Editing Luchino Visconti (section)

===Films===
He began his film-making career as a set dresser on [[Jean Renoir]]'s ''[[Partie de campagne]]'' (1936) through the intercession of their common friend [[Coco Chanel]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay|url=https://archive.org/details/viscontiexplorat00baco|url-access=limited|last=Bacon|first=Henry|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1998|isbn=9780521599603|location=Cambridge|pages=[https://archive.org/details/viscontiexplorat00baco/page/n19 6]}}</ref> After a short tour of the United States, where he visited Hollywood, he returned to Italy to be Renoir's assistant again, this time for ''[[Tosca (1941 film)|Tosca]]'' (1941), a production that was interrupted and later completed by German director [[Karl Koch (director)|Karl Koch]].

Together with fellow members of the Milanese film journal ''Cinema -'' Gianni Puccini, [[Antonio Pietrangeli]] and [[Giuseppe De Santis]] - Visconti wrote the screenplay for his first film as director: {{Lang|it|[[Ossessione]]}} (''Obsession'', 1943), one of the first examples of [[Italian neorealism|neorealist]] (involving real locations and regular people) movies and an unofficial adaptation of the novel ''[[The Postman Always Rings Twice (novel)|The Postman Always Rings Twice]]''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay|url=https://archive.org/details/viscontiexplorat00baco|url-access=limited|last=Bacon|first=Henry|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1998|isbn=9780521599603|location=Cambridge|pages=[https://archive.org/details/viscontiexplorat00baco/page/n27 14]}}</ref> The premiere of {{Lang|it|Ossessione}} took place at a film festival hosted by [[Vittorio Mussolini]] (son of [[Benito Mussolini|Benito]]), who was the national arbiter for cinema and other arts, and the editor of ''Cinema''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bacon |first=Henry |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36884283 |title=Visconti : explorations of beauty and decay |date=1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-59057-4 |location=Cambridge |pages=15 |oclc=36884283}}</ref> Though prior to the premiere their working relationship was positive, upon viewing the film Vittorio stormed out of the theatre exclaiming: "This is not Italy!", according to the account of ''Cinema'' group contributor Aldo Scagnetti. The film was subsequently suppressed by the fascist regime, to the extent that the first public showing of the film in Rome only occurred in May 1945.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bacon |first=Henry |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36884283 |title=Visconti : explorations of beauty and decay |date=1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-59057-4 |location=Cambridge |pages=16 |oclc=36884283}}</ref>

In 1948, he wrote and directed ''[[La terra trema]]'' (''The Earth Trembles''), based on the novel ''I Malavoglia'' by [[Giovanni Verga]]. 
Visconti continued working throughout the 1950s, but he veered away from the neorealist path with his 1954 film, ''[[Senso (film)|Senso]]'', shot in colour. Based on the novella by [[Camillo Boito]], it is set in Austrian-occupied Venice in 1866. In this film, Visconti combines [[Realism (arts)|realism]] and [[romanticism]] as a way to break away from neorealism. However, as one biographer notes, "Visconti without [[Italian neorealism|neorealism]] is like [[Fritz Lang|Lang]] without [[expressionism]] and [[Sergei Eisenstein|Eisenstein]] without [[Formalist film theory|formalism]]".<ref>Nowell-Smith, p. 9.</ref> He describes the film as the "most Viscontian" of all Visconti's films. Visconti returned to neorealism once more with ''[[Rocco and His Brothers|Rocco e i suoi fratelli]]'' (''Rocco and His Brothers'', 1960), the story of Southern Italians who migrate to Milan hoping to find financial stability. In 1961, he was a member of the jury at the [[2nd Moscow International Film Festival]].<ref name="Moscow1961">{{cite web|url=http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1961 |title=2nd Moscow International Film Festival (1961) |access-date=4 November 2012 |work=MIFF |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116210653/http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1961 |archive-date=16 January 2013 }}</ref>

Turning away from neo-realism, Visconti created an unmistakable visual language in his films from the 1960s onwards. Thanks to his unique blend of aristocratic and upper-class origins, communist political convictions and brilliant social analysis, he created masterpieces of film history in The Leopard (1963), The Damned (1969), Death in Venice (1971) and Ludwig (1972). 
Throughout the 1960s, Visconti's films became more personal. ''[[The Leopard (1963 film)|Il Gattopardo]]'' (''The Leopard'', 1963) is based on [[Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa|Lampedusa]]'s [[The Leopard|novel of the same name]] about the decline of the Sicilian aristocracy at the time of the [[Italian unification|Risorgimento]], where the change of times becomes visible in two of the main characters: Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina ([[Burt Lancaster]]) appears patriarchal but humane, while Don Calogero Sedara ([[Paolo Stoppa]]), a shrewd entrepreneur and social climber from the village, appears submissive, but foxy and brutal at the same time, a mafia-like type of the future. The tension arises from the marriage of their relatives of the next generation, combined with the fall of the old Bourbon rule and the rise of a united Italy. This film was distributed in America and Britain by [[Twentieth-Century Fox]], which deleted important scenes. Visconti repudiated the Twentieth-Century Fox version.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

It was not until ''[[The Damned (1969 film)|The Damned]]'' (1969) that Visconti received a nomination for an [[Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay]]. The film, one of Visconti's better-known works, concerns a German industrialist's family which begins to disintegrate during the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi]] consolidation of power in the 1930s. The film opened to widespread critical acclaim, but also faced controversy from rating boards for its sexual content, including depictions of [[homosexuality]], [[pedophilia]], [[rape]], and [[incest]]. In the United States, the film was given an [[X rating]]. The avant-garde filmmaker [[Rainer Werner Fassbinder]] praised it as his favourite movie. Its decadence and lavish beauty are characteristic of Visconti's aesthetic − very visible also in the movie ''[[Death in Venice (film)|Death in Venice]]'' (1971) that adapted the daring novella ''[[Death in Venice]]'' published in 1912 by [[Thomas Mann]].

Visconti's final film was ''[[The Innocent (1976 film)|The Innocent]]'' (1976), in which he returns to his recurring interest in infidelity and betrayal.