The late famous film critic Roger Ebert talked about "Leopard". Although there is no theory to support and the talks are very shallow, there are gossips about Lancaster and Visconti, which I translated out of interest. The link to the original text is at the end of the article.
"Leopard" is a work written by the only person who can make it, a movie directed by the only person who can direct it, and the role of the same name interpreted by the only person who can play it. The opening statement is beyond doubt, because Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, a Sicilian nobleman, wrote the story of his great-grandfather with heartfelt enthusiasm. It is difficult to predict whether other directors will shoot better than Lucino Visconti, because he himself is a descendant of the ruling class acclaimed in the story. However, Burt Lancaster was questioned at the time whether he was the right person to play Don Fabrizio, Prince Salina. People thought that let a Hollywood star go to Europe to perform a purely Europa style, Italian The style of Sicilian masters, this can be called a scandal.
Rumor has it that Lancaster's appearance is to make this epic masterpiece more popular. But when the film was finally released in the United States, what the audience saw was a version that was brutally subtracted by the studio with a 40-minute footage and a far-fetched English soundtrack. It is difficult for us to imagine Visconti and Lan at the moment. Custer's true heart. Bosley Crowther wrote in the "New York Times": "Unfortunately, Mr. Lancaster's blunt American accent always lacks a touch of Sicilian flavor." Visconti himself is very straightforward. Bai: "I didn't make this film at all," he added, "Hollywood treats American audiences as little kids.
More than twenty years later, Lancaster himself said sadly to me: "That is my best work." "I bought eleven copies of "Leopard" because I thought it was a great novel. I I gave everyone a copy. But when I was invited to play the role of Prince Salina, I said, no, that character belongs to a real Italian. But you see, I was so lucky. The studio wanted a Russia. People came to act, but they thought he was too old; they wanted (Lawrence) Oliver, but he had no schedule. So when I was recommended to Visconti, he complained:'Oh no! A cowboy!' But He has seen the "Nuremberg Trial" I just finished filming, and 20th Century Fox can provide Visconti with the much-needed $3 million in filming funding-provided that he has to use American stars, so all this is a matter of course. . Facts have proved that we are very happy to cooperate."
While we were talking, since "Leopard" was released in Europe in 1963, the original film without a cut and no dubbing was almost uninterested. But four years after Visconti’s death, in 1980, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotuno himself repaired "Leopard", although his 185-minute repaired version was half an hour less than the original film. , But this may be the best version we've seen, it's stunning.
Now we have finally figured out one thing, the casting of Lancaster is entirely the studio's meaning. As an actor who always gave his performance a special charm, Lancaster took the lead before others rushed to follow suit. He portrayed Prince Salina as a man who is deeply affectionate for a doomed lifestyle. He is a natural parent who is born with rights. But when we saw him on the big screen, he was just a mortal consciously old and weak. He was more willing to talk about religion with his friend Father Perone, and was ready to compromise with the times to preserve the wealth of the entire family.
We first saw him lead the family to recite the Rosary. Lampedusa’s novel also opens in this way, and one of Visconti’s achievements is the extremely rare adaptation of a great literary work into a great movie. The voice-over said that a dead soldier had fallen in the garden of the prince’s house. This means that Garibaldi’s revolutionary wave has swept across the land of Sicily, and the old order has therefore entered the countdown to death.
Prince Salina’s wife is Maria Stella, and he has more affection for her out of religious obligation; there are also three not-so-lovable daughters and an ineffective son. The prince hopes his nephew Doncredi (Alain Delon) will revive the family. Don Credi left the family impulsively and joined the Garibaldi Rebels, but as a realist, he returned to Sicily as a member of the army of King Vittorio Emanuele II.
Since he can clearly foresee the coming land reform, the prince firmly believes that it is time to seek a marriage for the benefit of the family. Every year, he leads his family to move from the city to the country to spend the long summer time. In Donafugata, the prince was welcomed by the mayor as usual, a harlequin named Don Carlogello (played by Paul Staupa). The mayor has recently become rich through land investment, and he feels that he is a human being. He hopes that the prince will fawn on himself in order to promote the dream of combining power and money.
The prince invited the mayor to dinner, without emphasizing how painful it was for the prince to entertain the nouveau riche mayor. In Visconti's eyes, this scene is tantamount to a quiet human comedy. The mayor left his shameless wife at home, but brought with him Angelica, the beautiful daughter played by Claudia Katina, who is the pinnacle of her beauty. Don Creddy was fascinated by Angelika, and the prince also let go of his concerns about the fate of the family because of the marriage.
Such a story written by someone else would be the plot of a soap opera, but Lampedusa’s novels are so compassionate for the shaping of the prince, that his regret for the passing lifestyle makes us empathetic. From an ideological point of view, we may believe that the aristocracy is exploiting the working class (Visconti was a Marxist who believed in this), but the prince himself is so self-respect and upright, he is aware of his life We understand his remorse, respecting tradition and at the same time following the wave of history, so that compromise was exchanged for the continuation of the family.
Another factor in the movie is worth noting. Prince Salina is an aristocratic elite, born to conquer and perceive the beauty of women-provided that he does not violate his sense of religious morality. Like his nephew Doncredi, he also found Angelica's beauty. But Visconti did not show this through affectionate words or suggestive whispers; he instructed actors to express a desire and resistance to animalism through subtle adjustments in eyes, head posture, and other body language. Man. We can see how Lancaster interprets that when Angelika approaches him, the prince almost hides aside. He was 45 (the age of an old man in the 1860s) and he was not very good at expressing his inner feelings. Of course Angelica knew it at a glance, even if she had to pretend to be ignorant.
The film ended in a grand ball that lasted forty-five minutes. "This scene is unparalleled," the critic Derek Malcolm wrote, and the critic Dave Gere called it "one of the most moving contemplations about individual life and death in film history." Conti, Lancaster and Rotunnu worked together to answer all the themes of the film in this long ball with almost no dialogue. The prom is the last carnival of an era of extinction; Visconti chose members of the old Sicilian noble family as guest actors. From their faces, we can't see the traces of the performance. The faces are history itself. The band played Verdi, the young people danced dance after dance, while the old people watched them carefully, assessing the value of the next generation in the love and marriage market.
The prince shuttled in this jubilation like a ghost. The camera follows him through the room, telling the character's thoughts, desires and his sadness. Visconti is convinced that Lancaster can perfectly interpret the emotional gloom of Prince Salina, and diffuse this emotion until the audience is completely immersed in it. We can see one of the scenes created by the director in the movie: we gradually understand the character and thoughts of the prince, until now we have almost unconsciously entered his inner emotional world. The film here creates a perfect illusion, allowing us to experience another kind of life.
The prince finally danced with Angelica. Watching them dance on the big screen, both of them are aware of each other's lust and politics at the same time; watching how they hold their heads up, how they perceive each other, and how they appreciate each other. We can perceive that for the prince, this dance is a confirmation of death. He could have owned the woman in front of him, he could have possessed her, he could have married her, she could have given birth to him, and went to Wushan Yunyu together—if there were no twenty-five-year-old age difference between them before. But he knows this, and of course she does. But even if the two are the same age, he will not make a lifelong alliance with her, because he is the Prince of Salina and she is the daughter of the upstart. In the scene of the ballroom, Visconti conveyed this fact to the audience in a wonderful but desperate way. And this is what his movie wants to express.
2003.9.14
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