Il Gattopardo (1963)
Directed by Luchino Visconti

Film Review

Quite possibly Luchino Visconti greatest work, Il Gattopardo, or The Leopard , is a film which achieves a level of artistic brilliance which is genuinely rare in cinema.  Not only is the film appealing to the eye - the stunning photography and incredibly opulent sets making it one of the most beautiful films ever made - but it also has an intensely human dimension, which makes watching the film a spiritual experience.  Few films deserve the epithet “masterpiece” as much as this magnificent, deeply moving meditation on the transience of human existence.

It is the fusion of three elements which make The Leopard such a powerful and memorable work.  First, there is the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa on which the film is closely based, a great work in its own right.  Then there is Visconti's direction - confident to the point of arrogance, yet utterly faultless.  Here we are some way from the neo-realist works with which Visconti began his film-making career.  The Leopard is a lavish historical drama, made on a colossal budget, with an impressive battle scene and the most indulgent ball scene ever filmed.  In many ways, the film is emblematic of the contradictions in Visconti's own personality and life.  He was born into aristocracy, but gravitated towards Marxism before realising that he could not live without wealth and grandeur.  Indeed, the central character in The Leopard is, to all intents and purposes, Visconti himself - both men find themselves in a world which is beneath their dignity, yet both must adapt to changing circumstances or else face being airbrushed away into obscurity. Perhaps it is this which makes The Leopard such a great film: it is so clearly an expression of Visconti's own soul searching and anxieties about a time with which he was becoming increasingly disillusioned.

The third essential element which makes The Leopard what it is - one of the greatest films ever made - is paradoxically the thing which very nearly ruined the film and contributed to its commercial failure.  It may have seemed like pure folly at the time to cast Burt Lancaster in the role of the film's central character but, seeing the end result, it is impossible to imagine anyone else in the part.  Lancaster, best known for his tough action roles in Hollywood westerns, brings to the film a humanity and
gravitas which Visconti could not have hoped to find in any other actor.  Ironically, Visconti initially had a very bad working relationship with Lancaster, mainly because 20th Century Fox, who co-financed the film, insisted on him having a big name American actor in the leading role.  In spite of these ructions, and even though he is dubbed into Italian, Lancaster is superlative as the introspective Prince Don Fabrizio Salina, arguably the high point in a very respectable acting career.

Although the film belongs to Burt Lancaster, the talent of his co-stars Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale - both in the first flush of youth - shines through in nearly every one of their scenes.  Whereas Lancaster symbolises the old order, the exuberant Delon and Cardinale represent the new age of political compromise, of optimism and egalitarianism.  Each of the three actors leaves a lasting impression and, together, they provide a major factor in the film's standing as a work of great significance.

Although now almost universally acknowledged as Visconti's masterpiece, The Leopard has been tarnished by its chequered history.  Whilst it initially fared quite well in Europe, even winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1963, it was virtually obliterated in America.  The film's three and a half-hour run time was deemed excessive by its American distributors, and so it had around forty minutes hacked out of it, with as much finesse as someone taking a blunt chisel to the Mona Lisa.  Worse, it was transferred to an inferior print - instantly dulling its Technicolor and Technirama brilliance - and dubbed into American.  No wonder the film sank like lead balloon.  Recently, various attempts to restore the film have been made and although a full recreation of the original film has yet to be achieved, technological advances have vastly improved the sound and picture quality.   At last, we can appreciate The Leopard in all its glory, savour its sumptuous cinematography, admire Luchino Visconti's direction and be totally captivated by Burt Lancaster's exquisite performance.  The masterpiece lives again.

Film Synopsis

In the 1860s, Sicily is in the vanguard of huge social and political changes that are sweeping across a fragmented Italy, changes that will result in the country's eventual unification after much loss of blood.  Giuseppe Garibaldi leads an army of rebel volunteers against the king's troops and soon the country is at war.  The ageing Prince Don Fabrizio of Salina looks on all that is happening around him with sadness and regret.  It seems that his era is passing away and in its place a new age is coming, one where the wealth and power are no longer concentrated in the hands of the aristocracy, but in those of a new, grubbier class - the bourgeoisie.

The Prince is wise enough to know that he cannot resist these developments.  That would be pure folly.  Instead, he makes a show of going along with the relentless march of progress, this being the only way the leopard can hope to survive in a world now run by the common jackal.  To escape the turmoil of the city, he retreats to his summer palace in Donnafugata, a hilltop town that is now entirely in the pocket of its nouveau riche mayor, Don Calogero Sedara.  The latter's overriding preoccupation is to improve his own social standing, and this he hopes to achieve by marrying his only daughter Angelica into the aristocracy.

The most eligible member of Prince Fabrizio's family to wed Calogero's daughter is the prince's nephew Tancredi Falconeri, who has recently returned to Sicily a hero having fought in Garibaldi's army.  As soon as they set their eyes on the astonishingly attractive young woman, both the Prince and his nephew become hopelessly besotted by her, much to the distress of the Prince's daughter Concetta, who has lost her heart to the handsome Tancredi.  As his nephew is an incorrigible spendthrift, the Prince begins to see the advantages of a union between his nephew and the daughter of a wealthy man...