In 1965 Luchino Visconti filmed Vaghe Stelle dell'Orsa (Sandra of a Thousand Delights, or simply Sandra, in UK and US). The title makes a clear reference to the incipit of Giacomo Leopardi's poem "Le ricordanze" ("Remembrances"), proposing a challenge to the researchers on the relationship between film and literature: in the history of film, adaptations from novels, short stories, plays and operas are quite frequently; but how to think a poem as the source of a movie? Based on Giorgio Agamben's thoughts about experiencing time, poetry and image, this paper aims to understand the way Visconti read Leopardi's poem - or, in other words: the way the director unravelled a movie from a poem.
film; literature; Italian poetry; adaptation