Novecento

'1900' is a historical film that has a history of its own, one that probably hasn't ended yet. The perception of critics and the public about this film seems to have changed several times already during its hectic launch in 1976. Made four years after the success but also after the scandals sparked by 'Last Tango in Paris', the film has benefited from generous funding and full creative freedom for director Bernardo Bertolucci. How did he use the freedom and the funds he had at his disposal? Making a monumental film. Monumental in terms of duration, which made it non-screenable in cinema halls in its full format over five hours. Monumental with a distribution gathering on screen some of the great international movie stars of the 70's. Monumental also in style and as a cinematic genre - a 45-year historical fresco of the history of Italy, between the day of Verdi's death in 1900 and the day of Mussolini's death in 1945. Those who study historical monuments know well that even the most beautiful and the more impressive are in most cases programmatic, insist on transmitting a political or patriotic message or both, and are not a good source for discovering and presenting historical truth. This is what happens with '1900' which is a spectacular film, with many memorable scenes, with wonderful actors in generous roles, but which is deeply distorted by a much too explicit political message, reflecting the director's political ideas in an almost propagandist style.

I viewed the full version of the film, which is presented today at festivals or cinematheques in two series, each over two and a half hours. This is different of what most viewers saw on screen in the 1970s - shortened versions (there were several) - perhaps more accessible for the endurance of the viewers, but also losing much of the epic construction of the film, which has its purpose. It is the story of two boys born on the same day of the first year of the 20th century. Alfred Berlinghieri (who will grow to be Robert De Niro) is the offspring of a big land owners family in an agricultural area of Italy, whose patriarch is his grandfather (Burt Lancaster, as descending from 'The Leopard' in the role he had played 13 years ago). Olmo Dalco (who will grow up to be Gérard Depardieu) is born into the family of peasants deprived of any property and rights, who work on the estate under semi-slavery conditions. The conflicts of the grandparents are transmitted from generation to generation until the two boys born under the same sign and separated by a social abyss. The relationship between them, marked by friendship, rivalry and class struggle, will develop throughout Italy's troubled history, which includes two world wars, the rise and fall of fascism, and the popular revenge that followed.

From an artistic perspective, '1900' has many sublime moments, it can be said that it is almost a masterpiece. First of all the acting performances: De Niro who was acting here just after 'The Godfather: Part II' and 'Taxi Driver' lends to his character all the parasitic insecurity and the degenerate vulnerability of the descendant of a social class that is fighting oblivion. Gérard Depardieu creates here, I believe, his first big role, full of strength and passion. Exceptional is also Donald Sutherland, an actor who has never hesitated to take on negative composition roles, here being the fascist Attila Mellanchini, an exemplary villain. It adds much authenticity to the use of amateur extras, the inhabitants of the Italian region where the story takes place. The cinematography includes many memorable takes, in some cases serving as backdrops for scenes carefully constructed and choreographed, in the good style of Italian operas, even including songs and dances. What works well in operas on stage, however, is not necessarily suitable for a cinematic historical fresco. The excess of propaganda rhetoric finally harms the message and sounds strident and unconvincing today. There are far too many revolutionary speeches in '1900' of the kind that were more suited to Soviet films of the 1930s or scenes that touch the ridicule such as the one in which a simple peasant hero chooses death for the pleasure of whistling a revolutionary song in the nose of the fascists. The Marxist Bertolucci chose to present an explicit revolutionary vision, which was more in line with the propaganda on the other side of the Iron Curtain in those years, but as far as I know his film was not successful there or not even distributed in many Communist countries because of its naturalistic approach soaked with too much nudity and violence for the puritanistic communist censors. Only today, in perspective, from the historical distance created by time, we can enjoy the many cinematic delights of '1900'.

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!

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

A too much long but beautiful movie, showing the political changes in Italy in the Twentieth Century. These changes are presented and reflected through the friendship of Alfredo (Robert De Niro) and Olmo (Gerard Depardieau), from the end of World War I to the end of World War II, from the ascent of the Fascism to its decline and the ascent of the Socialism. Alfred and Olmo were born in the same day and in the same place, landowner and peasant respectively. As far as they grow up, Bertolucci presents the changes in the political scenario in Italy, affecting the relationship between these two friends. The film is a little exhaustive, but it deserves to be watched more than one time. Recommended to viewers who like European movies and particularly Italian history and Bertolucci. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "1900"

All in all, I loved Bertolucci's 1900. By the end of it (I watched the uncut, 318 minute version and it was an effortless, engrossing, never over-long experience), I found myself feeling as satisfied as someone who's just finished reading one of those wonderful, very long classic novels. There are, however, some major flaws, not just in narrative structure but also in content, and this is why I've given it "just" a 9/10. It's rather disjointed and all over the place, like a huge, gangly foal rather than a harmoniously-formed horse.

