A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger arrives, seduces every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiphany of sorts, but none can figure out who the seductive visitor was or why he came.
Direction
Pasolini frames desire like religious ecstasy — literally.
Acting
Terence Stamp says almost nothing and ruins five lives.
Cinematography
Milan's industrial sprawl as spiritual wasteland.
Director
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Terence Stamp
The Visitor
Silvana Mangano
Lucia, the Mother
Massimo Girotti
Paolo, the Father
Anne Wiazemsky
Odetta, the Daughter
Andrés José Cruz Soublette
Pietro, the Son
Laura Betti
Emilia, the Servant
Ninetto Davoli
Angelino, the Messenger
Carlo De Mejo
Lucia's first lover
Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia
Lucia's second lover
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released months before 1968's global uprisings, it was immediately prosecuted for obscenity — Pasolini called it his 'most Catholic' film.
Stamp was so uncomfortable with the religious allegory that he played the Visitor as completely empty — which accidentally made him more divine.
IT
