Novecento

Novecento is the Gone With The Wind of Italian cinema with enough American stars and one French one to make sure of its international market. It has the epic feel of Gone With The Wind, you can also compare it to any number of films based on Edna Ferber novels. It begins at the beginning of the 20th century in Northern Italy with the birth of two boys on the same day. One is the grandson of the local Padrone, Burt Lancaster who grows up to be Robert DeNiro. The second is the illegitimate grandson of the head man among the workers on Lancaster's estate, Sterling Hayden and the boy grows up to be Gerard Depardieu. This had to be Northern Italy or no one would have believed Gerard's baby blues in Sicily or Calabria.

Despite the difference in class which Americans have trouble comprehending, but as Marlon Brando said in The Young Lions mean a great deal in Europe, the boys grow up to be friends. But it's not only politics that pushes them apart, it's the love of Dominique Sanda. She marries DeNiro, but he can't believe she's not get a yen for Depardieu.

Like Gone With The Wind with the Civil War and Reconstruction, Novecento is set in the period from 1900 to 1945 which were tumultuous years for Italy. Until 1870 Italy was a geographical expression not a country, until the Pope surrendered sovereignty of the Papal States. Like Germany which also united at the same time it now wanted to be recognized as a leading power, Italy even got into the colonial game in Africa. Unlike every other European power it met defeat at Adowa when trying to takeover Ethiopia. That too had a major impact on the Italian psyche, something Bernard Bertolucci curiously enough did not mention.

He concentrated on the age old grievances of peasants against the landlords and the internal problems it was bringing Italy. Abusive landlords and the peasants they controlled, a feudal system that was badly out of date in the industrial age which came to Italy, a bit late, but there in time to throw a lot of peasants off the land and make socialists and communists of them. The gentry, the growing middle class, the church responded in kind with its own counterrevolution, Fascism.

In fact the film's villain is Donald Sutherland as a Fascist overseer that DeNiro hires and who basically takes over running the estate and politics of the locality. This is one of Sutherland's best screen performances, he will chill you to the bone with his cruelty and arrogance. He's essentially a thug who's been given political power.

Running a close second is Laura Betti as DeNiro's sister who marries Sutherland and becomes a true believer in the Fascist cause. At least she sees the peasant discontent and believes Fascism will protect her privileged position.

The original running time of this epic is over five hours and really should have been a mini-series. Maybe in that format we'll see the director's cut some day. It's still a powerful piece of film telling the epic story of a country for almost half a century.

Having heard about this film as having a decent cast and its fairly good rating here on IMDb, I greatly anticipated seeing it despite its colossal running time. I am capable of sitting through long films and have done so with The Green Mile, Once Upon a Time in America, THe Godfather Trilogy and Titanic. However, 5 hours simply seemed too long. Having watched both Acts of the film (running about 2 1/2 hours each) separately to ensure I wouldn't get hasty, I still ended up being disappointed.

I won't get into the plot too deeply purely because that is not what the films problem is. Simplified, it is about fascism and socialism. The biggest problem is the film runs far too long. As mentioned before, I am able to sit and watch a film if it holds my attention and constantly keeps me engaged as those mentioned films did brilliantly. This film doesn't and in my opinion runs at least 2 hours too long. The problem is there are so many pointless scenes and subplots that are often forgotten and add virtually nothing to the story that they really could and should have been cut out. In particular, I found the scenes of the leads at a younger age outstayed their welcome and should have been greatly shortened. Many others throughout follow a similar trend. Another reason the film should have been shortened is that it really is telling a simple story that doesn't require such a huge length of time to tell it. In the final hour I was getting incredibly agitated and felt the story was deliberately dragging on for the sake of it. When the credits finally rolled I felt cheated and very unsatisfied.

Despite these heavy flaws, there are things that make the film slightly worth watching. First of all are the decent performances turned in by most of the cast. DeNiro, Deprardieu, Sutherland and most of the others are fine with Sutherland making his character an incredibly evil and unlikable person. DeNiro was the main actor who attracted me to this film and it seems to be a largely forgotten role of his. Although its not one of his best performances he really is brave and committed here as he features in two pornographic sequences that I can't imagine too many well-known actors are willing to engage in.

The best aspect of the film is the Vittorio Stanto's wonderful Cinematography that makes the most of the Italian countryside and many other wonderful landscapes. Ennio Morricone's score is fairly good also.