However, I don't agree with one accusation I heard that was leveled at it, regarding its change of tone. In my view it was unavoidable and appropriate when dealing with a historic period going from the beginning of the 20th century to the rise to power of Mussolini (1922), and finally to the culmination of full-blown Fascist oppression. The "change of tone" in the film perfectly captured the profound and shocking changes that swept over Italy, as if bitten by something that had made it go mad.

My main problem with the film, however, was of content rather than structure: the over-simplification of its politics, not to mention the inaccuracy in the way it portrays the reasons for the rise of Fascism. These smack of just a little too much historical revisionism even for a tendentially left-wing person like me. But then, 1900 was made in the 70s, smack bang in the middle of a decade in which the Italian left wing had a strong hold on the country's artistic and cultural institutions. After decades of poverty, ignorance and forced silence, these institutions voiced their views with a more earnest tone than they would have had if they'd never been repressed. Pasolini, Bertolucci, Moravia and several others producing art during the 50s-70s in Italy are a prime example of this kind of voice. Inevitably, it was tinged with a political agenda – it couldn't have been otherwise, as political freedom was a new toy and everyone was so keen to play with it.

Bertolucci's film would have us believe that the rich landowners (represented here by the Berlinghieri – Robert De Niro's character's family) were responsible alone for sponsoring the Fascists. Keen to maintain the country in an archaic state of feudalism with the poor, ignorant multitudes working their estates as semi-slaves, they encouraged or turned a blind eye to the violent cruelty of the blackshirts. They employed them as "guard dogs" (as De Niro's character Alfredo refers to Attila, Donald Sutherland's Fascist bully character at one point), giving them official charges as managers of their estates and oppressors of any sign of rebellion, etc. Though this has effectively happened, a more objective historic version will take into account that for Fascism to spread so rapidly and so well, it must have had some hold on the "common people", too. Just consider that the rich landowners were a tiny, tiny minority of the population and not all were sympathetic to Mussolini – originally a Socialist himself. The rich often supported the monarchy and/or church instead (and Mussolini aspired to a lay state, not a religious one). It was indeed so many of the common men and women of Italy who responded well to the young Mussolini, who was neither particularly cultured nor a member of the elite, yet was a charismatic go-getter who could speak to the crowds in a way that made sense to them for the first time ever. The landowners and aristocrats, decadent and totally out of touch from reality (as Bertolucci's film shows so well), had no idea how to relate to the masses. In contrast, Mussolini wanted to harness the energy of the multitudes, giving them a sense of worth for the first time ever. What a cruel irony this turned out to be for all those people!

What Bertolucci's film is successful at putting across is the fact that neutrality, turning a blind eye to and staying passive to Fascism was in itself responsible for allowing it to thrive. ****SPOILERS****: Alfredo does nothing to stop Attila and his stooges beat Olmo, Gèrard Depardieu's character, to a bloody mess, despite the fact he knew that Olmo was innocent of having killed the child at the wedding party. This scene is so effective in creating a sense of frustration in the viewer. Watching that scene, it comes naturally to ask oneself: "Why didn't anyone do anything to stop it?" EXACTLY! ****END OF SPOILERS.****

Regarding the accusation leveled at the uncut version of the film containing pornographic sequences: I thought pornography's sole purpose was to titillate and arouse. Do any scenes in this movie try to achieve this? Most certainly not! Naked human bodies can be representative of so much more than just sex. They are not just about the degree of their ability to arouse or otherwise, but also about a whole other spectrum of human states and feelings. Strength, vulnerability, tenderness, compassion, closeness, distance, receptiveness and whatever else is sometimes just not possible to express in so many lines of dialogue. Why shouldn't a sexual encounter – even one featuring genitals in view – speak volumes about so many other aspects of men and women's humanity?

I could write so much more about this movie! Though not as mesmerisingly beautiful to look at as Bertolucci's 1970 film Il Conformista, it is none the less a testament to Vittorio Storaro's genius photography once again. I will probably be watching this movie many more times and discovering more layers, more beauty and even more imperfections… which is all worthwhile when confronted with such amazing material. Whoever's been comparing 1900's portrayal of Fascism with the way it was dealt with in Il Conformista isn't being entirely fair: the latter takes a far more intellectual approach (after all, Fascism was a multi-faceted phenomenon) and is a less ambitious film anyway, therefore less likely to fail.