SENSO

Opera and realism

In addition to Bellissima, Visconti shot a short documentary in 1951 titled Appunti su unfatto di cronaca (Notes about a news item). It was part of a film put together by Marco Ferreri and Riccardo Ghione, with De Sica, Carlo Levi, and Alberto Moravia in charge of the other parts. Visconti's contribution was based on a news item about a girl who had been raped and whose body was discovered in a well. A man had been arrested and he had confessed, but in the trial he withdrew his statement and claimed he had given it under torture. Visconti began his film by showing images of children playing and ended it with shots of the well and the girl's grave. By concentrating on the external factors, he apparently sought to demonstrate the effect of environment on human behavior. The documentary was banned in Italy, but it was fairly well received in France.

The next year Visconti worked with Suso Cecchi D'Amico in preparing a script based on Erich von Stroheim's Wedding March (1928). Because the film might have been interpreted as a comment on the debate over the question of divorce raging in Italy at the time, Lux Film rejected the script, probably intimidated by the uproar De Sica's Umberto D (1952) had just caused. Thus for a while Visconti concentrated on theatrical productions. One of them was Chekhov's Three Sisters.