Even though it's a long movie, with passages as dry and desolate for novices to Italian history as the Sicilian foothills that loom over its events, I think it's necessary to watch the film a few times in order to get beneath the opulent surface and discover what's beating at the heart of The Leopard. At least, that's my appraisal for those who, like me, are limited to watching this magnificent beast of a film at home. Perhaps the sensory overload of a legitimate, as nature intended it viewing on the large screen, preferably in CinemaScope, would prove to be so galvanizing that the full weight and importance of The Leopard would come through in one theatrical sitting. But even on a good-sized monitor, in the high-def resolution that's provided in the Criterion blu-ray that came out last year, I found myself working through three distinct layers of comprehension over multiple viewings that I had to experience before I was really ready to compose my thoughts in this space.
The first, and most obvious level of The Leopard is in its visual beauty. Earlier this week I tweeted "One could spend the three hours it takes to watch The Leopard just pondering the architecture and interior decor." That's not an exaggeration, at all. There is so much going on just in the woodwork, the wallpaper and stuff hanging there or suspended from the ceilings, that it wouldn't be a waste of time to just totally ignore the story and drink with one's eyes all of that incredibly rich, authentic attention to detail. Same goes for the costumes, the artifacts and bric-a-brac, the place settings and menu items, the streetscapes and landscapes... all sumptuously designed and thoroughly realized at a depth far surpassing the illusions we see captured on-screen. On the commentary track, Peter Cowie expresses his confidence that the gourmet dessert served during The Leopard's famous ballroom sequence was indeed fully and expertly prepared using the exact ingredients described in the novel on which the film was based. Visconti's meticulous, aristocratically trained eye and aesthetic could accept no substitutes, and this deeply embedded verisimilitude works wonders in absorbing us into a distinctive time and place, even if the terrain and culture are completely foreign to us to begin with.
The second layer of encounter with The Leopard resides in the unique and iconic star power that it presents. Starting with Burt Lancaster, who was something like a third or fourth choice for the role of Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, patriarch of an ancient Sicilian family dynasty who realizes the imminent demise of the old order that he was born into. The story goes that Lancaster was given the role to secure the Hollywood financing that was needed to bring this spectacle to the screen, without Visconti's consultation. That definitely started the working relationship between these two titans of cinema off on the wrong foot, but they came to deeply respect and admire each other through the ordeal of making this movie, and I have to think that Lancaster exceeded most everyone's expectations in pulling off this performance. Even though he didn't speak Italian, and was given the privilege of voicing his lines in English (which proved useful in the eventual American release, which I'll discuss a bit later), he powerfully embodied the role with a full range of authoritative expressions and body language, from indignant and imperious to melancholic and wistful. In a career full of milestone achievements and deservedly famous films, The Leopard has to be regarded as one of Lancaster's peaks.
In supporting roles that are absolutely pivotal to The Leopard's overall impact, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon are also quite effective. They each represent the vitality of a rising generation that is filling the void created by political and cultural upheavals in mid-19th century Italy, while also portraying very specific characters of their own, with individual stories and concerns that mark them as distinctive among their peers. Cardinale portrays Angelica, the daughter of a rich merchant whose exceeding beauty and ample dowry usher her into a high place in the social hierarchy that her class origins would never have permitted in earlier decades. While she's not quite as transcendently sexy as she was in her smaller role in 8 1/2, Cardinale's radiant voluptuousness still finds a way to burst through the confinements of her period attire and hairstyles, no doubt about it. Even though The Leopard is named after its male protagonist (and the creature at the center of his family's coat of arms), Angelica proves to be a cunning and determined feline prowler herself.
And Alain Delon is every bit as appealing and winsome in epitomizing the gorgeous male of the species in his role as Tancredi, a dashing son of privilege, the nephew of Don Fabrizio who is in fact his de facto son and heir, even though the prince fathered a boy of his own that he seems to rather neglect, for reasons never made all that clear, other than he's just not that impressive. The Leopard followed up Delon's previous work with Visconti in Rocco and his Brothers (which I hope will be a Criterion release someday) and helped establish him as a rising star. His role here earned him a Golden Globe nomination as "Most Promising Newcomer," and I think it's quite fair to say that Alain Delon went on to fulfill that promise, and then some.
