The Leopard
Screening: 26th April 2004
Italy/France 1963 (subtitles)
Directed by Luchino Visconti
Leading players ~ Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale.
Synopsis
Based on the novel by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, himself a Sicilian aristocrat, The Leopard begins as Garibaldi’s red shirts arrive to claim Sicily for a unified Italy. The worldly-wise Prince Fabrizio (Burt Lancaster), head of the house of Salina, watches as his charismatic nephew Tancredi (Alain Delon) rides off to join the revolution.As the old social order is transformed forever, Fabrizio reflects on his diminishing status in the world and pragmatically arranges a marriage for Tancredi with Angelica (Claudia Cardinale), the beautiful but wilful daughter of an opportunistic, nouveau riche businessman.
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Costume drama on a lavish scale, this beautifully designed and photographed film progresses in a stately fashion with a leisurely extravagance that has long since fallen out of favour. Yet the 45-minute ball scene, which makes up much of the film’s final third, has inspired similarly grand sequences from Martin Scorcese in The Age of Innocence and Francis Ford Coppola in The Godfather.But The Leopard is far more than just an Italian Gone With the Wind. As Visconti confronts the conflict between his aristocratic background and his socialist convictions head on, the film that emerges is a pertinent statement on political reality as well as a requiem for old Italy.
Burt Lancaster is in top form in this restored 185 minute print of Visconti’s original masterwork.
