The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) (1963)

In 1963, the great director Luchino Visconti created a masterpiece with his stunning adaption of the superb novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, of the same title, “The Leopard”.   This is an historic epic, which takes place during, and immediately after, the war between an independent Sicily and the rebel army of Giuseppe Garibaldi.   I want to state very clearly that my review concerns the restored Italian version of the movie which I just recently viewed.  Not the butchered English language American version that I was never impressed with many years ago.   The movie has the American actor Burt Lancaster playing the pivotal lead role of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina. Lancaster gives here the most eloquent and precise performance of his career, in spite of the fact that all of his dialogue was dubbed into Italian by a different actor.  Even though the voice coming out of Lancaster is a dubbed Italian, he still succeeds through facial expressions and body language in portraying probably the greatest characterization of nobility ever shown on the silver screen.   It helps that he was a larger than life, tall and imposing physical person, but it is his ability to successfully combine gentleness with strength through the use of his body movements and facial expressions that make this one of the all-time great performances of cinema.   Also included in its fine cast are two of the most beautiful people to have ever lived.   Alain Delon as Prince Tancredi Falconeri (Fabrizio’s beloved nephew), and Claudia Cardinale as Angelica Sedara.     Fabrizio belongs to the old Italian Nobility and strives to retain his beloved and rich privilege and lifestyle for the future generations of his family.   The war has created a new upper class of landowners who were not born into their riches and Fabrizio concentrates his efforts in combining this new wealth with his title and family by marrying his nephew to the daughter of the Mayor of the Sicilian town of Donnafugata, who is one of the new elite.  His daughter is Angelica and her stunning beauty makes the match an easy conquest.   For me, this stunning film fascinates in so many different levels and I would like to discuss three of them.    First there is its stunning visual beauty of all the palaces, villages and villas on display.  If you are like me and enjoy visiting old European cities by seeing their preserved luxurious historic buildings and monuments then you will enjoy seeing such exquisite depictions of the hallways, caverns and numerous painting depicted on the screen.  There is a stunning beauty to these scenes that is breathtaking.    Another level of the movie that captivated me was its opening of a vision into the past.   It is rare that an historic movie succeeds in allowing the viewer the feeling of entering into a time capsule.   “The Leopard”, is one of the best windows into the past that I have ever scene.  Visconti is not content in moving a story along in a conventional manner, and films each scene in a slow deliberate pace.   It is a pace that made me comfortable with the surroundings and aware of many of the spaces being shown.  This is a method that allowed me to feel the emotions of what was being felt by the people portrayed in the film.   When incorporating this style of film making with exquisite pictures of beauty and remarkable acting, the result is as close as you can get to going back in time to a place long gone.   For me this is the true magic of Cinema.  The third element lies with the film’s final section.  The movie ends in a 45-minute ballroom scene, that brings home it’s true focus, which is the mortality of man.    Shown through the vision and life of Fabrizio, the movie lays witness to his awakening revelation of his own mortality.   The ball is a celebration of the upcoming union between Tancredi and Angelica, is situated within a glorious villa of a neighboring Prince and is filmed in the style of one long tracking shot that infiltrates the atmosphere of the location with the soul of Fabrizio.  So many things are going on during this scene that one viewing of it is not sufficient to truly appreciate its stunning effect.  The rich Italian atmosphere of the Ball can be directly correlated to the wedding scene that opens Coppola’s, “The Godfather”, and I am certain it influenced Coppola when he made that film.    Music, beauty, intrigue and emotion combine effortlessly into 45 mesmerizing minutes of rapture.    With, “The Leopard”, Visconti has succeeded in opening a window into a lost time and location, while at the same time telling a humanistic story that is still relevant today.   It is a masterpiece of cinematic art.