - to meet the ransom for his kidnapped son.; Available on 35mm

Federico Fellini

City of Women: (Fr, It / 1980 / 139 mins / col); When the train he is on stops unexpectedly, Snaporaz (Marcello Mastroianni) gets off and follows the woman who was in the carriage with him. She leads him to a fantastic house populated entirely by women but the experience turns out to be merely a pleasurable dream.; Available on 16mm; VHS
La Dolce Vita: (Fr, It / 1960 / 174 mins / b&w); Marcello is a hack journalist living in Rome with secret literary; ambitions. He meets a dizzying array of celebrities and other interesting characters but, despite being drawn to (as well as repelled by) the various lifestyles he encounters, he remains ultimately unchallenged.; Available on VHS
8 1/2: (Fr, It / 1963 / 138 mins / b&w); Dramatisation of the problems of a film producer faced with creative block who attempts to regain his self-respect and identity.; Available on 16mm; 35mm; VHS
Ginger and Fred: (Fr, It, Ge / 1986 / 127 mins / col); Story about two tap-dancers in the forties who made their name imitating Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They meet again in a television studio after many years...; Available on 16mm
Juliet of the Spirits: (Fr, It / 1965 / 145 mins / col); On her wedding anniversary, Giulietta (Giulietta Masina, Fellini's wife) begins to have doubts about her marriage and to suspect her husband of infidelity. After a séance and a visit to an Indian spiritualist she arranges to have her husband followed. She separates from her husband but remains optimistic about her future alone.; Available on 16mm
Nights of Cabiria (New print): (Fr, It / 1957 / 105 mins / b&w); As vibrant and romantic as Rome itself, the city where the film is set, this is the story of a young prostitute's search for love. The Chaplinesque Giulietta Masina plays Cabiria who fights unkind fate with enduring optimism and an infectious passion for life. Masina won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival and the film won a Best Overseas film Oscar.; "A cinematic masterpiece" New York Times; Available on 35mm; VHS
Orchestra Rehearsal: (Ge, It / 1978 / 72 mins / col); An orchestra rehearses in a church, with the orchestra used as a social metaphor to convey the complex variance in society itself.; Available on 16mm; 35mm
La Strada (New print): (It / 1954 / 106 mins / b&w); Federico Fellini's classic 1954 film starring Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn. A deceptively paced and entrancing European road movie, La Strada won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1956 and established the reputation of Fellini as one of the leading lights of European cinema.; Available on 16mm; 35mm; VHS
I Vitelloni: (Fr, It / 1953 / 103 mins / b&w); A group of young men lead a lazy and fruitless existence in an Italian provincial town. Ultimately only one of them has the courage to leave the town for a different life. Beautifully shot and performed, and governed by an inextricable mixture of affectionate sympathy and acid satire.; Available on 16mm
The White Sheik: (It / 1952 / 85 mins / b&w); Fellini's first solo feature is a delightful satirical comedy about two newlyweds on their honeymoon in Rome. The bride is a lover of photographic romance strips and while in Rome she meets and runs away with her 'fotoromanzi' hero, the White Sheik. However she is soon deluded when she discovers that the actor who plays the Sheik (legendary comic actor Alberto Sordi) is much less heroic than she imagined.; Available on 35mm; VHS

