In Visconti’s Bellissima, all of Ana Magnani’s dreams of cinema get crushed. But then she hears Burt Lancaster’s voice…..Her husband’s a naysayer. But then, some people just don’t get it. It’s perhaps significant in Visconti that we see John Wayne in Red River but that it is Montgomery Clift and Burt Lancaster that are referred to by name as objects of admiration. And of course Lancaster would go on to work with Visconti in The Leopard and in Conversation Piece, and even before that, with Magnani in The Rose Tattoo.
