Luchino Visconti occupies a singular position in film history. He was instrumental in the creation of modern cinema by being the first to throw down the neorealist gauntlet with Ossessione 1942 and later contributed one of the movements canonical cornerstones, La Terra Trema 1948. Of the three giants of the first wave of post war neorealists, he was the only one to maintain his position at the forefront of art cinema into the 60s, when Rossellini had moved to television and De Sica was making more commercial films. Viscontis later career was devoted to the creation of a series of period movies including Senso 1954, The Leopard Il Gattopardo, 1963 and Death in Venice Morte a Venezia, 1971 that are still without parallel in terms of atmosphere, detail and sheer dramatic force. It was in these that his genius, although often evident from his earliest work onwards, developed fully.As his career progressed it became apparent that Visconti was, like Bresson and Dreyer, a lonely, stubborn, uncompromising giant who navigated a very personal course that frequently ran parallel with that of film history, yet remained rather aloof from it. He made relatively few films and gained the reputation of being a fastidious and sometimes ruthless perfectionist. However, unlike Bresson or Dreyer, Visconti was not a severe minimalist who worked according to strict theories; rather his style was sumptuous, lush and constantly open to influence from his subject matter. With equally important careers in opera and theatre, as well as a deep knowledge of literature and painting, Visconti was one of the most complete artists ever to have worked in the cinema. While probably seeing himself as a classicist, Visconti arrived at many of the same formal conclusions as the more selfconsciously revolutionary filmmakers of his time, but by different methods. Unlike Bresson he never rejected cinema as it was; unlike Godard he never used his films to question established techniques. Rather, Visconti pushed the cinematic creative envelope simply because the limits of film narrative were not big enough to contain the scope and complexity of his vision.

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