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Arabian Nights: (Fr, It / 1974 / 155 mins / col); The final part of Pasolini's Trilogy of Life series, following The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales, was two years in the making. The locations - Yemen, Ethiopia, Iran and Nepal - form a rich, exotic backdrop to these tales of slaves and kings, potions, betrayals, demons and, most of all, love and lovemaking in all its myriad forms.; Available on 35mm; VHS; DVD
The Canterbury Tales: (Fr, It / 1971 / 127 mins / col); A free-flowing Breugelesque adaptation based on the 14th century stories of Geoffrey Chaucer, the film is also an exploration of the kind of folk tales and peasant motifs that were always close to Pasolini's heart. From this rich source of ribald material, the director displays his utopian vision of a peasantry free from guilt and moral inhibition.; Available on 35mm; DVD
The Decameron: (Fr, Ge, It / 1970 / 111 mins / col); Creating a stir on its original release for its frank and anarchic depiction of sexuality, The Decameron was an interpretation of Boccaccio's bawdy fourteenth-century Italian folk tale.; Available on 35mm; DVD
The Gospel according to St Matthew: (Fr, It / 1964 / 142 mins / col); The life of Christ and events as narrated in the Gospel of St. Matthew. Pasolini's Catholicism and Marxism shine through with the Messiah portrayed as a determinedly political animal fuelled by anger at social injustice, while the miracles remain unexplained. The musical soundtrack varies effectively from Bach to Billie Holiday.; Available on 16mm; 35mm
Hawks and Sparrows: (It / 1966 / 86 mins / b&w); Toto and his son Ninetto travel around the periphery of Rome collecting rent; from the poor people, followed by a speaking crow who explains Marxist theories to them. The crow describes a tale in which father and son are transformed into a pair of hapless Franciscan friars preaching peace and brotherhood who in the end decide to eat the crow out of hunger.; Available on 35mm; VHS/dd>
Mamma Roma: (It / 1962 / 114 mins / b&w); Pasolini kept with his favoured low-life settings in his second film which features Anna Magnani in another powerhouse performance as a prostitute attempting to change her life by moving to a new part of town. One of Pasolini's more realist films, its mood is convincingly sombre.; Available on 35mm; VHS
Medea: (Fr, Ge, It / 1970 / 118 mins / col); Two cultures clash when Medea, the 'barbarian princess', is brought home to secular Corinth by her lover Jason. Maria Callas is extraordinary as Medea in Pasolini's reworked version of Euripides' drama, told in majestic cinematic tableaux with a spectacular array of gorgeously costumed figures.; Available on 35mm; VHS
Oedipus Rex: (It / 1967 / 104 mins / col); This adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy is intuitive and primitive rather than intellectual; the myth itself is treated as a dream set in the Moroccan desert, intercut with Oedipal scenes in modern Bologna.; Available on 16mm; 35mm; VHS
The Pig Sty: (Fr, It / 1969 / 100 mins / col); An exquisitely revolting satire and one of Pasolini's most fascinating films. Two separate stories are intercut: the first is about a young man in a deserted area who is reduced to cannibalism; the second about a young man who is loved by a girl but who cannot return her affections - he is, it seems, sexually attracted only by pigs.; Available on 35mm
Sodoma (Saló, or the 100 days of Sodom) (New print): (Fr, It / 1975 / 118 mins / col); Set in the Fascist Republic of Salò in 1944, established by Mussolini as the Allied forces advanced, Pasolini's film is an incisive social critique, using sex as a metaphor for power. Drawing on the Marquis de Sade's original novel, the film depicts the series of sexual tortures inflicted by four libertines upon a group of young men and women.; Available on 35mm; VHS; DVD
Theorem: (It / 1968 / 98 mins / col); A wealthy Italian bourgeois family faces collapse after each of its members is seduced in turn by a mysterious Christ or Devil like stranger (Terence Stamp). This enigmatic fable is used by Pasolini to explore family dynamics and in particular the subversive power of homosexuality.; Available on 16mm; 35mm; VHS

