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Ossessione (1943)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035160/
Italian language German French and English subtitles.
Ossessione (Obsession) is a 1943 film based on the novel, The Postman Always Rin
gs Twice, by James M. Cain. Luchino Visconti s first feature film, it is considere
d by many to be the first Italian neorealist film, though there is some debate a
bout whether such a categorization is accurate.
Clara Calamai ... Giovanna Bragana
Massimo Girotti ... Gino Costa
Dhia Cristiani ... Anita
Elio Marcuzzo ... Lo spagnolo
Vittorio Duse ... L'agente di polizia
Michele Riccardini ... Don Remigio
Juan de Landa ... Giuseppe Bragana (as Juan De Landa)
Acknowledged as the first film of the Italian neo-realist movement, Ossessione (
Obsession) (1942) was also the remarkably assured directorial debut of Luchino V
isconti. Loosely based on James M. Cain's 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Tw
ice, with the setting moved from California to Italy's Po Valley, Ossessione is
a dark melodrama of adultery, murder and betrayal. Gino, an unemployed mechanic,
arrives at a shabby inn owned by Giovanna and her much-older husband, Bragana.
Gino and Giovanna become lovers, setting in motion an inevitable series of tragi
c events.
To understand the impact of Ossessione, one must understand the Italian film ind
ustry at the time. The Fascist government had established a Hollywood-like studi
o system, which turned out glossy, superficial, escapist films known as white te
lephone pictures. Ossessione, with its earthy characters, frank sensuality, and
visual authenticity provided by location photography, was a dramatic contrast. E
ven more extraordinary were the contrasts in the director's own life. Count Don
Luchino Visconti di Modrone came from one of Italy's most aristocratic families.
..and was a dedicated Marxist. Visconti had spent his youth breeding horses, cul
tivating his interest in art and music, and mingling with Parisian society. Desi
gner Coco Chanel introduced him to French director Jean Renoir, and at the age o
f 30, Visconti went to work for Renoir as a costume designer and assistant direc
tor. It was Renoir who suggested Cain's novel to Visconti for his first directin
g project. Visconti sold some family jewels to finance the film.
Anna Magnani was slated to play Giovanna, but by the time production began, Magn
ani was pregnant and had to withdraw from the film. Another established star, Cl
ara Calamai, got the role. Calamai was younger and more glamorous than Magnani,
but Visconti didn't want glamour. He wanted realism, which meant no makeup, no p
ermed hair, and drab, grimy clothes. When Calamai saw the first rushes, she burs
t into tears and threatened to quit. Visconti responded with scathing aristocrat
ic imperiousness. Listen when I talk to you...or go back to your whorehouse! he
shouted. He insisted that her co-star Massimo Girotti slap her harder, and force
d her to bathe in the icy river. Once, an actor was supposed to knock over a gla
ss so that it fell and shattered. Furious that the glass didn't break in several
takes, Viscount threw glass after glass at Calamai's feet, and the splinters fl
ew up dangerously close to her face. Still, Calamai remained in awe of Visconti,
whom she called a medieval lord with a whip.
Girotti also suffered under Visconti's direction. In one scene, he had to drink
a glass of wine. Visconti shot the scene so many times that Girotti passed out,

dead drunk. On the last day of filming, the actor collapsed again, fainting from
nerves and fatigue. Visconti later admitted that his cruel behavior was calcula
ted. I'm interested in extreme situations, those instants when abnormal tension
reveals the truth about human beings; I like to confront the characters and the
story harshly, aggressively.
While Ossessione was in production, Visconti allowed his family's palazzo in Rom
e to be used as clandestine headquarters for the Communist Resistance. Before th
e film's premiere, two of its screenwriters were jailed as subversives. Even tho
ugh the Fascist government was on the verge of collapse, officials began to take
a closer look at Visconti's work. At the first screening, the audience gave Oss
essione an ovation. But Mussolini's son Vittorio, a film executive, stalked out,
shouting that isn't Italy! The Culture Minister called it a film that stinks of
latrines. Even a heavily censored version, cut beyond recognition, had a hard t
ime getting bookings. And when it did, local officials usually yanked it after a
few screenings.
