Sandra (film)

Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa
Directed by	Luchino Visconti
Written by	Suso Cecchi d'Amico Enrico Medioli Luchino Visconti
Starring	Michael Craig Claudia Cardinale
Release date(s)	16 September 1965 16 January 1966
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa is a 1965 Italian film directed by Luchino Visconti. It was released as Sandra Of A Thousand Delights in the USA and as Of These Thousand Pleasures in the UK.

Plot

Visconti's retelling of the Electra story starts with Sandra/Electra (Claudia Cardinale) returning to her ancestral home in Italy - and reviving an intimate involvement with her brother (Sorel) which troubles her naive American husband (Michael Craig) - on the eve of an official ceremony commemorating the death of her Jewish father in a Nazi concentration camp. As ever with Visconti, he is ambivalently drawn to the decadent society he is ostensibly criticising; and Armando Nannuzzi's camera lovingly caresses the creaking old mansion, set in a landscape of crumbling ruins, where the incestuous siblings determine to wreak revenge on the mother (Bell) and stepfather (Ricci) who supposedly denounced their father. Something like a Verdi opera without the music, the result may not quite achieve tragedy, but it looks marvellous.

The title, culled from the poem "Le ricordanze" 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.(...)

Cast

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

Awards

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

External links

• Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa at the Internet Movie Database