Italian director (1906–1976)
He started neorealism with a film the Fascists condemned, then spent the rest of his career turning toward the opposite: vast historical epics about aristocratic decay, death, and beauty. A Milanese count who fought in the resistance and made some of the most visually lush, politically complicated films in cinema history.
Born into Milanese nobility in 1906, Visconti began as an assistant to Jean Renoir in France before returning to direct Ossessione in 1943 — a raw working-class story the Fascist regime hated but that became Italian neorealism's first landmark. He served in the resistance during the war, stayed active in left-wing politics after, and then pivoted: Senso in 1954, The Leopard in 1963 (Palme d'Or), Rocco and His Brothers, and the "German Trilogy" — The Damned, Death in Venice, Ludwig — all sweeping, decadent meditations on European history and noble collapse. He directed opera and theatre at La S…
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