Der Leopard

Let me just start by saying this film is gorgeous, starting with its cast, led by Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale. With his whiskers and regal gravitas, Lancaster even looks like the majestic leopard from his family's coat of arms, or perhaps a lion. The production quality is very high, with lavish sets, beautiful costumes, and incredible attention to detail. Shot in widescreen format, director Luchino Visconti also gives us sweeping landscapes in rugged Sicily.

Set in 1860, the Bourbon state of Naples and Sicily (the Kingdom of Two Sicilies) was about to end, as King Ferdinand II had recently died. The movement for Italian unification was led out of Piedmont-Sardinia, ruled by Victor Emmanuel and with Cavour as his Prime Minister. Sometimes at odds with these leaders, in May, 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi and his "Redshirts" invaded Sicily to successfully take the island from the Bourbons. This was a part of creating the new Kingdom of Italy, unified for the first time since the Roman period.

For wealthy aristocrats on Sicily, the coming change was viewed warily, for reasons of wanting to hold on to their riches, as well as a fair degree of Sicilian cynicism. We see this in the older Prince (Lancaster), who looks on impassively, looking to ride out the regime change and retain his position, and who later turns down an opportunity to represent Sicily in the newly formed nation's senate. We also see it in his nephew (Delon), who doesn't really have a guiding political principle, but is canny about sensing change, and fights for the side which benefits him the most. It's not a particularly flattering portrait, though I think Visconti's portrayal of these characters is far less pessimistic than Lampedusa's. Lancaster is stately and dignified, a positive character here, particularly when contrasted to the character of Calogero, a landowner who has risen from humble circumstances.

The genius of the film and the work it's based on is how it has all of these layers to the inevitability of change, with one political regime giving way to another, the old aristocracy giving way to those with "new money," and older people recognizing their age and giving way to youth. The grand palaces and beautiful ballroom dances are of an age now lost, and the film has a poignancy in fondly looking back at it - kind of like how the American south before the Civil War is romanticized (and in this case, minus the horrifying slavery and subsequent distortion of truth).

Amidst this grand historical backdrop the old Prince sees all aspects of his life changing, even if he's been convinced by his nephew that "for everything to remain the same, everything must change." He ponders it wistfully, and the viewer comes along for the ride emotionally. That quiet look in the mirror that Lancaster has towards the end, a tear in his eye, says it all. Lampedusa did not live to see his only book published or the triumph of this movie, which is sad but somehow in keeping with his themes. Even in triumph, the march of time is relentless, and we all will be the victim of our own transience.

Visconti's work is fantastic and faithful to the book, with one glaring exception: he omits the final two chapters, set in 1888 and then 1910, choosing to spend a very long time (45 minutes!) on the final ballroom scene instead. As exquisite as that set piece was, I think it was a mistake, because those final chapters which flash forward in time cement the theme of dissolution, give us the realities behind the grand moments of life and love, and contain indelible images. It's a bittersweet film regardless, but Visconti chose to put things in a more optimistic and happy light. Perhaps without cutting the ballroom scene down at all, we could have been treated to another hour of this delicious work. I would have been down for that.

A couple of quotes, this first one on getting older: "You see, Father a man can think of himself as still young, even at 45. But when he realizes his kids are grown enough to fall in love, old age becomes all of a sudden overwhelming."

And this one, on Sicilians. Lampedusa's observations reminded me of Kazantzakis commenting on Cretans, and I loved how we get little insights into the culture at about the two hour point of the movie:

"We're old, we're very old. For 25 centuries we've been carrying on our shoulders the weight of wonderful civilizations. But they all came from the outside, we didn't create them. For 2500 years we've only been a colony. I know it's our own fault. But we are tired, void, and lack vitality. ... I know you all mean well, but you're late. Sleep. That's what Sicilians want, a long sleep. They will hate those who want to wake them up. Were it even to give them beautiful gifts. But I doubt that the new Kingdom has any gift for us. Here, any action, even the most violent, represents a longing for oblivion. Our sensuality is a longing for oblivion. We shoot and stab because we long for death. Our laziness, the penetrating sweetness of our ice cream are a longing for voluptuous immobility. That is, again, for death."

"The Leopard" is based upon the celebrated novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, which was a massive success in Italy and also brought its author to international attention. A film adaptation was inevitable, but its scale and detailed recreation of 19th century Italy required a bigger budget than the Italian cinema could easily afford. The decision was therefore taken to attract international audiences by casting a big-name Hollywood star, Burt Lancaster, in the leading role, with the well-known French actor Alain Delon in a secondary one. I was interested to learn that not only were Lancaster and Delon's lines dubbed into Italian, but the same was also done with the film's leading lady, Claudia Cardinale. Although Cardinale is normally thought of as an Italian actress, she was actually born to ethnic Italian parents in Tunisia, at the time a French colony, and grew up speaking French and her parents' Sicilian dialect. Her heavily accented Italian was felt to be inappropriate to her character, Angelica, who although of peasant stock has been brought up as a cultured young lady by her social-climbing father.

The action takes place in the Sicily of the early 1860s. The "leopard" of the title is Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, the head of an ancient and illustrious aristocratic family. This is, however, a time of change, because the "Risorgimento", the struggle to unite the network of petty states which made up Italy into a single kingdom, has begun. Early in the story the armies of Francis II of the Two Sicilies are defeated by the pro-unification "redshirts" of Giuseppe Garibaldi, leading the way to the incorporation of the island into the new state.

