The Leopard was thought the greatest novel of the century by William Golding.The part of Don Fabrizio ,the Prince of Salinas, was originally ear-marked for Olivier or even Brando by Visconti. The Fox studio only agreed to make it if Burt Lancaster was given the role. Reportedly, Visconti called him a 'gangster' and treated him harshly, but they were to become lifelong friends. Now nobody else could have done justice to the role. Lampedusa was recalling a world of lost content, his aristocratic childhood. The Palermo palace he lived in as a child had been destroyed by American bombing in the second world war and the family's country villa was reduced to rubble by an earthquake. Feelings of nostalgia produced the novel based on his great-grandfather's world,a world that is depicted aspassing with the rise of the movement of unification and democracy under Garibaldi, and the constitutional monarchy of Victor Emmanuelle in the 1860s.The Leopard of the title, is depicted on the prince's coat of arms but also refers to aristocrats living in their lost paradises as lions and leopards who in their passing are to be replaced by jackals and hyenas. Sicily is depicted as a land of perfection suffering successive waves of invasion, the invaders all being absorbed(Greeks,Spanish, Arabs and Normans).Don Fabrizio himself, is based on Lampedusa,who Lancaster captured in his portrayal.
The film starts magnificently with the storming of Palermo by Garibaldi's army.The injection of action vigorously displays the period of the Risorgimento with an epic sweep setting up the extravagant and grandiose style to come. We see the Prince(Lancaster),shaving, and looming up in his mirror, his nephew, Tancredi(Delon) saying he is going to join the rebellion with his uncle's blessing. We observe how Tancredi's allegiances shift like the wind, as he always wants to come out on top. His credo like his uncle's is: "Things will have to change in order that they remain the same". This becomes like a coat of arms prefiguring a survival plan.The middle section shows the trip to their hilltop estate in the village of Donnafugata.The family are seen being made welcome by the mayor, Don Calogero,one of the noveau-riche, and with the dust of their journey on them, they go straight into Mass. The scene where they are in their pews-cubicles, and the camera traverses the whole family's dusty faces,revealing them as the relics of an outworn system. Calogero, the nouveau-riche mayor,is a self-made entrepreneur of peasant stock. He comes to the Prince's residence awkwardly in top and tails, but he produces the jewel of his daughter, Angelica(Cardinale), who arrives in the main room like a vision of the future. Her and Tancredi immediately bond and are soon engaged through the manipulations of the Prince. Don Fabrizio knows he must sacrifice his own shy daughter,Conchetta, to engender the continuation of his lineage. Tancredi is an image of his youth,but without the loveless marriage he has known. Asked by an ambassador to become a senator,he puts forward the name of DonCalogero instead. He knows his time has passed. They need someone who can unite private wishes with vague public ideals.
In the last part of the film there is the magnificent ballroom sequence where we truly get the changing of the guard. The Prince is a pale shadow of his former self, shown to be a marginal figure. He rises to his former majesty one last time, in a waltz with Angelica, a concession of defeat. He then walks home alone instead of getting a carriage.What is noticeable in a film in which nothing much seems to happen is revised with further viewings knowing the historical background and political changes. Lancaster,is the fulcrum of power and dignity that controls and unites the film, suggesting physical presence and animal grace; also a sense of melancholy, mortality and resigned nobility with the passing of his feudal class. There is an opulent splendour in the sets and locations, an eye for painstaking detail. The cinematography is a vivid mixture of bright, dusty exteriors and chiaroscuro interiors, combined with Rota's lush music and Visconti's painterly compositions and theatrical framing. The film,preferably the Italian version with subtitles, is a masterclass in turning great novels into great films.
Get more detail about The Leopard (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray].
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