L’Innocente (no 28)

by Allan Fish

(Italy 1976 125m) DVD1/2

Aka. The Innocent

A lesson in infidelity

p  Giovanni Bertolucci  d  Luchino Visconti  w  Suso Cecchi d’Amico, Luchino Visconti, Enrico Medioli  novel  Gabriele d’Annunzio  ph  Pasqualino de Santis  ed  Ruggero Mastroianni  md  Franco Mannino  m  Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, W.A.Mozart, C.W.Von Gluck  art  Mario Garbuglia  cos  Piero Tosi 

Giancarlo Giannini (Tullio Hermil), Jennifer O’Neill (Teresa Raffo), Laura Antonelli (Giuliana Hermil), Rina Morelli (Tullio’s mother), Didier Haudepin (Frederico Hermil), Massimo Girotti (Count Stefano Egano), Marie Dubois (Princess),

If ever a film demanded to be called luxurious, this is it.  Visconti’s final masterpiece has the intricate visual beauty and hidden emotions of many of his greatest works, and is a definitive example of his mournful studies of a decaying, soon to be wiped out Italian aristocracy.  Not only does it recall The Leopard, it also looks forward to Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence in its visual décor, narrative style and stately rhythms.  Yet even Scorsese would have to admit that Visconti is the true master.  No other director quite got over the atmosphere of understated feelings, hypocritical gentility and sheer opulent voluptuousness as Visconti.  It’s all summed up in the polite applause to the musical soiree which they attend for social purposes, despite generally despising the music.   

            Set in the Rome of the 1890’s, the tale follows Tullio Hermil, an Italian aristocrat and serial philanderer who ignores his beautiful wife, Guiliana, in favour of the beautiful widow, Teresa.  He admits his affair to his wife and even asks his wife to stand by him.  However, when he ends up spending a few days at his mother’s estate, he finds himself falling in love with his wife again, only for his illusion to be shattered when his mother tells him that she is convinced Guiliana is pregnant. 

            Indeed the look on Giannini’s face when he realises his wife has been unfaithful, too, is not just one of total desolation, but one of semi-acknowledged justice.  All the more painful in that it followed probably the most tender and explicit love scene in Visconti’s entire work, one filled with what can later be seen as true ambiguity.  His entire philosophy, his outlook on life is shattered in one full swoop.  “Love is there while it lasts, then it’s replaced by respect, affection, friendship and common interests” he muses while trying to justify his continuing infidelity to Guiliana.  The arrival of his wife’s child descends him into a really dark place in which he commits an unspeakable act of revenge which ultimately loses his wife to him forever. 

Such a complex role required a great performance and Giannini (as ubiquitous to seventies Italian cinema as Mastroianni was in the sixties) is superb as Tullio; cruel yet tender, selfish yet capable of generosity and realising his fate to be worthy of a second rate novel.  He’s a monster, but he’s a dying monster, in more ways than one.  Yet in many ways he is overshadowed by Antonelli, looking almost edible in her resplendent finery (even in the production stills of G.F.Lelli), one particular cerise number with black opera gloves truly unforgettable.  All the more remarkable in that it is arguably the only real performance she ever gave.  She was previously and afterwards regarded primarily for her gift for removing clothes with unprecedented alacrity.  Though she does here, too, there is such an exquisite subtlety and reserve to her performance that speaks volumes for Visconti’s direction and even more loss for her never being given such an opportunity again.  L’Innocente stands as a testament to her undoubted sensual beauty, never lovelier than under the gaze of de Santis’ ravishing camerawork, Garbuglia’s ornate décor and Tosi’s truly awe-inspiring costumes.  Indeed, Visconti’s film truly is one of the most mournful in history, and as David Thomson has observed, with it being his final posthumous film, one gets the feeling of it being a requiem not only to the lost aristocracy but to himself.  Thankfully, unlike Mozart, Visconti finished his requiem and it remains the best eulogy a director ever gave to himself.