Luchino Visconti’s reputedly legendary film The Leopard
(1963) has arrived on DVD courtesy of the Criterion Collection in an
exquisite print and packed with extras. This is a handsome, challenging, and
maddeningly difficult film. It’s a costume picture set in 1860 Italy set
against the period of the Risorgimento – when the aristocratic class fell
and the middle classes formed a new unified democracy.
New societal transformations take place over the course of this three-hour epic;
some of its concepts are grandly stated while other concepts are not clearly
shaped into the material. Still, this is a magnificently scaled Italian epic
that never ceases to be ambitious even when it misses to connect its points.
At its center is an outstanding performance by Burt Lancaster (who masterfully
slips into an Italian-language role) as Don Fabrizio who sorrowfully observes
the privileges of his social class vanquishing around him.
Fabrizio is the Prince of Salina, a celebrated figure whose stature decays over
the course of the story. We adopt the political point of view of the Prince,
mostly through scenes of dialogue with his religious advisor Father Pirrone
(Romolo Valli) who even toils with Fabrizio while he luxuriates himself in the
bathtub. The Prince engrosses himself in many other privileges as observed in
first-class dinner service, carriage transportation and other pastimes that
Merchant/Ivory would drown in envy over. Fabrizio is a rich and powerful man
that lives well until his lifestyle becomes threatened.
In an act of social remedy, Fabrizio arranges for his nephew Trancredi (Alain
Delon) to marry Angela (Claudia Cardinale), the daughter of a rich merchant,
in order to become more prevalent in the eyes of his contemporaries and peers.
Trancredi is proud and strident, like a young Fabrizio, and Angela is pretty
and proper, if very dim. The film becomes very narrowly contained at a certain
point in observing the grace and gracelessness of two fools in love, and a wise
man who feels empty and dissatisfied with his life.
A very long ballroom sequence culminates the film, and you have to be alert
while tracing the subtle unspoken communication that occurs between characters.
Fabrizio, has not only arranged a marriage but a pageant, where the rich mingle
happily for the last time before revolution will tear down the aristocratic
lifestyle. Something else more melancholy is transient – the sense of
jealousy the old have over the young. This is a film, at its personal level,
that is about the crumbling disenchantment of growing old. Visconti intends
his film to be an elegy for Fabrizio, but if there is one thing that the director
is dying for it is understatement. Yet this is a worthwhile film to try to watch.
The opulent and plush set decorations are by Mario Garbuglia. The elaborate
costumes are by Piero Tosi. The music score is by Nino (The Godfather) Rota
which feels roughly abridged and crammed in between sequences.
The three-disc DVD set is an eyeful. On disc one is the uncut Italian version
of The Leopard with select audio commentary by film historian
Peter Cowie. On disc two, there are a host of extras: An interview with Professor
Millicent Marcus clears up a lot of the confusing politics of the Risorgimento
period; an interview with The Leopard producer Goffredo Lombardo is insightful
and nostalgic; the hour-long documentary A Dying Breed: The Making of the Leopard
is disappointing and soporific. Plenty of interviews and photo galleries fill
out the rest of disc two. On disc three you will find a truncated 161-minute
cut of The Leopard, which was originally released in America.
You will also find a studious essay by film historian Michael Wood in an accompanying
booklet.
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