Sandra (1965 film)

Sandra (Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa) is a 1965 drama film directed and co-written by Luchino Visconti, and starring Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel, and Michael Craig. A modern-day retelling of the Electra story, the film centers on the incestuous relationship between a young Italian woman (Cardinale) and her brother (Sorel), on her return to their ancestral home of Volterra. It premiered at the 26th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion.

Plot
Visconti's retelling of the Electra story starts with Sandra/Electra (Claudia Cardinale) returning to her ancestral home in Italy. On the eve of an official ceremony commemorating the death of her Jewish father in a Nazi concentration camp, she revives an intimate involvement with her brother (Jean Sorel), which troubles her naive husband (Michael Craig).

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.

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:

English translation:

Cast

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

Production
The movie was shot on location in Volterra, a Tuscan town fifty miles southwest of Florence. Casa Inghrami and the Palazzo Viti were both used as settings for the family mansion there.

It was initially reported that the principal actors would voice their own parts in the English-language version of the film. Ultimately though they were dubbed by others.

This is the third of four films Claudia Cardinale made with Visconti, after Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963), followed by Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (1974).

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