The Leopard (Italian: Il Gattopardo (The Serval)) (1963) Director: Luchino Visconti Watched: May 2018 Rating: 4/10 Tried to care, To like this treat for the eyes- Such lovely costumes and grandiose sets. But while my eyes were pleased, my brain was not. Italians- devout but at war. Bored. The mathematician Euclid considered the number series 1, 2, 3, 4 to have a mystical significance because the sum is 10; he named it a Tetractys. A Tetractys poem, therefore, follows a 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 syllable format. Any additional verses are written with an inverted syllable count. #Tetractys #DoubleTetractys #PoemReview #PalmedOr

Seriously, what spoiler could I possibly write if not a single thing happens in this condemned 3 hours long colossal bore? Oh, pardon me ladies and gentlemen, I meant in this work of art. Sure, I'm not an intellectualoid, and I don't want to pretend I am by giving a 10 to this film in a website either. I just go out, read books, watch TV and been in a museum so, unfortunately, I already knew how aristocrats and rich people lives and behaves before watching this film, and I've also seen big houses, paintings, nice costumes, people smoking cigars, and dancing at a ball before!!! It seems like some reviewers never heard of those things and discovered them all of a sudden from a 1963 movie. Well, good for you, but I wanted a film with a plot, a soul, some depth to fill the nice wrapper for 185 MINUTES (20 would have been more than enough), not just this "moving paintings" that has put me to sleep from the first minute. If you have sleep problems I strongly recommend you to watch this film, is the best cure you'll possibly find in the entire world. Lancaster, Delon, Cardinale.. what a waste of actors and tape. User richieburt has made the perfect review of this, and I agree with it 100 percent. If you're really interested, watch this movie just to learn how rich and boring people lived and still lives. But don't wait for a plot, or an interesting love triangle. You'll have the disappointment of your life. Here's the progression:Minutes 0 to 4: Opening credits.Minutes 4 to 10: People praying the same prayer over and over.Minutes 10 to 25: A man leaving a house.Minute 25.....another Mass... a dinner... never-ending ball....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I was reading some reviews of IG and I was amazed how wonderful most people consider it, while referring to purely aesthetic, visual, superficial, elements: costumes, set designs, breathtaking natural scenery; faithful rendition of the protocols of the XIX century landowning aristocracy, its close ties with the Church....but what about mood, atmosphere, people; what about psychological depth, plot or character development? What about those minute things that most movie lovers like to see in their flicks? What about the things we, the unwashed, usually look for when sitting to see a film? I'm sure I'm not making any friends in the java slurping crowd here, but I don't care. Il Gattopardo is just another beautiful flick which nothing under the surface, just some cute piece of cinematography to look at and forget after 5 min. you have seen the word End on the screen. (Mind you, the only one moment of fun I had about this movie was reading the review of a reviewer who said that after 7 years he's still mourning the loss of those 3 hours; that he sat through it (196 min.) only because he kept hoping that at any moment things would pick up, that something would happen, but to no avail).To be clear, I'm not saying this because I hate aristocrats; after all everyone seem to agree they have gone the way of the dinosaurs (I'll ask about that William & Kate the next time I see them) but the fact is, there's absolutely nothing gripping here, emotionally, intellectually or otherwise. People parade on the screen in their beautiful costumes; they behave in their aristocratic, or plebeian, ways; they spurt their stereotypical views on things and suddenly 195 min. have past and you have to go. As the reviewer I mentioned, you keep hoping that at any moment a new subplot will give a new life to the whole thing but that just won't happen. Chance after chance is lost, even the most promising ones: the affair prince Salina is having; the breaking up of hostilities; Tancredi leaving the fold to join Garibaldi; Conchetta unrequited love for Tancredi; Don Francisco getting all worked up because the plebiscite's results were fixed (In which planet this man has been living for the last 30 years?).Some reviewer called IG a Marxist movie, "like 1900" which I consider an insult to both Marxism and 1900. The basic idea behind Marxism is that the rich became rich appropriating and accumulating the fruit of other people's work. But you don't even need to tread that deep to do for a decent Marxist plot, you just need to exhibit forms or instances of class struggle as Bertolucci so brilliantly did in 1900 (the scene of the rich landowner aggressively waving a sickle around the legs of defiant Italian peasant Sterling Hyden (!) is still printed in my mind). But you see nothing of that here, not even hints of a process in development, no social or political tensions accumulating and then exploding in front of our eyes. Tancredi goes to war, we then see men with blue and red shirts shooting it out in piazzas and dirt streets and, as suddenly as it all had started, it calms down and prince Salina starts planning for the future while imparting us some gems of wisdom while Tancredi comes back home with a patch in his eye and very clear ideas about how to milk his time past under arms. He meets Angelica and they take 90 min. in getting their act together, under the teary and reproachful eyes of Conchetta. That's the whole