So as a star vehicle with three of the most iconic faces of their times, and surrounded by a fine, well-chosen cast of lesser-known actors, The Leopard has a lot to offer. But there's more to it than that.
The third stratum to get through in excavating The Leopard is the damnably obscure and complex details of Italian/Sicilian political rivalries and social institutions that permeate its story. This is where the Criterion package really comes into play, for those who want to get some comprehension of the events being reenacted on the screen. There's a lot more depth of information than I will go into here in the commentary and supplements that will fill you in on Garibaldi, the Risorgimento (unification), the functions of the Roman Catholic Church, the various militias and armies, and the mutual disdain that prevailed between residents of the Italian North and South. There are also some brief but interesting side glances at the Sicilian Mafia as it existed at this time, which makes this film a worthwhile companion piece to Salvatore Giuliano and Mafioso, two other contemporaries that profoundly influenced the development of later films about organized crime, Italian style.
Until some of this contextual background is sorted out and understood, there's a risk that The Leopard might just come across as an excessively gold-leafed saga of a rich old prince who's having a sad because the red-shirted socialists are swarming in to ransack his palace. Or because he's just too old and gray to have a realistic chance of getting underneath Angelica's billowing ballroom gown, despite their obvious mutual attraction.
Beneath these admittedly substantial and laudable surfaces then, each worthy of celebrating in their own right, I think The Leopard's most lasting impact comes through its evocative depiction of the sorrows we all experience, inherent in the simple passing of time. Much has been made of the parallels between Don Fabrizio's life story and that of Visconti's, himself a born aristocrat, the "last of a dying breed," as the accompanying documentary puts it. That high profile certainly adds a lot of spice to the mix, with all the wealth, privilege, art work and exquisite refinement on display, to go along with the fact that we do live in a world in which the decisions, whims and frailties of a few influential power-brokers can have massive impacts on the lives of millions. So all that adds up to some compelling drama.
But in our own way, those of us who live long enough to feel that sense of being displaced by a younger generation, as new attitudes, values and assumptions supersede what we've become accustomed to, will find various points of connection with the prince as we watch him contemplate his weary face in the mirror and come to terms with a diminished vitality that's (hopefully) compensated by an increase in wisdom and magnanimity. At its heart, The Leopard is a beautifully told story of people in transition, and for those who care to reflect on its lesson, even a note of admonition to its younger viewers to not get too caught up in believing that they're on the crest of something utterly new, unique and lasting in making improvements on "the old ways," since they too will find themselves going through the same shifts of consciousness and customs that they're now imposing on their elders.
Luchino Visconti, and Italian cinema in general, were both in their prime when The Leopard was released in early 1963. This lavish epic went on to establish a checkered history of its own, winning the Palm d'or at that year's Cannes Film Festival, earning an Academy Award nomination for Costume Design and piling up a decent resume of other award recognitions in various European competitions. On the downside, it proved too lengthy and cumbersome for Hollywood to digest, despite the casting of a prominent star in Burt Lancaster as its lead, so the 200+ minutes that Visconti originally debuted were trimmed down to a "manageable" 2 hours, 40 minutes for the American release. Criterion does us the favor of offering the English-language cut, for those obsessive enough to do the comparisons, and you can get a sense of how the film was marketed - kind of an Italiano take on Gone With the Wind - from the trailer embedded above.
Suffice it to say that this version of The Leopard wasn't as well received as the studio bosses had hoped, and it wound up bankrupting Titanus Studios and its producer. That led to the film getting somewhat of a "flop" reputation, and when that happens to big bold audacious films like The Leopard, the vultures inevitably swoop down to make new cuts and salvage the project however they think they can. A few decades of ignominious dismissal had to be endured before The Leopard received the restoration and lasting respect it deserved. There are still a few deleted scenes from the original cut that haven't been reinserted into the Criterion edition (which follows the current authorized release.) They're available on YouTube, as of this writing, in French with English subtitles, if you're really curious. I think the 3 hours we find here is plenty enough. But for those who want to just revel in a sampling of The Leopard's eye-pleasing splendor, here's a nice five-minute tribute video compiling some of its memorable moments. Too bad the A/R is off, but it just skinnies everyone up a bit, if you don't mind!
Next: Youth of the Beast