Fellini, Antonioni, Visconti: Italian cinema has its own Holy Trinity. Together, these three directors managed to represent and interpret Italian society through a crucial time in our history–from the desolation left by WWII to the economic miracle and beyond.

If Fellini blended memories and dream-like atmospheres into the everyday and Antonioni explored the existential crisis of a bourgeoisie bored to death, Visconti reclaimed for himself drama of the purest quality, preferably set among an aristocracy in perpetual decline.