OSSESSIONE

Italy, 1943, 140 minutes, Black and white.
Clara Calamai, Massimo Girotti.
Directed by Lucchino Visconti.

This is the second version of James L. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. There was a French version in the late thirties and Tay Garnett made the American version with Lana Turner and John Garfield in 1946. Bob Rafaelson remade it more frankly in 1981 with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange.

Lucchino Visconti had a distinguished career in Italian cinema. An artist, designer and musician as well as writer and director, he worked with Jean Renoir in the thirties. His opportunity to make a film came during the war and he adapted Cain's story to the Italian context with Italian attitudes towards character and themes. Made during the war, the film was not seen by international audiences. It is long, in the neo-realistic Italian style that was to emerge after the war. Visconti did not make another film until his documentary La Terra Trema in 1947. After that he moved into
feature films with a distinguished career through almost three decades. Ossessione is an interesting film in itself as well as marking the beginning of Visconti's career.

1. The reputation of Lucchino Visconti? This film as his first? The stories of the difficulties in making it during the war? Its classic status though not seen by international audiences? Its impact now? In the light of Visconti's career?

2. The use of the James L. Cain story, The Postman Always Rings Twice? The appeal of the melodrama, the interaction between man and woman, sexuality, violence? Visconti's adaptation of the American story to Italy, to the Italian environment?

3. Visconti and his interests? Nobility background, left-wing sympathies? His choice of this particular story? The epic style treatment and the length of the film? Black and white photography, the use of locations? Italian realism? The impact of the actors, the score? Visconti's technical abilities for the movement and fluidity of the film?

4. The tone and significance of the title? The individuals and their obsession, passion? Action? activity, passivity? Crime and passion, guilt and obsession, the possession of each other, retribution and its unfolding? Retribution coming from the outside and the protagonists from within themselves, characters and actions?

5. Themes of individuals and their living of their lives, the effect on each other, on others? The isolation of the individual, retribution coming from society, from within the characters? The characters influencing their environment which then works against them? Poetic justice and irony?

6. The portrait of Italian society? The background of the war, labourers on the move, cafes and the towns, the workers and the customers, their style? The background of Giovanna's marriage, the drifter entering the town and changing people's lives? The Italian people presented? The contrast with Lo Spagnuolo? Anita and her presence in the city? The police, the detectives, the ordinary people in town and city?

7. Gino as hero? His character, strengths and weaknesses, his drifting about, his wanting to be on the move? The arbitrariness of his arrival, his attracting Giovanna, his meal, his advances on her, the issue of the money and her arranging that he stay, her using her husband? The build-up of the liaison? the significance and presentation of an ordinary adultery? His decision to go, his continued need to drift, his trying to persuade Giovanna to go with him, her attempts to go and yet her inability to move away? Why? His life in the city, his looking for work, for a place to live, his encounter with Lo Spagnuolo and their friendship? Gino's loneliness in the city, his work? The arbitrary meeting of Giovanna and her husband again? The second occasion for passion and for choice? The decision for adultery, for murder? How deliberate was his choice? How much initiative was his, how much being influenced by Giovanna? His decision to participate and the execution of the murder?

8. Giovanna and her character, strengths and weaknesses, her boredom with her husband, her place in the town, the cafe and her security? her aggressive attitude towards Gino and manipulating his return, the motives for her entering into the liaison, her fears, attitude towards her husband, her setting out the leave but her inability to do so? The effect of the accidental and arbitrary meeting in the city? Her husband singing and the interaction with Gino? The liaison, enjoying Gino's company, the plan? How much initiative was hers? The execution of the crime?

9. The character of Bragans, the first impact, his work in the cafe, relationship with Giovanna, attitudes towards Gino? His place as a husband, brutality? His singing? The irony of his meeting Gino? The singing in the cafe, his not noticing his wife's liaison, his drinking and his permitting himself to be victim? How much audience sympathy at his death? Where did the sympathies of the writer/director lie?

10. The brutality and clumsiness of the murder? The visualizing of it and its physical effect, the moral effect on each of the two? Audience sympathies for them, antipathy towards them, revulsion at the murder?

11. The aftermath of the murder? Re-entering the cafe and seeing it with new eyes, the potential customers, their being on edge, Giovanna wanting to stay and keep her security. Gino and his restlessness? Their guilt, reaction to the talk of the town? Money issues?

12. The return of Lo Spagnuolo? His devotion to Gino? The homosexual background? What were the bonds, his discovery of Gino and the return? Gino's reaction against him? Lo Spagnuolo's decision, the police?

13. The police and their suspicions, the detective, the tracking of Gina, the interrogations, Glovanna? The propelling force for them to flee?

14. Anita and the contrast with Giovanna? The situation in the city, Giovanna and the insurance, Gino's reaction, his wanting to move away and feel free? The significance of his tension, the afternoon with Anita and his happiness?

15. The film's contrast of the two women? Their attitudes towards Gino and his decisions?

16. The build-up to the climax, the fear, the closing of the cafe, the driving, the fear of the detective. the irony of the accident and Giovanna's death? The repetition visually and thematically of the murder? The poetic justice for Gino?

17. Themes of man/woman relationships, love, crime, guilt, retribution?