avik-basu1889
'Ossessione' was great Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti's debut film. 'Ossessione' is based on James M. Cain's novel 'The Postman Always Rings Twice'.The aforementioned novel has been adapted quite a few times in America. But I think Visconti's film succeeds in properly portraying the struggles of the characters in a very believable manner. This film actually elevates the subject matter of the book to some extent. While the book was all about the theme 'crime doesn't pay', the film adds a touch of humanity to the theme to make the film very moving.Is the film sexy and erotic? Certainly. It has all the titillating aspects of the original source material as Massimo Girotti and Clara Calamai crank up the heat. But apart from the eroticism, the film also brilliantly explores the characters. We understand the hesitations, the temptations, the motivations and the grief of both Giovanna and Gino. Visconti does a great job of setting the storyline in Italy. This allowed Visconti to place the socio- economic problems of wartime Italy in the background of the story. The financial inadequacy plays a big role in justifying the motivations of the characters.The film is certainly a morality tale too. It is concerned with the temptation to indulge in criminal activities and how such choices more often than not lead to catastrophe. However, Visconti doesn't judge or vilify any character. He treats them with respect and doesn't take their humanity away from them. From a technical standpoint, I was impressed by the shot selection of Visconti and the way he composed his frames. There are some breathtaking moments that stand out like the shot in the initial part of the film where the camera after tracking sideways suddenly rises(via a crane) above the truck to shift the focus from Bragana to Gino to show us whom this film would follow, or the shot of Giovanna verbalising her past struggles to Gino while sitting on a chair in a painfully hunched posture, or the beautiful sequence where Giovanna hints at the favour that she wants Gino to do for her and her love which almost plays out like a choreographed dance sequence as she moves around with Gino following behind her in the room,etc. Visconti's movement of the camera already seemed very assured for his debut film.The acting in the film is outstanding. Massimo Girotti has a strong masculine presence. But he also has the range to shift from a confident man to being a man riddled with guilt. Calamai also gives a very layered performance. One can easily see the pain and insecurity in her eyes.'Ossessione' is sometimes regarded as the first Italian neo-realist film. Now that is something that can be questioned, but in my mind what can't be questioned is the depth and layers that Visconti adds to the film which could have easily been reduced to a pulp crime thriller. He makes the film socially poignant. Highly Recommended.
lasttimeisaw
A double-bill of two vintage films adapted from James M. Cain's 1934 novel THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RING TWICE, 1946's Hollywood B&W version and Visconti's groundbreaking debut in 1943, while intentionally evade the less-championed 1981 remake with Nicholson and Lange. The 1946 film, directed by the prolific journeyman Tay Garnett, is a less riveting Film-Noir compared to Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944, 8/10), virulently extends the mismatch of the married couple Cora and Nick by casting the stunning beauty Lana Turner and the nondescript good fellow Cecil Kellaway, bar the gaping age difference, they don't belong together in any universe. The interloper is the shifty-looking drifter Frank (John Garfield), the unscrupulousness is all on his face, and driven by lust he falls for her at the first sight. But as the code of this specific genre, the evil thrust is almost inclusively kick-started by the female-fatale, "I wanna be somebody!", as Cora contests, she is stuck in a miasma and Frank is the last straw. As the title suggests, there are two attempts of murder (poor Nick), after a botched first one, in order to facilitate the second one, the film hastily piles up all the stimulus, including a horrid one when Nick decides to wrap up their business and move back to his hometown in Canada, and wait for the worst part, Cora will be coerced to attend to Nick's bed-ridden sister. Nick must die, there is just no other way around. It is a cheap shot. After a fine touch with echoes, Nick is dispatched successfully, then the film spirals with its poorly contrived script including the cringe-making mediation of the justice system and the worst double-cross scam from the DA Mr. Sackett (Ames), who has been ominously introduced in the very beginning of the film. Yet, we must buy it and the two get away with the murder. (An honorable mention to Hume Cronyn's remarkable impersonation as the vile attorney). But wrongdoers can never be spared in the mainstream media at then, unexpectedly, one almost steps into the trap of a bolder and more wicked twist when they return to the beach and swim to their strength's extremity, however, it is only a bluff, the ending is more self-righteous and insignificantly self-serving. Right near the opening scenes, the glaring fake backgrounds almost haul me out of the context, some oldies are simply can not be taken too seriously with today's standards, thankfully, Lana Turner can pacify the sketchy slackness with her engrossing portrait of a woman at the end of her tether, she is good, but not in the same league as Stanwyck's excellence. By comparison OBSESSION, made 3 years before the Hollywood version, is an audacious maiden work which injects tremendous pathos into its two main roles with