1976 · X · 2h 9min
Drama · Romance · Foreign Language
Drama · Romance · Foreign Language
English Title The Innocent
Director Luchino Visconti
Stars Giancarlo Giannini · Laura Antonelli · Jennifer O'Neill · Rina Morelli · Marc Porel · Massimo Girotti · Didier Haudepin · Marie Dubois
Based on The Intruder by Gabriele d'Annunzio
Writer(s) Suso Cecchi d'Amico · Enrico Medioli · Luchino Visconti
Music by Franco Mannino
Release Date May 18, 1976 (Italy)
Country of Origin Italy · France
Language Spoken Italian
Sound Mix Mono Colour Colour Aspect Ratio 2.35 : 1
Tullio Hermil is a chauvinist aristocrat who flaunts his mistress to his wife, but when he believes she has been unfaithful, he becomes enamored of her again.
Voluptuous.
"Nothing in the film quite fulfils the promise of the opening moment... But l'Innocente is nevertheless a remarkable film."
—Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Sight & Sound
Plot
The story is set in the late nineteenth century. Tullio Hermil (Giancarlo Giannini), a wealthy Roman aristocrat married to Giuliana (Laura Antonelli), has a possessive aristocratic mistress, Teresa Raffo (Jennifer O'Neill), and neglects his wife.
His interest in his wife is rekindled when he sees Giuliana's happiness after she has begun a love affair with a novelist, Filippo d'Arborio. She becomes pregnant by d'Arborio. Tullio urges an abortion but she refuses; d'Arborio then dies of a tropical infection.
Tullio cannot tolerate the healthy male child delivered to Giuliana, although he tries. While the family are at Christmas mass he exposes the baby and it dies, apparently of natural causes. Giuliana, who knows Tullio has murdered the baby, leaves him.
Tullio attempts to rekindle his affair with Teresa and takes her to his town house where they attempt to make love. When she tells him she no longer loves him, he shoots himself. Teresa picks up her belongings and leaves the estate.
"Visconti's last film strikes me as arguably the greatest of his late works apart from The Leopard — a withering autocritique of masculine vanity and self-delusion."
—Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader