Il gattopardo (1963)

Italian Movie.

Italian director Luchino Visconti delivers one of his most ambitious works with this sprawling historical drama. Based on the acclaimed novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, THE LEOPARD is set in Sicily during the 1800s, as the aristocracy found itself being suffocated by a newly democratic fervor. Prince Don Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster) tries to hold on to the past, but it appears that his glory days are waning. This is perfectly exemplified by his nephew Tancredi Falconeri (Alain Delon) and his gorgeous wife-to-be Angelica (Claudia Cardinale). As the revolt gathers steam and begins to affect a real change,...
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the aging prince must come to terms with the new world that surrounds him. With THE LEOPARD, Visconti confirms his status as one of Europe's most masterful directors.
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Arguably Luchino Visconti's best film and certainly the most personal of his historical epics, The Leopard chronicles the fortunes of Prince Fabrizio Salina and his family during the unification of Italy in the 1860s. Based on the acclaimed novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, published posthumously in 1958 and subsequently translated into all European languages, the picture opens as Salina (Burt Lancaster) learns that Garibaldi's troops have embarked in Sicily. While the Prince sees the event as an obvious threat to his current social status, his opportunistic nephew Tancredi (Alain Delon) becomes an officer i...
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n Garibaldi's army and returns home a war hero. Tancredi starts courting the beautiful Angelica (Claudia Cardinale), a daughter of the town's newly appointed Mayor, Don Calogero Sedara (Paolo Stoppa). Though the Prince despises Don Calogero as an upstart who made a fortune on land speculation during the recent social upheaval, he reluctantly agrees to his nephew's marriage, understanding how much this alliance would mean for the impecunious Tancredi. Painfully realizing the aristocracy's obsolescence in the wake of the new class of bourgeoisie, the Prince later declines an offer from a governmental emissary to become a senator in the new Parliament in Turin. The closing section, an almost hour-long ball, is often cited as one of the most spectacular sequences in film history. Burt Lancaster is magnificent in the first of his patriarchal roles, and the rest of the cast, especially Delon and Cardinale, become almost perfect incarnations of the novel's characters. Filmed in glorious Techniscope and rich in period detail, the film is a remarkable cinematic achievement in all departments. The version that won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival ran 205 minutes. Inexplicably, the picture was subsequently distributed by 20th Century Fox in a poorly dubbed, 165-min. English-language version, using inferior color process. The restored Italian-language version, supervised by cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, appeared in 1990, though the longest print still ran only 187 minutes.
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Verhaal over Prins Fabrizio Salina en zijn familie tijdens de eenwording van Italië rond 1860. Fabrizio ziet de opkomst van het leger van Garibaldi in Sicilië, wat een bedreiging van de sociale status van zijn familie als aristocraten betekent. Zijn opportunistische neef echter besluit zich aan te sluiten bij het leger, zodat hij een oorlogsheld kan worden. Ook versiert zijn neef de mooie dochter van de nieuw aangestelde burgemeester en Fabrizio stemt in met het huwelijk om de banden met de nieuwe bourgeoisie te versterken.

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