Loves of Casanova

The Republic of Venice, 1760. Casanova is a man pursued by a husband bent on revenge. He manages to escape and, by a roundabout route, arrives in Saint Petersburg. There he is drawn into the many plots threatening the throne of Czar Peter the Third. The film offers Casanova as a figure standing for the decline of the city; that reading is the account’s own. It is a large scale work of European silent cinema in 1927. The carnival of Venice and the Russian court are set against each other as two separate worlds. Ivan Mosjoukine takes the lead, with Diana Karenne also in the cast. Alexandre Volkoff’s hundred and twenty eight minute film, a joint French and German production, was completed in 1927.