Movies
The Leopard
A sort of Italian Gone with the Wind, albeit with an appeal somewhat higher-brow, adapted from the Lampedusa novel about the aristocratic way of life imperilled by Garibaldi and his Red Shirts. Twenty minutes have been restored to the 165-minute version released in America in 1963, along with some fine-tuning of the color. From this, it is not hard to see how someone might have felt that some of these minutes might be cuttable without anyone noticing that anything is missing. But it is hard to say how many of these minutes, and which ones, could be sacrificed without diminishing the impact of that magnificent climactic ball (almost a movie in itself), or of the interlude therein, in front of a death-bed painting on the library wall, of serene meditation on youth and death, the past and the future. With Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale; directed by Luchino Visconti. 1963.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: PG
