Sandra (1965 film)

1965 Italian film

Sandra

Italian release poster

Italian| Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa
Directed by| Luchino Visconti
Written by| Suso Cecchi d'Amico
Enrico Medioli
Luchino Visconti
Starring| Claudia Cardinale
Jean Sorel
Michael Craig
Cinematography| Armando Nannuzzi
Edited by| Mario Serandrei
Music by| Cesar Franck

Production
company

Vides Cinematografica

Distributed by| Columbia C.E.I.A.D. (Italy)

Release dates

* 3 September 1965 (1965-09-03) (Venice)
* 16 September 1965 (1965-09-16) (Italy)
* 26 November 1965 (1965-11-26) (France)

Running time

| 105 minutes
Countries| Italy
France
Language| Italian

Sandra (Italian: Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa, lit. 'Glimmering stars of the Great Bear') is a 1965 drama film directed and co-written by Luchino Visconti, and starring Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel, and Michael Craig. A modern-day retelling of the Electra story, the film centers on the incestuous relationship between a young Italian woman (Cardinale) and her brother (Sorel), on her return to their ancestral home of Volterra. It premiered at the 26th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion.

## Plot

[edit]

Visconti's retelling of the Electra story starts with Sandra returning to her ancestral home in Italy. On the eve of an official ceremony commemorating the death of her Jewish father in a Nazi concentration camp, she revives a sexual involvement with her brother, which troubles her naive husband. The incestuous siblings determine to wreak revenge on their mother and stepfather, who supposedly denounced their father to the Nazis.

## Cast

[edit]

* Claudia Cardinale as Sandra Dawdson
* Jean Sorel as Gianni Wald-Luzzati
* Michael Craig as Andrew Dawdson
* Renzo Ricci as Antonio Gilardini
* Fred Williams as Pietro Formari
* Amalia Troiani as Fosca - maid
* Marie Bell as Sandra's mother
* Vittorio Manfrino
* Renato Moretti
* Giovanni Rovini
* Paola Piscini
* Isacco Politi
* Ferdinando Scarfiotti as party guest

## Title

[edit]

The Italian title, culled from the poem "Le ricordanze"[1] by Giacomo Leopardi, could be translated as "Glimmering stars of the Great Bear", and has a strong resonance with the movie's plot:

> Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa, io non credea
>  Tornare ancor per uso a contemplarvi
>  Sul paterno giardino scintillanti,
>  E ragionar con voi dalle finestre
>  Di questo albergo ove abitai fanciullo,
>  E delle gioie mie vidi la fine.(...)

English translation:

> Glimmering stars of the Great Bear,
>  I never thought I'd be back to see you
>  Shining down on my father's garden,
>  Nor talk to you ever again from the windows
>  Of this house where I spent my childhood
>  And saw the last of my happiness vanish.(...)

## Production

[edit]

The movie was shot on location in Volterra, a Tuscan town fifty miles southwest of Florence. Casa Inghrami and the Palazzo Viti were both used as settings for the family mansion there.[2]

It was initially reported that the principal actors would voice their own parts in the English-language version of the film.[3] Ultimately though they were dubbed by others.

This is the third of four films Claudia Cardinale made with Visconti, after Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963), followed by Conversation Piece (1974).

## Awards

[edit]

The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Leopardi's poem full text at [1]; English translation at Google Books
2. ^ TUSCAN-LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES OF VISCONTI AND 'ELECTRA' By DONALD LaBADIE. New York Times 6 Dec 1964: X13.
3. ^ TUSCAN-LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES OF VISCONTI AND 'ELECTRA' By DONALD LaBADIE. New York Times 6 Dec 1964: X13.

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa.

* Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa at IMDb

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Films directed by Luchino Visconti

| Feature films|

* Ossessione (1943)
* La Terra Trema (1948)
* Bellissima (1951)
* Senso (1954)
* White Nights (1957)
* Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
* The Leopard (1963)
* Sandra (1965)
* The Stranger (1967)
* The Damned (1969)
* Death in Venice (1971)
* Ludwig (1973)
* Conversation Piece (1974)
* The Innocent (1976)

|

Short films|

* Appunti su un fatto di cronaca (1951)

Segments
in anthology films|

* We, the Women (1953)
* Boccaccio '70 (1962)
* The Witches (1967)

* v
* t
* e

Venice Film Festival Golden Lion

1946–1968|

* The Southerner (1946)
* The Strike (1947)
* Hamlet (1948)
* Manon (1949)
* Justice Is Done (1950)
* Rashomon (1951)
* Forbidden Games (1952)
* Romeo and Juliet (1954)
* Ordet (1955)
* Aparajito (1957)
* Rickshaw Man (1958)
* General Della Rovere (1959)
* The Great War (1959)
* Tomorrow Is My Turn (1960)
* Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
* Family Diary (1962)
* Ivan's Childhood (1962)
* Hands over the City (1963)
* Red Desert (1964)
* Sandra (1965)
* The Battle of Algiers (1966)
* Belle de Jour (1967)
* Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed (1968)

1980–2000|

* Atlantic City (1980)
* Gloria (1980)
* Marianne and Juliane (1981)
* The State of Things (1982)
* First Name: Carmen (1983)
* A Year of the Quiet Sun (1984)
* Vagabond (1985)
* The Green Ray (1986)
* Au revoir les enfants (1987)
* The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988)
* A City of Sadness (1989)
* Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
* Close to Eden (1991)
* The Story of Qiu Ju (1992)
* Short Cuts (1993)
* Three Colours: Blue (1993)
* Before the Rain (1994)
* Vive l'amour (1994)
* Cyclo (1995)
* Michael Collins (1996)
* Hana-bi (1997)
* The Way We Laughed (1998)
* Not One Less (1999)
* The Circle (2000)

2001–present|

* Monsoon Wedding (2001)
* The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
* The Return (2003)
* Vera Drake (2004)
* Brokeback Mountain (2005)
* Still Life (2006)
* Lust, Caution (2007)
* The Wrestler (2008)
* Lebanon (2009)
* Somewhere (2010)
* Faust (2011)
* Pietà (2012)
* Sacro GRA (2013)
* A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014)
* From Afar (2015)
* The Woman Who Left (2016)
* The Shape of Water (2017)
* Roma (2018)
* Joker (2019)
* Nomadland (2020)
* Happening (2021)
* All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)
* Poor Things (2023)
* The Room Next Door (2024)

* v
* t
* e

Electra

Family|

* Agamemnon (father)
* Clytemnestra (mother)
* Aegisthus (stepfather)
* Orestes (brother)
* Iphigenia (sister)
* Chrysothemis (sister)

Films|

* Mourning Becomes Electra (1947)
* Electra (1962)
* Sandra (1965)
* The Forgotten Pistolero (1969)
* Electra, My Love  (1974)
* The Travelling Players (1975)
* Ellie (1984)
* Electra (2010)

Operas|

* Idoménée (1712, Campra)
* Idomeneo (1780, Mozart)
* Oresteia (1895, Taneyev)
* Elektra (1909, Strauss/von Hofmannsthal)
* discography
* Leben des Orest (1930, Krenek)
* Mourning Becomes Electra (1967, Levy/Butler)

Literature|

* Oresteia (458 BC, Aeschylus)
* Electra (c. 413 BC, Euripides)
* Orestes (c. 408 BC, Euripides)
* Electra (c. 405 BC, Sophocles)
* Electra (1937, Giraudoux)
* The Flies (1943, Sartre)
* Elektra (1971, Wijesinha)
* Mourning Becomes Electra (1931, O'Neill)
* Elektra (1981, Marvel)

Art|

* Orestes and Electra

Authority control databases: National |

* United States

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