Visconti's The Stranger

Has anyone seen this? I’d really like to, but can’t find it anywhere. I read that it has never been released on VHS or DVD…are you listening, Criterion?

If anyone knows how I might be able to see this (youtube, anywhere online, etc.), please let me know.

I haven’t seen it either. I’m really curious…Anna Karina is in it with Marcello M. It seems odd that it’s so obscure now.

I did a fake cover for this (not a very good one) a while back.

Maybe it needs restoration before it can be released.

I have always wanted to see this but have yet to do so.

Just found it here (dubbed in English):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok_DIXTyLVk

I didn’t even know this film existed! Camus’ novel is one of my favorites, so I’m hoping the film stands up.

The film originally received very bad reviews in Europe, but in the US it got slightly better reviews. In Europe, I think, Camus has a lot of Bogartian glamour. Along with Kafka and Sartre, he is a God. The Europeans are very protective of their icons. I think Visconti filmed this book too late.
I saw it when it was first released and thought it was beautifully crafted and that Mastroianni was wonderful but it has been a long time since I last saw it. Maybe with this additional distance, it can be reevaluated.

Thanks for the link, Lou.

That copy has circulated as a bootleg in the US for years. The German-dubbed bootleg is significantly better in quality, and you can find .srt subs around.

The difference is noticeable:

You can mentally adjust the colors of the YouTube copy.

A beautiful movie. Stunning cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno. Great production design by Piero Tosi. Marcello is outstanding.
Anna Karina gives a very moving performance. If you check the movie reviews when the film was released in the US in 1967, you’ll be
impressed by the positive ones it elicited from snobbish critics like Stanley Kauffmann, John Simon and Pauline Kael. Kael thought the
film had great passages. She picked it as her third choice for Best Film of 1967, after Bonnie and Clyde and Chimes at Midnight. She voted
Anna Karina as best supporting actress.

The story goes that Visconti wanted to do a much more radical reinterpretation of the novel, taking into account later political developments in Algeria, but Camus’ widow was very protective of her late husband’s work, and she had some kind of contractual agreement with the producers, so in the end Visconti had to keep very close to the book, which made, if my decades-old memory serves me well, for a slightly flat and academic film. Also, Mastroianni (not Visconti’s first choice) was a bit miscast in a role that cried out for Alain Delon at that stage in his career. Brilliant cinematography, though.

I saw it when it came out — in 1968. Very nicely done. Plus you get to see Anna Karina’s breasts. This was much commented upon at the time, as Godard neevr showed her that way. It also demonstrates she’s a serious film actress — not Godard’s ex-wife.

She always refused to strip in Godard’s films. He first saw her in a tv commercial where she was in a bathtub, but she insisted that she was wearing a bathing suit under the bubble bath and she told him she wouldn’t take her clothes off in a film. Maybe that’s why he married her… lol. And maybe she did it for Visconti to get revenge when he married Anne Wiazemsky.

Or maybe she trusted a gay director to look at her rack objectively.

I have this—the German dubbed version that a few people have made a reference to. If people are interested, I could upload this on youtube with English subtitles since it’s not in commercial distribution.

Visconti was good with actresses, and worked with a lot of beautiful ones. Like Claudia Cardinale. She might have done it for Marcello, too! lol. Idk. Regardless of who’s directing, nudity is nudity, and the viewers are not necessarily going to be looking objectively. I just can’t help thinking Godard would have been really needled by that.

I liked this adaptation very much. Much thanks to Blue K for the upload!

Although it was indeed a tame adaptation due to legal restrictions as previously mentioned here, L’Entranger is such great literature that the film’s content cannot be faulted in a single way.

However, it would be unfair to judge The Stranger as merely a solid literary adaptation. The cinematography here is really something else. If the blue filter was intended, I love it. (Blue K, these words might sound strangely familiar; it only speaks of Visconti’s consistency) The framing of the scenes in the prison and many shots throughout the film (the prosecuting attorney speaking of Meursault’s complete lack of the littlest iota of humanity or morality in the foreground with Meursault in the background to name one example) was beautiful and brilliant. The lighting in any scenes that involve mirror and prisons is also impeccable.

This was my first Visconti and I found his inspired use of the zoom dial rather interesting. The film felt immensely voyeuristic from the long zooms into Meursault and Marie on the beach talking but their dialogue unintelligible due to the distance of the camera to the various zoom ins at the court scene of the camera finding Marie and Meursault. In my opinion, this is a reflection of the atmosphere of the film/book that features Meursault being cross-examined and judged extensively by people who do not know him well.

This is most notable in the court scene where the prosecuting attorney verbally destroys Meursault’s character and begs for the death penalty to be imposed of him in spite of the fact that the two never really interact and the fact that the attorney, not wholly knowing the history and personality of Meursault, is definitely not a good judge of his character and his motivations. Hence the camera work, to me, reflects this style of clinical and inhumane cross-examination, more specifically, it reflects the deconstruction of Meursault by the audience of the court, the members of the jury, the elderly home director both at the start of the film and during the court scene, the judge, the attorneys, the chaplain etcetera.

Only we as the audience can actually get into his thoughts due to the employment of voiceover, but Visconti’s resolve to distance us and leave us as spectators prevents us from truly making a fair judgement of him. Hence, the reason why the cinematography renders the trial scene so excellent and tragic. As previously mentioned, this is the first Visconti I have seen. Is this use of zoom a trademark of Visconti?

It is without doubt my favourite scene of the film. With this inspired use of cinematography and the unintentionally loyal adaptation, The Stranger is a solid and definitely successful marriage of cinema and literature.