SANDRA (VAGHE STELLE DELL'ORSA)

Italy, 1965, 98 minutes, Black and white.
Claudia Cardinale, Michael Craig, Jean Sorel, Marie Bell.
Directed by Luchino Visconti.

Sandra is one of Visoonti's less immediately accessible films. It is very much an Italian film in style, acting and theme, Amongst Visconti's films it comes between The Leopard and The Stranger.

The scene is Volterra, an ancient Etruscan city, physically and morally decaying. The theme is that of family relationships within this city - the ingredients are madness, betrayal, anti-Semitism, intense love between a brother and sister, loyalty to a dead father and hatred of a living insane mother. These themes are presented in terms of light and darkness, sanity and insanity, truth and illusion, subtlety and force. There are allusions to Leopardi's poetry and to Orestes-Electra? myths which give tragic overtones to this modern story. Much of the acting seems over-melodramatic to non-Italian audiences who would find the setting and treatment already rather (or too) foreign. The film needs a specialist audience.

For those interested in Italian cinema, Visconti's films, the following articles on Sandra are illuminating: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith's chapter in "Visconti", (Cinema One Series), and Walter Korte's article in "Man and the Movies"(Penguin, edited by W. R. Robinson).

1. On first viewing, does this film seem too local, or too Italian, to make wide impact or do its universal themes emerge?

2. The Italian title alludes to the poetry of the young, isolated, romantic poet Leopardi - the wandering stars of the constellation of the Bear. Gianni recites these lines in the film. Does this begin to throw light on the film? (The English title was - Of a Thousand Delights. In Australia it was Sandra.)

3. Besides references to Leopardi, there are allusions to Jacobean John Ford's play - 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, with its theme of incest (and a ring-giving scene) and to the Electra tragedies. While the film is not a direct modern dramatising of Greek tragedy, do these references throw light on the theme?

4. The setting (and the way it is photographed) plays an important role in the film. How do the locations contribute to mood and theme?

5. Who is Sandra? What crisis of identity does she go through? Her attitudes to her mother and Gilardini, to her father and his memory? Why had she left Volterra? How is she affected on her return? How important is her Jewishness to her? why?

6. How is Sandra affected by her meeting with Gianni? How is she changed by her confrontation with her mother and Gilardini, by Gianni's revelation of himself and his death, by Pietro, by Andrew's reaction to these events?

7. When did Gianni finally discover his love for Sandra and what did he want
them both to do? How did he try to persuade her? What was the basis of attachment between them?

8. Gianni - his relationship to his mother and Gilardini?Did he intend to die?

9. What had driven the mother mad - guilt of betrayal? Why did she hate her daughter and how anti-Semitic was she? What was her specific role in the film?

10. Did the audience sympathise with Gilardini? Had his relationship with the mother changed?

11. Andrew - did he understand the Volterra situation and understand Sandra?

12. Pietro - was he a foil for Sandra and Gianni, a chorus reflecting the actions?

13. Was the final exorcism, acceptance and hope for Sandra a satisfactory ending for the film? Did the music, classical and modern, contribute to the film?

14. Was this a deeply moving film or melodramatic and pretentious?