Ossessione was not shown in the U.S. for many years because of a dispute with MG
M over the rights to Cain's novel, and even now it's rarely seen except at an oc
casional museum or film archive screening. Elusive as it is, Ossessione remains
an intriguing and historically important milestone in Italian cinema. And those
few who have managed to see it attest to the fact that even after sixty years, i
t remains a powerful experience.
Working under the censorship of the Fascist Italian government, Visconti encount
ered problems with the production even before filming commenced. He had initiall
y planned to adapt a story by Giovanni Verga, a renowned Italian realist writer
and one of his greatest influences, but it was turned down almost immediately by
the Fascist authorities due to its subject matter, which revolved around bandit
s. Around this time, Visconti uncovered a French translation of Cain s novel which
, famously, had been given to him by French director Jean Renoir while he was wo
rking in France in the 1930s.
Visconti adapted the script with a group of men he selected from the Milanese ma
gazine Cinema. The members of this group were talented filmmakers and writers an
d played a large role in the emerging neorealist movement: Mario Alicata, Gianni
Puccini, Antonio Pietrangeli and Giuseppe De Santis. When Ossessione was comple
ted and released in 1943, it was far from the innocent murder mystery the author
ities had expected; after a few screenings in Rome and northern Italy, prompting
outraged reactions from Fascist and Church authorities, the film was banned by
the Fascist government reestablished in the German occupied part of Italy after
the September 1943 armistice. Eventually the Fascists destroyed the film, but Vi
sconti managed to keep a duplicate negative from which all existing prints have
been made. After the war, Ossessione encountered more problems with mass distrib
ution, this time in the United States. As a result of the wartime production sch
edule, Visconti had never obtained the rights to the novel and e
Metro-Goldwyn Mayer began production on another version of the film, directed by
Tay Garnett (The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946), while the Fascist ban on Vi
sconti s work was still in effect.
Due to the copyright issues, the film didn t gain distribution outside of Italy un
til 1976. Despite limited screenings, it gained acclaim among moviegoers who rec
ognized in it some of the same sensibilities they had grown familiar with in neo
realist films by Michelangelo Antonioni, Puccini and De Santis, among others.
For the most part, Visconti retained the plot of the novel. He made changes such
as tailoring the script to its Italian setting and adding a character, but the
main departure from the novel and the defining characteristic of the film is the
manner in which it confronts the realities of life. In one particularly memorab

le scene that anticipates a major theme of neorealism, Ossessione s central female

character enters her wildly messy kitchen, serves herself a bowl of soup and si
ts down with a newspaper only to fall asleep, slumped over wearily in the midst
of the confusion. At several moments like this one, Visconti slows the pace to g
ive the viewer an even more penetrating glimpse into the routine of his characte
rs, and in doing so, roots the narrative squarely in the life of his characters.
In another scene, a man rushes into the inn where the tramp is seated at supper
with the innkeeper and his wife. He informs them that another landowner has bee
n shot from behind by a worker. Bregana fetches his gun and leaves. Shortly afte
r his exit, as the adulterous lovers huddle close by the window, gunshots sound
through the night. At once, Visconti foreshadows Bregana s death and illuminates t
he study of class tension that is woven fluidly into the film.
The landscape itself is realistic, and Visconti takes great care to situate his
characters in a rural Italy that remains for the most part unromanticized. Nearl
y the entire story is told using medium and long shots, with Visconti choosing t
o employ close-ups only at moments of intense emotion. Characters are depicted i
nteracting with and moving around within their environment; to this effect, Visc
onti favors long and ponderous shots while making use of depth of focus to highl
ight the variety of action occurring throughout the space of the frame. He resis
ts identifying solely with one character and prefers instead to maintain a dista
nce, taking them all in with his viewfinder as independent but irrevocably tangl
ed components of a larger cast, which includes the sets, scenery and landscape a
s well as what goes on outside of the frame. Shots of the landscape largely cons
ist of the dusty road winding into the distance and the interior shots are just
as bleak; the kitchen muted under a nearly tangible film of dust and grime and t
he dingy hotel room that speaks, with each detail, of the rebellious freedom che
rished by those who share it. The shift of focus from the novel is clear even in
Visconti s decision to change the title. Whereas the novel s title alludes to the f
inal retribution exacted upon the adulterous couple, Visconti s header bespeaks th
e focus of his film obsessive passion.
