The Leopard

All I can say is, wow! I haven't seen a truly great movie in quite some time, and this is a masterpiece. Director Luchino Visconti has created the kind of epic whose influence can be seen in films such as all three Godfather films, The Deerhunter, Bernardo Bertolucci's epic masterpiece of a failure 1900, and well, any film that has a significant wedding scene. It stars Burt Lancaster in what may be the finest performance of his career, as well as Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale at her most sensual, but make no mistake, the film belongs to Lancaster and Visconti. Lancaster is an Italian prince in the late 1800's when Italy is on the brink of eliminating the monarchy. He is a man who is straddling the line to two ways of life, and doesn't feel at home in either. It's about the passing of an era (always a great themes for such personal epics). Visconti was, himself, born into the Italian nobility, and he clearly knows and understands his subjects (though he later renounced his upbringing to become a dedicated Marxist). All of Visconti's films are directed with a kind of regal elegance -- it's the kind of film a king would make. In fact, it's one of the most visually stunning color films I have ever seen -- from Mario Garbuglia's masterful production design, to Giuseppe Rotunno's absolutely brilliant cinematography (every shot looks like a royal painting). Stunning. Not to mention Nino Rota's score. Fortunately Visconti's politics are more subtle than in many of his other films -- it's not bogged down in visual orgy's of the exploited working class, or the decadence of the aristocracy. It respects it's characters, as do we. I can't go without mentioning the concluding 45 minute wedding sequence which so many critics have correctly called one of the greatest sequences in film history (Pauling Kael says, "It's one of the greatest of all passages in movies."). So much is said with so little dialogue and Lancaster is magnificent as we are watching him and see what he sees. I love Italian cinema, and this is probably the greatest Italian film I have ever seen.