strenuous character- dissections assisted by onerous fieldwork. Visconti ditched its original title and transposed the story in a village near Ancona with authentic settings, an accepted trailblazer of Neorealismo movement and a tour-de-force of chiaroscuro finesse. A thirty-some Giovanna (Calamai) is the wife of a trattoria owner Giuseppe (the opera chanting Juan de Landa), distressed by Giuseppe's negligence and ill-treatment and disgusted by his obesity, her passion is instantaneously ignited when she meets Gino (a masculine-built and smoldering hot Girotti), a diddling young tramp in his 20s, they sleep together the very afternoon of the day, with a ballsy nuance, the advances are in fact instigated from the female part. For Gino, a mature and attractive woman is like an oasis in the desert, but he is much wiser (and more sensible) than Frank, when Giovanna bails on their elopement, he has the balls to leave her for good, gets going on with his fellow itinerant Lo Spagnolo "The Spanish" (a prematurely- deceased Elio Marcuzzo), this interlude is not in the novel, but Visconti never miss a chance to enhance the ambiguous rapport between men, and here, it has been teased out brilliantly with the side-by-side sitting which will appear again with a different undercurrent. But destiny has its own plans, Gino reunites with Giuseppe and Giovanna during a festival, and this time he has no strength to resist the temptation, after the festive cacophony, including a jolly episode of Giuseppe contests in a singing competition, en route to their trattoria, out of an act of passion, they fake a road accident and Giuseppe is killed. After that, without the distracting offshoots of courtroom drama and the conceited detectives or snooty lawyers, the film fixates on the aftermath where they have to live on with the consequences of their unforgivable deeds, especially for Gino, he is not the type of person who can hatch a murder scheme, he is seductive but never lethal. Yet, his love for Giovanna is too intense and it overpowers his soundness of judgment, Girotti proves he is not just a burly stallion, unlike Garfield, Gino's psychological fluctuations are potently presented, and his fling with a plain-looking prostitute Anita (Cristiani) indicates his unsophisticated nature.As for Giovanna, she is an ordinary wife who needs to break out her mundane life with a man she doesn't love, at the same time, she is afraid of uncertainty, especially under the WWII backwater, she should be content but she couldn't, especially when lust presides. Calamai is less glamorous but more impressive to exert her conversion from a sulky, manipulative housewife to a vulnerable and pitiful captive for the man she wholeheartedly loves. Their reconciliation is genuinely touching and the abrupt ending is much more plaintive and sob-inducing. There is alway a mixed feeling after a double bill because you cannot love or hate them equally, confessionally, Visconti's debut would not be so exceptional if I had not watched the Hollywood adaptation beforehand, peer comparison does have its direct effect, I should try it more often.
jotix100
Luchino Visconti was light years ahead of his contemporaries. The great directors of Italy of the 40s and 50s were men who understood the medium, but it was Luchino Visconti, a man of vision, who dared to bring a film like to show what he was capable of doing. He clearly shows his genius early on in his distinguished career with "Ossessione", a film based on James Cain's "The Postman Always Ring Twice", which was later made by Hollywood, but that version pales in comparison with what Visconti achieved in the movie. Luchino Visconti and his collaborators on the screen included an uncredited Alberto Moravia, a man who knew about the effect of passion on human beings.The film has been well preserved in the DVD format we watched recently. The film is a must for all serious movie fans because we can see how Visconti's vision translated the text into a movie that rings true in a plausible way, something the American version lacked.What comes across watching the movie, is the intensity which the director got from his key players. The magnificent Clara Calamai does an amazing job as Giovanna, the woman who has married an older man, but when Gino appears in her life, all she wants to do is rid herself of the kind man who gave her an opportunity in life. Giovanna is one of the best creations in Ms. Calamai's achievements in the Italian cinema. The last sequence of the film shows Ms. Calamai at her best in the ironic twist that serves as the moral redemption for the monstrous crime that was committed.Equally excellent is Massimo Girotti, one of the best actors of his generation who appears as Gino, the hunky man that awakens the obsessive passion in Giovanna. Gino is the perfect man for Giovanna, something that Mr. Girotti projects with such ease and sophistication not equaled before in the screen. Mr. Girotti makes the man come alive in a performance that seems so easy, yet with another actor it might not have been so apparent. Juan DeLanda is seen as Giuseppe, the older man who fell in love with Giovanna. In fact, his character rings truer than his counterpart in the American film, where he is seen more as a buffoon.The film is beautifully photographed by Domenic Scala and Aldo Tonti. They gave the film a naturalistic look that was the way Italian directors of the era favored. The original musical score of Giuseppe Rosati is perfect. Visconti, a man who loved opera and was one of the best directors, also includes arias by Bizet and Verdi that fit well in the context of the movie."Ossessione" is a film to treasure because we see a great Luchino Visconti at the top of his form.
