One of Visconti's most neglected works is this adaptation of the Dostoyevski story. Marcello Mastroianni plays Mario, a shy young man who meets a mysterious young woman, Natalia (Maria Schell), sobbing on a canal bridge. She tells him she is in love with a sailor who left on a long journey and promised to return. Dreamlike and elegiac, White Nights is an attempt to break away from the restraints of verisimilitude, to create a mediated reality. Appearance and mood totally govern the mise-en-sc?ne. Captured in endless night, Mario and Natalia exist in an isolation that is, oddly, both private and public. Even in the most intimate scenes, there are witnesses, motionless in the shadows, or slowly drifting by. The suspension is spectral. And enveloping each frame of White Nights is a delicate glaze of expectation belonging to both the characters and the viewer.