Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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129 of 130 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Gold Standard, 4 Oct 2004
A film to measure others against. Burt Lancaster in his pomp as an ailing Italian aristocrat seeing the established order turning full circle around him, as Garibaldi's rebellion ushers in a new order. Beautifully shot, perfectly framed throughout - a deep, resonant and compelling story, with Director and cast at their peak. Richly layered, and full of universal themes of revolution, nobility, opportunism, generational change, youth and age, ideals bending against reality, loss and yearning, and one order giving way to another. Impossible here to reveal all of the layers, as Burt Lancaster's central prince navigates himself and his family into their new place in the new order, and how his principles and ideals fade as his nephew and his beautiful young wife become the suceeding generation, and where to do right gives way to pragmatism in a new world built upon opportunism, greed and political corruption. "The world has to change in order to stay the same". Artful without being 'arty', supremely beautiful and majestic without the squeaky-clean chocolate box sheen of modern historical drama. Highlights? - every single, super-crafted scene: the prince's family, covered in dust from their journey, sat in church like a line of statues; the eye contact between Claudia Cardinale and Burt Lancaster as she is embraced by her husband, his nephew... The prince knows that his time has been and gone, and Lancaster plays this to perfection in yet another of his great performances. An all time great piece of work deserving a place in any cine-lover's top few movies. And to top it all they have produced the DVD from the original print to preserve the work in pristine glory. I have revisited The Leopard on this DVD and have been blown away by it once more - it pulls you in deeper each time you go back to it.
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40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
5 stars are not enough, 16 Jan 2006
The Leopard is one of my top ten books of all time. Read and reread; I am incapable of describing the beauty of the language. I only realized recently that a film had been made of the book. I tried but I could not resist watching it. I have never known a film do a book justice the way this film has. The film has battle scenes that are only referred to in the book but that does not detract from the fact that the film has captured the haunting beauty of Scicily as described by Tomasi. It also describs, almost without words, the heavy sadness of the Prince who realizes his way of life is coming to an end.
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change", 21 Nov 2006
"The Leopard" (1963), based on the novel of the same name written by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, is the best film I have seen this year. Directed by Luchino Visconti, this splendid Italian movie takes the spectator straight into late 19th century Italy, a time of social and political change, something "The Leopard" shows clearly and in a masterful way.
One of the main characters is Prince Don Fabrizio of Salina (Burt Lancaster), who realizes that he must do something, if he wants the House of Salina to remain powerful in a new world that is going to be dominated by the middle class, not the aristocracy. The answer comes to him in the form of his nephew Tancredi (Alain Delon), an ally of the new forces that says that "If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change".
Prince Salina is bitter regarding the need for compromise ("We were the leopards, the lions, those who take our place will be jackals and sheep, and the whole lot of us - leopards, lions, jackals and sheep - will continue to think ourselves the salt of the earth"), but he recognizes the wisdom of the path Tancredi suggests, and supports him. What is more, Prince Salina also gives his blessing to Tancredi's decision to marry Angelica (Claudia Cardinali), an extremely beautiful and well-connected woman from the middle class. Of course, that doesn't sit well with Concetta (Lucilla Morlacchi), Tancredi's counsin, who has fallen thoroughly in love with him.
I would like to point out that there is a lot more to "The Leopard" than the plot I just outlined, for example the beautiful Sicilian scenery, the wonderful music, and the political connotations of several scenes. From my point of view, this is the kind of film you can enjoy, but also learn from. On the whole, highly recommended!
Belen Alcat
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