The idea of making a quasi-historical film would not have convinced me completely, had I not seen the possibility of telling – within an exceptional climate such as that of the war, of any war – a love story, a violent and passionate story … We Italians have shown, in the films of these past years, that we can compete with the cinemas of other countries that are much better equipped technically, thanks to the qualities of realism, spontaneity and the so-called “open air” – filming beyond the artificial restrictions of the studios and entrusting ourselves to the authenticity of life. It is true that our best films have generally dealt with real events of everyday life today – or of events so recent and so dramatic that they have often been mistaken for news reports. Nevertheless, I believe that the principal characteristics of this cinema are not the faces of people plucked from Italian streets and piazzas, from everyday life in Italy, but rather something more essential: that is, the ability to look at human passions without the slightest trace of conventionality, or the constraints of rhetorical formulas. I believe that this search for truth, this method of investigation, can be applied in the same way to any human adventure, any event centred on human passions. This is why, in accepting to make this film, which is set during the last war for Italian liberation from the Austrian occupation of 1866, I looked above all to what interested me – the passionate drama between two human beings who should theoretically be enemies, since they belong to opposing camps. I wanted to peer into their depths, follow their psychological movements in their wavering between good and evil, with absolute fearlessness and sincerity. My aim was to turn all of this into a representation of two different races, two conflicting worlds. The main thing I was aiming for was that this story should be just as current, truthful and compelling as if it were taking place under our very eyes – between a lieutenant in an enemy army, and a woman from an occupied country.

Luchino Visconti, Luchino Visconti. Epistolario 1920-1961, edited by Caterina d’Amico de Carvalho and Alessandra Favino, Edizioni Cineteca di Bologna, Bologna 2024