The 1957 Italian film “White Nights” features some stellar talent in front and behind the camera, chiefly actor Marcello Mastroianni and director Luchino Visconti, and yet what is often most remembered is its set. Recreating the center of Livorno, a coastal Tuscan town, the scenery is an impressive, intricate construction of pedestrian bridges, canals, buildings, bars, medieval alleyways, storefronts, and more. Indeed, the set is so remarkable that the soundstages and production facilities used to build the facsimile — the storied Cinecittà studios in Rome — are acknowledged in the opening credits for their “exceptional technical contribution.” Falling in love with the scenic design doesn’t imply that other elements, like the acting and writing, are shabby, or that the film, which is being re-released at Film Forum next week, is all art direction with no story or emotion. Under the direction of Mr. Visconti, who knew a thing or two about commandeering grand sets, passionate acting, and intricate plots due to his work in opera, the drama is a deeply felt depiction of loneliness, young love, and lost illusions. The luminous, guileless faces of its two central stars, Mr. Mastroianni and the Austrian-Swiss actress Maria Schell, cast just as rapturous a spell as do the set and lighting. The story, based on the 1848 novella “White Nights” by Dostoevsky, retains its power to affect, particularly as Mr. Visconti and screenwriter Suso Cecchi d’Amico up the melodrama while updating the setting from mid-nineteenth-century Saint Petersburg to post-World War II Italy.Right from its opening scenes, as Mario (Mr. Mastroianni) wistfully walks around at night, the constructed old-world cityscape beguiles. Rain-soaked streets, neon signs, a few bombed-out buildings, and a shadowy labyrinth of canals and footbridges all contribute to an atmosphere of late night melancholy. Complementing this dreaminess is Mr. Visconti and cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno’s decision to shoot in black-and-white, which also harmonizes with the fact that most of the film takes place at night. With fog in the air, the ambiance at times recalls the sfumato, or smokiness, of Italian Renaissance painting, with the two artists going even further to achieve a misty pictorial texture by hanging tulle from the soundstage ceiling to refract and diffuse the light from the set’s working streetlamps. Add composer Nino Rota’s alternately mysterious, romantic, and sweeping music and one is immediately in movie heaven. While some might consider the setting too obviously fabricated, the director, cinematographer, and art director Mario Chiari achieve more than a little verisimilitude through their detailed touches and painstaking lighting. Perhaps the most convincing moment early on occurs when a dog urinates at a corner while Mario ambles aimlessly. After establishing the setting and mood, Mr. Visconti then introduces the other main character: Natalia (Ms. Schell). Mario finds her crying against a railing, though not about to throw herself into the water as in the Bresson version of the story. Soon the two are walking around together, with Mario eager and earnest in his romantic intentions, despite initially mistaking her for a prostitute. Natalia, on the other hand, is more hesitant and secretive, though she does allow him to walk her home and agrees to meet him the next night.During the second night, after a few awkward, even comical moments in which Natalia attempts to hide from Mario, her skittish behavior is explained: she is waiting for someone else to show up and doesn’t want him to think of her as loose. This leads her to briefly recount her life’s story, which in turn leads to flashback scenes showing how she came to meet and be wooed by the man she awaits, who promised to meet her there after having to go elsewhere for a year. This man is never named but he’s played by imposing French actor Jean Marais. His character is hinted to be some sort of gangster in hiding, which explains his year-long disappearance while partly justifying why he might hold off meeting Natalia after a year.Incredulous at her naivety, Mario concludes that her beau is a cad. Mr. Mastroianni, who was soon to achieve international stardom with “Big Deal on Madonna Street” and “La Dolce Vita,” portrays Mario perfectly, smoothly reconciling the character’s opposing instances of earnestness and cynicism, gentlemanliness and bluntness, shyness and calculation. As in all the actor’s roles, the softness in his eyes accentuates his good looks, making for a perfect match with Ms. Schell’s beauty and sensitive gaze. Mirroring her co-star’s performance, the actress is just as captivating as Natalia, turning a too virginal and simple role into a complex portrait of a tentatively maturing young woman. With both characters, we witness their attempts to figure things out — the vagaries of love and romance and flirting. It’s a delight to watch.Two outstanding scenes involving diegetic music deserve mention. The first occurs during the aforementioned flashback sequence when we see Natalia and Mr. Marais’s character at the opera, the two gazing at each other intensely and almost erotically during a performance of “The Barber of Seville” as her blind grandmother sits next to them. The other occurs during Mario and Natalia’s third nightly encounter, when they visit a nightclub and haplessly join the other dancers gesticulating and swinging around to “Thirteen Women (And Only One Man in Town)” by Bill Haley & His Comets. Mr. Mastroianni is especially astonishing in the scene, both hilarious and heartbreaking, particularly when he watches a confident male dancer and then imitates his spasmodic, rock ‘n’ roll movements. Mr. Visconti has the duo stay out the entire third night, thereby condensing Dostoevsky’s timeline of events. He also includes an unconvincing instance of violence in the third act, though this clumsy nod to grim reality is later redeemed by another neorealist touch: a few glimpses at the town’s homeless. These shots contrast devastatingly with the would-be lovers’ idealism, getting at the heart of the movie’s message of how love begets ignorance and delusion. Yet who wouldn’t want the two appealing characters to become a couple—or to live in the film’s enchantingly created world of make-believe? When I first saw “White Nights” about ten years ago, I found Mr. Visconti’s style and the story a bit too old-fashioned. Now I see it for what it is: absolute movie magic.
