The sun—the Algerian sun—was an important part of Albert Camus's early being…. And it is integral to his first novel, The Stranger: the crucial moment of murder occurs when Meursault is in the grip of that same Algerian sun. Luchino Visconti has understood this essential thematic element perfectly. In his color film of The Stranger, apparently shot on location, Visconti has aimed to make the sun a benefaction, an oppression, an ambience. (p. 46)

This visual realization of the atmosphere is only the beginning of the film's achievements. Visconti has got a faithful screenplay…. However, to say that the script is faithful to Camus is both to praise it and to delimit it. It does the most, dramatically and cinematically, that is possible with the book, without any substantive alteration (which would have been intolerable), yet its fidelity gives it the same level dramatic plane as that...