Lampedusa, himself a Sicilian aristocrat, took a somewhat cynical view of the Risorgimento, even though these events are one of the defining episodes of Italian patriotism. Fabrizio sees the events of 1860/61 as marking the decline of traditional aristocratic values and the rise of a corrupt, materialistic bourgeoisie. The new Italy claims to be a democracy, but this claim is shown to be a hollow one when the new rulers organise a rigged plebiscite to approve the incorporation of Sicily into the new unified Italy. (In Fabrizio's home town 512 citizens out of 515 supposedly vote in favour, with three abstentions and no votes against, a landslide of North Korean proportions). Fabrizio is offered the position of a Senator in the new state, but contemptuously rejects it.

The main representative of the rising bourgeoisie is Don Calogero Sedara, a wealthy, self-made businessman. Like many "new money" men throughout the ages, Sedara longs for social acceptance by the "old money" nobility, and is desperate to engineer the marriage of his beautiful daughter Angelica to Fabrizio's nephew Tancredi. Although Fabrizio was hoping that Tancredi would marry his own daughter, Concetta, he reluctantly gives his consent, knowing that Tancredi (whose own family are aristocratic but not particularly wealthy is not only smitten with Angelica's good looks but also in need of her father's money.

The novel has always been known in English as "The Leopard" (and in French as "Le Guépard"), even though its Italian title "Il Gattopardo" refers not to the leopard (that would be "Il Leopardo") but to two smaller members of the cat family, either the serval (gattopardo africano) or the ocelot (gattopardo americano). Although I can see why the change was made- "The Serval" would mean little to English-speaking audiences unless they were expert in zoology- Lampedusa's title strikes me as somehow more appropriate. By the end of the film Fabrizio seems a diminished figure, no longer the biggest cat in the jungle.

When first released in 1963, the film was a success in Italy and France but not in America, where it was released in an English-dubbed version, cut down to 161 minutes, considerably shorter than Luchino Visconti's 185-minute "director's cut". I have never seen the English-language version, so my comments below are of necessity based upon Visconti's cut. Even if Lancaster did not speak the words we hear in the Italian version, he nevertheless dominates the picture by his very presence. At first he seems a towering figure, a pillar of tradition and aristocratic values, but it eventually becomes clear that the forces of historic change are too strong for him, and if he still remains standing at the end he does so like a pillar which remains upright when the structure it once supported has fallen into ruins around it.

"The Leopard" is an early example of what has become known as "heritage cinema" and, although that genre is mostly associated with Britain it predates what I normally think of as the first modern British example, Schlesinger's "Far from the Madding Crowd", by several years. It is not only a grand epic, very visually striking and making good use of the landscapes and architecture of Sicily and of the costumes of its period, but also a moving meditation upon the forces of history and the process of change. A fine drama. 8/10

Following his personal motto, "something has to change in order to keep everything in place," authoritative prince Fabrizio di Salina (Burt Lancaster) secures his position, and that of his social class, by resigning himself to the "Risorgimento" and making a pact with the representatives of the bourgeoisie. He marries his nephew, Tancredi Falconeri (Alain Delon) to the daughter of a nouveau riche mayor (Claudia Cardinale), who should infuse fresh blood into an old bloodline threatened with extinction: the alliance between "the Leopard" and "the Jackal" exemplifies the blend between old and new. The collector's box of this film includes an interview with Alain Delon who, in retrospect, claims that Visconti had almost played the role of prince Salina himself, given the analogies between the two characters. Like Salina, Visconti preoccupied himself with questions of disappearing social class and transience. Beyond the splendour and revelry in his films always lies a dark horizon, the imminence of death, whose premonitory signs are perceived everywhere. The closing marriage scene is a lamenting farewell to vanishing beauty. Awesome Burt Lancaster in tuxedo looks into the mirror and tears well up in his eyes. Outside, a coffin is brought out. Majestic grandeur and striking dignity intertwine with elegiac melancholy, grief and regret. The perfect illustration of Friedrich Schiller's definition of tragedy: "Tragedy is not synonymous with suffering. Rather, tragedy is the futile protest of the individual against inevitable suffering". Delon claims that today he finds himself unable to watch the film, which evokes memories and images from a world long since forgotten, let alone listen to the soundtrack, "qui me fait pleurer"...

This beautiful film, which I saw some time ago, remains in my memory as a profound study of a man in a position of power who thinks, reflects on important values, as well as his own aging process...and yet the film is never static. Burt Lancaster gave a brilliant performance...which I read was his favorite role. Visually, it is stunning. The long dance scene with Claudia Cardinale is justifiably famous...one of the sexiest scenes on film, in my opinion. To anyone interested in serious concerns, cinematically expressed with grace and intelligence, I would urge you to see this splendid film.

Burt Lancaster plays a true aristocrat in an aristocracy that is not an aristocracy. The degeneracy as well as the sophistication of the rival political factions in warring Sicily is shown, and the human insight of the central character that embodies true nobility, even though he is largely powerless to make his ideals reality. Garibaldi is invading Sicily with an army of a thousand, landing in Marsala and advancing through Palermo. Prince Salina (Lancaster) is a noble of a disappearing age. He refuses a place in the new senate and is unable to convince the new wave that the unification will not be good for Sicily. He is caught between different loyalties. A love story between his nephew (played by Alain Delon) and a rich merchant's daughter (played by Claudia Cardinale) interweaves the action and heightens the moral dilemmas that Prince Salina has to face. A brave film, opposing, exposing and opposed by government and church. The full length restored edition is a cinematic gem and the opulent costumes and scenery are a treasure to behold.