ABSTRACT
In 1962, former actress turned producer Nicole Stephane acquired the rights from Marcel Proust's niece Suzi Mantes-Proust. Life in Paris and Cabourg around 1900 is illustrated in 17 period postcards whereas various drafts of the script give an insight into the evolution of the film's planned narrative and thematic structure. The numerous and diverse documents housed in the Luchino Visconti archive in Rome testify to this intense phase of pre-production. Appeals to major production companies and sponsors of the arts, including Joseph Losey's former classmate Governor Nelson Rockefeller, met with polite, but firm rejections. However, in spite of Ennio Flaianno's excellent, unfortunately unpublished, script the planned adaptation faltered because of unbridgeable differences between the director and his scriptwriter. Visconti's passion for Proust and his desire to adapts A la recherche du temps perdu go back a long way in his multifaceted career as a theatre producer, impresario and film director.
