Viewed from today's perspective, the cinema of Joseph Losey, who passed away forty years ago, has something elusive about it. Far from the stylistic quirks and preferred genres that characterize many works, Losey's seems eclectic and multifaceted, which may have unjustly condemned a portion of his significant filmography to obscurity. From the 1940s to the 1980s, he ventured into psychological drama, fantasy, comedy, crime thriller, and historical film, with precision in character study, emotional intensity, and a constantly renewed sense of direction. A friend of Bertolt Brecht as well as an English adoptee after being driven out of the United States by McCarthyism, Losey patiently and confidently forged his worldview through a gallery of disparate characters, often sharing the common experience of being hunted, stigmatized, or isolated.
While in Venice, Tyvian, a writer who owes his fame to a fraud, is seduced by Eve, a courtesan who offers herself to him but rejects the idea of love. Tyvian's love for Eve becomes obsessive and consumes him.
Joseph Losey's film, which in its very first version lasted 155 minutes, was cut several times, first by the filmmaker and then by the producers. The last version approved by Losey, 135 minutes long, has unfortunately disappeared. The 126-minute version we are showing is the most complete version that exists of the film. Two sequences have inlaid Finnish and Swedish subtitles, as this is the only copy Losey was able to save after the drastic cuts made by the producers.
Joseph Losey
Born in 1909 in Wisconsin, Joseph Losey began studying medicine at Harvard before turning to theater. The 1929 crisis sensitized him to social issues, and he emerged in the 1930s as a committed theater director. He traveled to the Soviet Union where he met Bertolt Brecht, with whom he would later collaborate. Upon returning to the United States, he started directing while also becoming involved with the Communist Party, which led to scrutiny by McCarthyist authorities. Forced into exile in the United Kingdom, he subsequently made all his films in Europe. In the 60s, he met Harold Pinter, who would script three major works in his filmography: The Servant, Accident, and The Go-Between, which won the Palme d'Or at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