flick, seasoned from time to time with inane subplots--the in-house priest who hates water and soap as much as the Devil; Tancredi's army pal (Trinity!) and his unrequited love for Conchetta and so on.But this a very reactionary movie also. Cardinale mentions the fact that Visconti was a communist, a resistant during the war, but that doesn't show here. All we see in here is his deep nostalgia for people and uses that frankly, most of us couldn't care less about. Prince Salina treats the inferior classes with the utmost contempt--even the upstart middle class, with which members he won't even shake hands--and Visconti at no point offers a diverse view contradicting him or even uses his great cinematographic gifts to present a somewhat different view. We are far here from Bertolucci's 1900. The poor are shown dirty and ignorant, dwelling in squalor, by an eerie coincidence confirming what Prince Salina pretends. Nowhere here you'll see the raw, insolent beauty of, say, a peasant matron feeding her baby, holding him against her big, powerful breasts, like you'd see for ex. in a Fellini movie. Or the amazingly vivacious, class-unconscious, smarts of a peasant kid, as in 1900. Nope, if you ever catch even a glimpse of them, it will be crouching in a hole in the wall, drowning in their misery. BTW, did I say that this is a very reactionary flick?.In all, an empty, if beautiful, piece of cinema. Just cute tableaux and paintings that keep moving around. If you are not a hardcore Visconti fan better use the 195 min. visiting a museum. 4.5/10, only because of the "belles images.

Visconti'mos The Leopard, based on the novel of the same name by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is an epic that encapsulates the birth of the modern Italy and the transition from the old world of the privileged but moribund aristocracy controlling small duchies to the new era of the democratic nation-state.Burt Lancaster is surprisingly well-cast as the ageing Sicilian prince who realises his era is drawing to a close whilst Alain Delon, playing Tancredi, represents the ambitious, younger generation, fluid to adapt to a changing situation and seeking glory for their own benefit.The film does not take sides between the aristocrats and the peasants. The aristocratic class is shown to be relatively benign by this period, despite their isolation from reality and lives of privilege. As the priest notes, they are simply different, with different priorities and expectations from the rest of the people. Lancaster's prince is a fascinating mixture of honour, integrity and decadence. Having all that he can want except an exciting wife, he constantly seeks affection from other woman to make up for her dourness and extreme prudishness.Visconti's cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking. Virtually every shot in the film looks as though it could come from an oil painting of the era, so perfect is the framing of the shots and so rich and exquisite is the colour.There is an interesting use of abrupt cuts to the soundtrack during the cuts from scene to scene and this reinforces the abrupt changes happening in Sicilian society.The film's pace is slow and there are times that interest lags but there are enough bursts of humour and drama to sustain one in the end. The flaws and humanity of the people who make up this dying class really do shine through. Ultimately, the film is the character study of someone who recognises the time for change has come yet and finds himself representative of the transitional generation between the two epochs.There is violence in the film and some scenes of warfare however, this reinforces the fact that soldiers are brutal opportunists and that there is no real honour in the military. Indeed, the fact that some of the aristocratic women fall for the delusion that a man in uniform is somehow a good man makes an ironic point about how divorced from the brutal reality they are. Indeed, it is frightening that someone prepared to kill can then rise to a position of power in society, a problem that democracies are still to adequately address to this day.The ball scene at the film's end shows how the classes and generations intermingle in the new life.The dialogue is excellent and seems to translate to English well on the subtitled edition this reviewer watched. Particularly insightful is the soliloquy about Sicily being a stagnating society, that only if people escape whilst young can they be revitalised and shaken out of their apathy. As someone who left another island (Tasmania) in a similar state of apathy (albeit with a much younger society and culture than Sicily), this reviewer can relate to the need to escape and revitalise if one is to have a future.The Prince, though, recognising his age, refuses to escape. He is not world-weary though, just resigned to accept his generation will fall, yet still intent on clinging to the old values of honour and integrity.Ultimately, this is a lavish spectacle on a large enough scale to encompass the saga of the birth of a new nation out of a myriad of ancient and tired kingdoms. It is also a character study of a person who fits into neither world and feels it more honourable to stand aside for the young generation to take charge. It also shows that values do not always change for the better and that something of value, however small, may have been lost when the brutal and ruthlessly ambitious younger generation took power.With some of the best cinematography ever, excellent acting and a truly historical sweep, this is one of the greatest of the studio-bound epics. Of course, like the Prince himself, these films would be a dying breed throughout the 1960s as the new generation of the nouvelle vague movement asserted themselves across Western Europe.