Word: viscontis
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...novel, The Leopard is striking both for the richness of its prose and for the subtlety of its characterization. The movie version, directed by Luchino Visconti, communicates the luxuriant prose with exquisite photography, but, in the process, redraws many of the characters with overly broad strokes...
...brisk pace, Visconti follows the triumph of the Garibaldini in Sicily, Don Fabrizio's acceptence of the Risorgimento, and the hesitant commingling of the old and the new. The last comes in a magnificent sequence detailing the end of the journey made by the Prince and his family to their summer palace in a village above Palermo. Descending from dusty carriages, Don Fabrizio is greeted by a host of punctuous officials and the jaunty blaring of a brass band. With deliberate steps, he walks the gauntlet of gaping, impoverished eyes to enter the cathedral where the organ is playing...
Despite its sumptuous sets, the scene falls flat because it is peopled with characatures. The giggling girls, the pompous general, and the swooning old ladies could be taken from any number of films. And Visconti does not merely present them; he dwells on them. Moreover, he takes two of Lampedusa's most vivid characters and drams them of life. Don Calegro, the uneducated but shrewd mayor, becomes a drunken buffoon. Tancredi, the Prince's favorite, undergoes a rather obvious transition from youthful revolutionary to foppish conservative as the middle class reaction to change sets...
...LEOPARD. Burt Lancaster gives the finest performance of his career in one of the year's finest films: Luchino Visconti's noble, ironic and richly mournful lament for the death of feudalism in Sicily...
...LEOPARD. Burt Lancaster gives the finest performance of his career in one of the year's finest films: Luchino Visconti's noble, ironic and richly mournful lament for the death of feudalism in Sicily...