Roberto Rossellini

The Age of Cosimo de Medici: (It / 1972 / 225 mins / col); Three-part drama portraying the Renaissance in fifteenth-century Florence. "Certain sequences force a complete reappraisal of screen history: an explanation of the tax system, a discussion about architecture, an election to the ruling council, open ways of seeing the past to which British television obstinately remains largely blind." Time Out; Available on 16mm
L' Amore: (It / 1948 / 80 mins / b&w); A two-part showcase for Anna Magnani. In The Miracle, she plays a goatherd who confuses her seducer with St Joseph and her illegitimate child with a new Messiah; in The Human Voice a middle-aged bourgeoise abandoned by her lover and clinging tenaciously to the telephone.; Available on 16mm
Augustine of Hippo: (It / 1972 / 117 mins / col); The life of Saint Augustine during the decades of the Roman Empire becomes the axis for debates on politics and power, morality and conscience.; Available on 16mm
Blaise Pascal: (Fr, It / 1971 / 131 mins / col); A thrilling and intense chronicle of the 17th Century French philosopher and scientist.; Available on 16mm
Germany, Year Zero: (Fr, Ge, It / 1948 / 74 mins / b&w); The third of Rossellini's post-war films is a sombre study of the disastrous influence wielded upon an adolescent boy by an elderly Nazi schoolmaster. Shot in the ruins of Berlin, the film starts as documentary-like reportage before moving towards a more hallucinatory landscape of pain and fear.; Available on 16mm
Italy, Year One: (It / 1974 / 123 mins / col); Political biography of post-war leader, Alcide De Gasperi, founder and head of Italy's Christian Democratic party.; Available on 16mm
The Machine that Kills Bad People: (It / 1952 / 83 mins/ b&w); An old man in a small southern Italian town endows a camera with the power not merely to kill people, but to find out sources of wealth.; Available on 16mm
Paisà: (It / 1946 / 124 mins / b&w); The wartime liberation of Italy unfolds in six consecutive episodes enacted by a mixed cast of Italian and American non-professionals. The uninflected visual style is a keystone of neo-realism, but this belies the extremely careful construction of the entire film to reflect the total experience of Italy.; Available on 16mm; VHS
The Rise to Power of Louis XIV: (Fr / 1966 / 102 mins / col); The assumption of power by the young King Louis XIV after the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, and the steps he took to make his rule effective. A historically accurate masterpiece, didactic without being propagandistic, cerebral but highly accessible.; Available on 16mm
Rome, Open City: (It / 1945 / 101 mins / b&w); A tense Resistance story, set during the German occupation of Rome, this is a touchstone of neo-realist cinema. Shot newsreel style on Roman streets ravaged by war, the film still packs an enormous emotional punch, with fine performances from Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi.; Available on 16mm
Stromboli: (It, US / 1950 / 100 mins / b&w); A refugee in an internment camp (Ingrid Bergman) marries an Italian fisherman in order to remain in Italy. He takes her back home to the volcanic island of Stromboli where she finds life difficult and the islanders hostile.; Available on 16mm
Viaggio in Italia (Voyage to Italy): (Fr, It / 1954 / 106 mins / b&w); Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders star in this deceptively slight tale of a couple in a dissolving marriage travelling to Naples to sell their home. The journey and the experience of Italy, including Pompeii, sparks a reconciliation and a fresh awareness of possibilities, all of which is captured by Rossellini with spellbinding subtlety.; Available on 16mm; VHS

Other Italian classics

Fists in the Pocket: (1965 / Bellocchio / It / b&w / 107 mins); Bellochio's remarkable debut tells the story of a family wracked by blindness, epilepsy and limited intelligence. Lou Castel seethes with manic energy as the epileptic teenager driven to acts of violence.; "... seethes with a hateful energy rarely seen on the screen. A stunning film, literally." Time Out; Available on 35mm; VHS
Umberto D: (1952 / De Sica / It / 89 mins / b&w); An elderly pensioner (Carlo Battisti) lives in poverty with only his dog. After a spell in hospital, his landlady throws him out due to missed rent payments and he decides to commit suicide. However, his dog runs off and he is forced to chase it. When the two are united once again he decides not to kill himself but to struggle on, despite his economic difficulties.; Available on 16mm

Films to buy on Video and DVD

The following films are available to buy on Video and DVD where available. Please see the relevant sections above for filmographic information:

Dirk Bogarde in King and Country Available to buy on Video

Films by Luchino Visconti

Ossessione Available to buy on DVD and Video
Rocco and his Brothers Available to buy on Video
La Terra Trema Available to buy on DVD and Video

Films by Michelangelo Antonioni

L' Avventura Available to buy on Video
Il Deserto Rosso Available to buy on Video
Identification of a Woman Available to buy on Video

Films by Bernardo Bertolucci

The Spider's Stratagem Available to buy on Video

Films by Federico Fellini

Nights of Cabiria Available to buy on Video
La Strada Available to buy on Video

Films by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Arabian Nights Available to buy on DVD and Video
The Canterbury Tales Available to buy on DVD and Video
The Decameron Available to buy on DVD and Video
Mamma Roma Available to buy on Video
Medea Available to buy on Video
Saló, or the 100 days of Sodom Available to buy on DVD and Video
Theorem Available to buy on Video

Films by Roberto Rossellini

Germany, Year Zero Available to buy on Video
Paisà Available to buy on Video
Rome, Open City Available to buy on Video
Voyage to Italy Available to buy on Video

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