Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay [Paperback]

Henry Bacon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0521599601 | ISBN-13: 978-0521599603

In this study, the first to consider Luchino Visconti's entire oeuvre, Henry Bacon examines the films of one of Italy's preeminent filmmakers against the cultural, historical, and biographical contexts in which they were made. Through analysis of his achievements, Visconti also emerges as a twentieth century inheritor and renewer of the nineteenth-century narrative tradition, especially that of the novel and the opera.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This readable, rich study of Luchino Visconti's 14 feature adn three short films grew out of the author's dissertation. Shrewdly attuned to the range of cinematic expression, especially the effects of music, Bacon provides the best study to date of this major stylist, who uniquely extended 19th-century narrative traditions of opera and the novel into the new aesthetics of cinema and the radical disintegrations of the 20th century. All collections." Choice

Book Description

In this study, the first to consider Luchino Visconti's entire oeuvre, Henry Bacon examines the films of one of Italy's preeminent filmakers against the cultural, historical, and biographical contexts in which they were made. Through analysis of his achievements, Visconti also emerges as a twentieth century inheritor and renewer of the nineteenth-century narrative tradition, especially that of the novel and the opera.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (March 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521599601
• ISBN-13: 978-0521599603
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #637,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ultimate Visconti, December 24, 1998

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A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay (Paperback)

Henry Bacon has proven himself a brilliant researcher and author by writing the finest, and truest account of the master of film Luchino Visconti. Bacon's book is a highly detailed, fact filled documentary of the director's vision as it relates to his spectacular career. The book is the ultimate guide to anyone studying film or researching Visconti. Bacon has properly and intelligently put into context Visconti's aristocratic background in relation to his developing career, he has included every single film, and planned project including those that have been lost, and goes in-depth to discuss Visconti's frame of mind, project by project, and how his entire brillant career developed. Bacon has a clear intellectual knowledge of the true Visconti and has the facts to back up his claims. The work is in itself a masterpiece of film research. It is truly the finest biographical documentary of Visconti to date.