Several scenes work well, but unfortunately I was put off by the sheer amount of pointless ones that made the film as long as it was.

I would recommend seeing this film only for the performances and cinematography. I would also recommend finding a much shorter cut because I believe it may be much better if it was between 2 and 3 hours or even less.

Overall I give the film a generous 6/10

The cast list alone is fabulous:Burt Lancaster, Sterling Hayden, Robert De Niro, Donald Sutherland, Gerard Depardieu, the best of Italian artists, the incandescent Dominque Sanda, at her prime. The production team: Bertolucci as director, the DOP is Storaro, the music by Ennio Morricone. How much would such a production cost today? $100 million? $200 million? How could you fail with such a line up? Well the film was long, and there were several versions around. It played at art houses in two parts. It was a co-production, (always an ominous sign) still there isn't a DVD available. (Although I saw a laser disc version in Jakarta some 7 years ago which I taped). Is the film beautiful? Yes. Does it sound wonderful? Yes. Does it deal with large important themes across generations? Yes. So how come it doesn't knock everybody's socks off? It should, that much I believe. Its themes of socialism/communism versus fascism across 50 years or so of Italian history don't sit well with American audiences. The two political systems are personified by two sons of the estate, one rich, one poor.Such a subtle (Or not if you are from North Zanesville)device is difficult to reconcile if you are used to a hamburger menu. Many audiences want a such a simple menu- a guy falls in love, gets married, the mob kill her, he takes revenge and kills the mob. Life is a hamburger. But we in Europe know that Life is not like that, it comes with grey areas, imperfections, flaws,nuances.

So the first disagreement is about politics. The second is the length of the movie; what actually are you watching, and where can you get the real longest possible version? That again nobody seems to know. The third is the lack of a DVD. That would make money and re-establish the film as a classic among the video stores to all the believers and make a new audience fall in love with this flawed masterpiece. Flawed, but still a masterpiece. So many people have not heard about it, so they don't know any better. There are some staggeringly beautiful shots that have lingered in my mind for 28 years- pure Storaro, many shot in golden hour- the boy with frogs in his hat, the countryside estate,the hunchback jester moaning about the death of Verdi,all accompanied by a typical Morricone oboe-driven melody with great intelligence and pride. Bravissimo!

Gifted filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, along with his collaborators, probably bit off more than they could chew with this massive epic of politics, revolution, love and war, but it's nevertheless a fascinating entertainment for those with the constitution to sit through at least 4 hours (the original long version is 5 hours +!) of imperfect dubbing.

Robert DeNiro and Gerard Depardieu play, respectively, a rich landowner and a peasant, born on the same day of the new century. The story of their friendship takes them from bucolic idyll to the rise of Fascism, bloody war and its aftermath, and back again. Veterans Burt Lancaster and Sterling Hayden play their grandfathers, Dominique Sanda is the woman they both love, and Donald Sutherland inhabits the cartoonish character of Attila, their Fascist nemesis, with trademark fish-eyed malice and depravity.

Gorgeous cinematography by Vittorio Storaro and a gentle, evocative score by Ennio Morricone lend this disjointed story more appeal and dramatic clarity than it might otherwise merit. If the simplistic politics at the end leaves you cold, there will have hopefully been enough vivid and touching scenes along the way to make it worthwhile.

One of the most perfect historic contemporary pictures ever made. Wonderful performances of the actors Robert de Niro, Gerard Depardieu, Burt Lancaster and Donald Sutherland. This film tells us a story of two mans (Alfredo and Olmo) born in the same day back in the beginning of the twentieth century - Alfredo is a landowner, Olmo is a peasant- and their relation with friendship, love, politics. ( I think this is a film about how friendship can be true in a cruel half century that was the fist half os the "novecento").

There is a Marxist view about life and about cinema itself in this Bertolucci film: the two main characters, Alfredo and Olmo, symbolize the strike between the two classes of the capitalism - the high bourgeosie that owns the land where live the proletarian. The picture tries to prove that their lives are different in the way that their different social condition can interfere. In the beginning Alfredo and Olmo are very close, because they are only child. Alfredo tries to be like Olmo. He sees in his friend the freedoom that he hasn't. He wants to be a socialist.

I recommend this picture to all who like good cinema.