Despite arguments about how to define neorealist cinema, certainly one of Ossess
ione s most poignant aspects is its stark realism. Despite being popular actors of
Italian cinema, the stars of the film, Massimo Girotti and Clara Calamai, deliv
er breathtaking performances that are anything but glamorous. The lovers, Gino a
nd Giovanna, played by Girotti and Calamai, first meet in the kitchen of the inn
that Giovanna runs with her husband, the fat and dim-witted Bregana. It is in t
he symbolic and literal center of the family sphere, before they ever touch, tha
t the two make a silent oath. Their love, tainted as it is by lie, is difficult
for either of them to bear and the tension is only exacerbated by Bregana s overwh
elming presence.
Unable to continue the affair under such pretense but genuinely in love, Gino tr
ies to persuade Giovanna to leave with him. She is clearly tempted, but knows of
the power the road has over Gino, a relationship that Visconti executes nearly
as palpably as that between him and Giovanna. She ultimately refuses Gino, optin
g for the security and stability that Bregana has to offer, and he sets out once
again unencumbered. When they cross paths some time later, it is in the city an
d Bregana is extremely drunk, engaged in a singing competition. Against the back
drop of the drunken and foolish Bregana, the couple plans his death, an act they
carry out in a car crash. Rather than granting them the freedom they so despera
tely seek, however, the murder only heightens the need for deception and makes m
ore acute the guilt they had previously been dealing with. Despite Giovanna s atte
mpt to construct a normal life with Gino, Bregana s presence seems to remain long
after they return to the inn.
Their already crumbling relationship reaches its bounds when they go to collect
the money from Bregana s life insurance policy. They have a very hostile argument
and Gino retaliates by engaging Anita, an attractive young prostitute. Though Gi

ovanna is pregnant and there seems to be some hope for the couple, Gino is left
alone to deal with the law when Giovanna is killed in the film s second car crash.
The character of lo Spagnolo (the Spaniard), Visconti s main textual departure fro
m the novel, plays a pivotal role in the story of Ossessione. After failing to c
onvince Giovanna to flee with him, Gino meets lo Spagnolo before boarding a trai
n to the city and the two of them strike up an instant friendship, subsequently
working and living together. Lo Spagnolo is an actor who works as a street vendo
r and serves as a foil to Giovanna s traditionalism and inability to let go of the
material lifestyle. In contrast to the other main characters, who come across a
s very real and thoroughly developed, Spagnuolo operates chiefly on a symbolic l
evel. He represents for Gino the possibility of a liberated masculinity living a
life successfully separate from society s impositions, an alternative to the life
he is drawn toward in his relationship with Giovanna.
Both Giovanna and Gino are tragic characters in their inability to comfortably f
ind a space in which to situate themselves. The limited roles made available by
society prove to be insufficient in providing narratives for their lives that br
ing them closer to happiness. Giovanna is pulled away from the security of her m
arriage to the repulsive Bregana by a desire for true love and fulfillment, whos
e potential is actualized with the appearance of Gino. Her attempts to hold onto
the fortune which came with marriage, however, ultimately lead to the failure o
f their relationship and perhaps, by extension, her death. Gino s situation seems
to be just as distinct, if not more so, as the force pulling him away from Giova
nna is his fear of a traditional commitment. From the first time they sleep toge
ther, after which Giovanna shares with Gino all of her deepest problems while he
listens to the sound of waves in a seashell, it is clear that he answers only t
o the open road, identifying it as his alternative to becoming an active part of
mainstream society. Spagnuolo is the road manifest, masculine freedom in opposi
tion to Giovanna s femininity, love and family values. Caught in between the two c
onflicting ideals, Gino ends up violating both of them and dooming himself in th
e process.
Visconti s approach to filmmaking is very structured and he provides several pairs
of parallel events, such as the car crashes. Gino meets Spagnuolo as they sit s
ide by side on a wall, a scene that is repeated at the end of their friendship;
similarly, Gino angrily leaves Giovanna by the side of the road and is later aba
ndoned by Spagnuolo in a parallel scene. Cinematic techniques, such as the insta
nces in which Visconti foreshadows major plot twists or the introduction of Spag
nuolo as a counterweight, demonstrate Visconti s formalist streak and technical vi
rtuosity, but his realist vision and taste for drama are truly what breathe life
into Ossessione.