Luchino Visconti: Filmmaker and Philosopher

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Luchino Visconti (1906-1976) was one of Europes most prestigious filmmakers, who rose to prominence as part of the Italian neo-realist movement, alongside contemporaries Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini. Famous for his elegant lifestyle, as friend of Jean Renoir and Coco Chanel amongst others, his vibrant technicolour dramas are also known for their decadence and stunning display of aesthetic mastery and sensory pleasure. Looking beyond this colourful faade, however, Resina explores the philosophical implications of decadence with a particular focus on three films from the late phase in Viscontis production, Damned (1969), Death in Venice (1971), and Ludwig (1972). From the incestuous relationship between decadence and power to decadence as an outcome of straining toward formal perfection, Resina uncovers the unity and philosophical cohesiveness of these films that deal with different subjects and historical periods. Reading these films and their decadence in light of the time of filming and Viscontis own sense of cultural doom, Resina further demonstrates the relevance of Viscontis philosophy today and how much they still have to say to our contemporary situation.

Reviews

An original, productive approach to a major filmmaker with unmistakable philosophical relevance, makes a major contribution not just to the study of Viscontis legacy but to the exploration of the dialogue between film, history and philosophy. * Antonio Monegal, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain *
A wonderful book of oxymoric strenghts: provocative, yet made to become a standard work; lucid in its analytic abstraction, yet palpably concrete; aesthetic, yet political; historical, yet for our times. * Jan Sffner, Professor and Chair in Cultural Theory and Analysis, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Germany *

Author Bio

Joan Ramon Resina is Professor of Iberian and Latin American Cultures and Comparative Literature, Stanford University, USA. He is the author and editor of many books most recently The Ghost in the Constitution: Historical Memory and Denial in Spanish Society (2017) and Joseph Pla: The World Seen in the Form of Articles (2017).