The Semantic Functions of the Musical Quotations in Luchino Visconti’s Film Vaghe stelle dellʼOrsa…

Abstract

The study is devoted to the functions of musical quotations in the film Vaghe stelle
dellʼOrsa… (1965) by the outstanding Italian neo-realist director Luchino Visconti. For the first
time in the history of Russian film music, the article analyzes in detail the audial side of this film,
its interaction with the video sequence. In Russia, from Luchino Visconti’s extensive cinematic
legacy, Vaghe stelle dellʼOrsa… is the least studied. According to the author, this situation has
developed due to neutral and negative assessments of the movie by cinema critics inthe Soviet
Union and other countries. Years later, these trends have not been overcome by Russian researchers.
The main problem of such inattention is seen in the difficulty of analyzing the material of the
film. Throughout the running time, twenty musical quotations from Prelude, Chorale and Fugue
by Cesar Franck and specimens of popular music, for example, E se domani by Carlo Alberto Rossi
and Giorgio Calabrese, Strip Cinema by Paolo Calvi, Io che non vivo by Pino Donaggio and Vito
Pallavicini, etc. The producer works with quotation material, creating sound-visual counterpoint.
He “collides” the video sequence and musical quoted not only vertically, but also juxtaposes the
musical layers horizontally to each other. As a result of the interaction in the film, the musical
quotations carry out a number of compositional, dramatic and semantic functions.

Keywords: Luchino Visconti, Cesar Franck, musical quotation, meaning, cinema, Vaghe stelle
dellʼOrsa…