Aging Prince Don Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster) watches on as Italian culture changes, his fortunes wane and his incorrigible nephew Tancredi Falconeri (Alain Delon), along with his immature fiancée Angelica (Claudia Cardinale), usher in a new future with the potential to drive him mad.

CRITIQUE

Admission time. The Leopard is the very first motion picture from acclaimed Italian auteur Luchino Visconti (Death in Venice, The Damned) that I have ever seen. He’s always been one of those filmmakers I’ve been meaning to get around to but for whatever reason have never seemed to be able to find the time to actually do so.

Until now. In fact, after watching The Leopard I’ve sent a few of the director’s works to the very top of my Netflix queue, and to say I can’t wait to see them would be a decided understatement. Thanks to this magnificently opulent and stunning motion picture I cannot wait to see more of what I have been missing, this massive and expansive achievement a true sensation in every sense of the word.

This is one of those movies where watching it once just isn’t enough. The sheer scale of the thing is truly staggering, and to say it puts recent Italian works like I am Love into a whole new perspective is a definite truth. Watching this movie I was dumbstruck at the audacity of so much of it, and while admittedly much of what goes on will not be everyone’s cup of tea (the film is deliberately paced, sometimes self-indulgent and not entirely agreeable) for my part I just couldn’t get enough of it. In my mind this is the motion picture Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 should have been, and by the time it was over I couldn’t wait to restart the Blu-ray from the beginning so I could get another look at it right away.

The performances are admittedly hit and miss, Visconti (much like Sergio Leone) more interested in the visuals and the operatic emotional crescendos than he is in the dramatic minutiae going on between his performers. Personally, the Italian dubbing of Lancaster also drove me a wee bit batty, the man’s voice so iconic and instantly recognizable hearing someone else’s voice speaking for him naturally disconcerting.

But there is just so much going on here, the sweep and scope of Italian history mixed with the emotional chaos and sexually charged imbroglio’s of the country’s elite positively mesmerizing. From the cinematography to the costumes, the music to the production design, this is absolutely immersive cinema of the first degree, and anyone interested in watching a master work should pick this title up for a look without a second thought.

THE VIDEO

The Leopard is presented on a 50GB disc in its original Super Technirama aspect ratio of 2.21:1 in 1080p with a transfer supervised by director of photography Giuseppe Rotunno. This is a superlative Criterion hi-def presentation, easily one of the very best of its kind I’ve had the pleasure to watch this year.

THE AUDIO

The Leopard is presented in its original uncompressed Italian monaural with English subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There are a ton of extras here, not the least of which is the 161-minute American cut of the film featuring Lancaster’s original English language dialogue. While also in high definition, it is clear the folks at Criterion did not spend near as much time on this version of the film as they did Visconti’s original Italian version. Still, this is well worth a watch, if only to see how Hollywood has been so great at butchering imports for longer than most casual viewer’s imagine.

Other extras include:

• A Dying Breed: The Making of “The Leopard” – Fascinating hour-long documentary featuring interviews with Giuseppe Rotunno, Claudia Cardinale, screenwriter Suso D’Amico and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sydney Pollack (amongst others).
• Video Interview with Producer Gofredo Lombardo – Solid, but covers a lot of the same ground as the making-of documentary.
• Video Interview with Film Scholar Millicent Marcus – Wonderfully insightful short on the history and significance of Visconti’s The Leopard.
• Original Theatrical Trailers and Newsreels
• Behind-the-Scenes Still Gallery and Photos
• Booklet featuring an essay by Film Historian Michael Wood – Must reading and is especially insightful if looked at right after watching the film for the first time. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Leopard is a masterpiece and has me incredibly eager to start watching other motion pictures made by Luchino Visconti. Criterion’s Blu-ray presentation is absolutely wondrous and should be snatched up by film buffs and fans of the director immediately.