El gatopardo

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.

This is a beautiful and thoughtful film about the changes occurring in Sicily after 1860, with the unification of Italy and the disappearance of the old Kingdom of Sicily. It explores these changes and and changing role of the old aristocracy through the experiences of the Prince of Salina. Overall it is an excellent film with many beautiful scenes, much contemplation, and a great exploration of the prince's character, views, a realisations.

It has some absolutely incredible moments, particularly the grand ball at the end, which is handled wonderfully. The film perfectly captures the prince's feelings, sadness, and sense of separation or isolation from the rest of the seemingly happy people at the ball and I don't think that I have ever seen this phenomenon handled so powerfully. The whole atmosphere of the ball, with the prince sweating and feeling in a daze while others laugh, giggle, dance and gossip, is wonderful, as is the horrible din while people go to get food and chat away whilst eating. It is unusual in that it perfectly captures such negative aspects of big, "festive" parties so rarely even addressed, much less demonstrated so flawlessly. The fact that such feelings of isolation and the like are a fundamental reality of big parties, especially when one has a lot on one's mind, makes this all the more forceful and compelling.

However, the film has some weaknesses. It does not bring everything together quite perfectly and fails to completely hit the nail on the head. I understand the transformations in the film and the prince's emotions, yet there is too little information underlying all of this too really see the bases for these thoughts, etc. I needed to extrapolate and rely on my own knowledge of the historical circumstances, none of which really should be necessary. The result is that I can easily see how audiences may be confused or uncertain what it's all really about. Moreover, it introduces scenes or issues that seem to have no point, lack an explanation, and go nowhere. Some seem at first to have significance, but then go nowhere and this tends to distract from the central plot and themes of the film while leading to potential confusion about the point of the scenes, as well as expectations that the issues will arise again. However, while these points to me prevent this from being the absolute masterpiece that it could have been, they do not seriously detract from the film and are only minor dents in the film's incredible strengths.

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.

If you ever have the chance to see this magnificent film in an uncut, fully restored version, with good subtitles...DO IT. This is a film of astonishing beauty, bristling with ideas and magnificent performances.Like all truly great films it is full of sublime SCENES: Prince Tancredi riding off to war in his carriage., the astonishing ball sequence, when Prince Salina gazes at the painting and comes to grips with his own mortality,and the unforgettable end, when Salina kneels on the ground and speaks to the stars.Coppola, Cimino, and Scorsese all saw this film and learned from it..the Godfather echoes it repeatedly( in fact all THREE Godfathers echo it repeatedly). Scorsese once ranked it with The Red Shoes, Citizen Kane, Otto e Mezzo and The Searchers as one of the films he "lives by." Seeing it, one understands.

"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