OSSESSIONE (1942) B/W 112m dir: Luchino Visconti

w/Clara Calamai, Massimo Girotti, Juan de Landa, Elia Marcuzzo, Dhia Cristani, Vittorio Duse, Michele Riccardini, Michele Sakara

Based on James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, this film tells the story of a drifter who comes to a country inn, falls in love with the wife of the inn keeper, and, as a result, becomes mixed up in murder.

From Georges Sadoul's Dictionary of Films: "Though unknown for many years (copyright on the James Cain novel prevented public release outside Italy), this is the first great Italian neorealist film. Visconti, who had been an assistant to Jean Renoir before the war, had hoped to make his directorial debut with an adaptation of a novel by Giovanni Verga but the Fascist censors obliged him to fall back on an American thriller, which he adapted very freely. The film still created difficulties, however, since it showed both adultery and poverty --- subjects 'banned' in Fascist Italy.

"In an article in 1948, co-scenarist Angelo Pietrangeli describes this film, which was to change the face of the Italian cinema and establish its worldwide influence. 'A long traveling shot à la Renoir ends in front of a service station erected along the road like a frontier post. Suddenly, in a lyrical break so abrupt that it takes one's breath away, a camera flight introduces us royally to a character, a character still without a face, his vest unbuttoned over his sunburned skin, exhausted and hesitant, as a man would be who is stretching his legs after a long sleep in a truck. Are we the Gino of Ossessione? Let us call it simply Italian neorealism.

"'Ferrara, its squares, its gray and deserted streets; Ancona and its San Ciriaco fair; the Po and its sandy banks; a landscape streaked with a rubble of cars and men along the network of highways. Against this backdrop are silhouetted the wandering merchants, mechanics, prostitutes and inn boys who have all the typical innocent exuberances, beset by violent proletarian love affairs, primitive anger, and the sins that flesh is heir to.' One can recognize the dominant influence on Visconti of Renoir and Marcel Carné and also that of the naturalist writer, Giovanni Verga. Even in this, his first film, 'Visconti transformed everything he touched --- actors, houses, objects, light, dust --- into symbolic elements of his personal lyricism' (J.-G. Auriol)."

From The Movie Guide: "Despite its exquisitely hardboiled source material and film noir plot, OSSESSIONE is often cited as the first harbinger of neorealism. The film was shot in the Italian countryside (as opposed to the studios --- a technique favored by Jean Renoir, with whom Visconti apprenticed) and showed the Italian people living in their natural environs. Because the Fascist government of 1942 had complete control over film production in Italy, Visconti had to have his script okayed before shooting. The government saw nothing wrong with the script he presented, but was quite shocked with the final product, which displayed an Italy in contrast to the stylized depiction common to Italian films of the time. Fearful of political overtones, the government temporarily shelved the film, only to put it back into circulation after Mussolini saw and enjoyed it. As a portrayal of the conflict between moral conscience and uncontrollable passion, between the need to maintain a secure existence and the desire to remain free of any confining forces, OSSESSIONE is a powerful statement, and a remarkable first film from Visconti."

A later version of Cain's novel was made in 1946 by MGM, starring Lana Turner and John Garfield.